What does the word "brave" mean to you?

To me it used to mean fighting
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Fighting the diabetes diagnosis she was only three and it happened on her birthday
Fighting the constant fear of loosing her
Fighting the change
Fighting the worry
Fighting a new life for us all
Fighting how unfair it all was for my daughter with the diagnosis but also for my eldest who had to witness it all which for her is hard just in a different way.
I got exhausted fighting, experienced carers burnout and I had a seizure and the fight I fought for years took all I had left. I put on a front for years that I was ok, people thought I was coping amazingly but inside I was broken, lost and scared.
Then when I was getting better and things slowed down as everything changed after the seizure I realised I had to stop fighting and accepting but the magic was realising that by not fighting didn’t mean I didn’t care! Didn’t mean I had given up!
You see before my breakdown I thought if I didn’t fight it meant all those things and I needed to fight for my girls but of course I was fighting something I could never change but as a mum you feel like you failed if you don’t fight.
Instead I changed, I channelled my anger and fear to make more awareness of the condition, raise money buy running events that she could be a part of and show my daughter that this doesn’t define you.
I still hate it, still wish it was me, still wish it will bore off but I don’t fight it I accept it.
My daughter is brave, but not because she gets on with it without a complaint because she doesn’t and be weird if she did she’s feisty like her mama
She finds it hard
It physically hurts sometimes
It makes her different
It wakes her from her sleep
It makes her very poorly sometimes
It’s 24/7
It’s devices attached to her body 24/7
She’s brave because she says how it is, she isn’t positive pants sometimes but real
Brave is crying
Brave is showing the world she is just as capable
Brave is being vulnerable
Brave is being open to new opportunities and trying them
Brave is saying it how it is
Brave is being her
So next time you think brave means keeping it in and just cracking on don’t sweetie, that’s what I did for years and the body holds it, let it go, let others in. that’s brave
This is a picture of my daughter trialing a new pump. It’s been very challenging with pumps and injections for her and not smooth at all and to see the difference in her trialing things she once would not have even entertained is brave. In life we can’t change a lot of things unfortunately I do wish I had a wand but the way we navigate the events is to me what makes us brave, her and her sisters strength will always inspire me to be brave they have taught me so much and I’m in awe of them both they are why I trained to become a hypnotherapist so I could help others find their strength and magic inside.
If you are facing challenges right now that require you to be brave but finding the strength hard drop me a message and I will help show you how incredible you are and the tools you have within you but also a safe space to just allow the feelings to flow. Like waves they will rise but they will fall, I will help you ride those waves
Much love x

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