About us

The Barefoot family live an easy, relaxed life together playing, pottering and doing whatever feels right at the time!


Wednesday 13 July 2011

A bonus morning

A meeting was cancelled this morning leaving me ‘newtless’ and with a time credit. This should have been a positive thing, a relief – a gift really. But instead I am two hours in and doing everything I shouldn’t be and subsequently am now saying lots of things to myself that I would consider someone else saying to themselves as ridiculous.
I have so far idled away valuable time doing nothing. Incapable of concentrating. Incapacitated by the weight of stuff to do. I used to have a running joke with a friend about what her pull cord would say if she had one and even what my own would say, well lately mine has pretty much gone...’I have so much to do. I need to get some work done. I have so much to do. I have to get some work done’. Yawn or what?  The wisdom of Goddess Leonie’s words, spoken with her always happy, always shining aussie accent...”one thing at a time dearheart” keep coming back to me. I would be saying to someone else, someone not me that by doing nothing they are doing something equally important. That by turning your thoughts and much cherished time to something it must be of value to some part of you. That sounds great doesn’t it? Why then am I so disappointed and cross with myself!?
 At the moment I am adoring  exploring the world of radical living. Words such as honest, genuine, real and authentic all fly about my thoughts like little butterflies gently distracting and holding my attention for long enough to just consider their existence. Why then is it so hard to apply these concepts to ourselves and not just our children? A short lifetime of conditioning is awaiting removal from my mind. There’s probably less discipline, guilt and ‘should do’s clogging up my grey matter than there is in most peoples, ultimately there is not a lot of grey in my matter, more primaries really with a few pastels. I am a daydreamer, easily distracted & pretty willing to do pretty much whatever I most feel like doing most of the time but it is still there...niggling guilt..lurking in the shadows. My mind is thinking it needs to step in and prevent this self-sabotage somehow, to wrangle for control of the steering wheel and get me on the right track again.
There is much work to be done in this society...or rather undone anyway.  Teaching myself gentleness is coming in lots of forms. Perhaps all of this is just a way of understanding how difficult it might be for others to embrace this way of thinking..perhaps its all been a fantastic lesson in empathy, maybe it’s been a powerful and enlightening reflection or even just an hour not doing anything in-particular. Wonderful. I must remember to schedule this in next week so I can give it a healthy tick when I’m finished.   

To B or not B...that is the question.

B meaning Blog that is. I have gone to and fro, forward and back, round and round on the blog thing. The hippy doesn’t like the idea of it. He’s a private man.  I am relatively speaking I suppose. I don’t ‘do’ public really. My mental jury has been out on blogs for years...in fact, maybe I should go in search of them as perhaps they have forgotten and just gone home to carry on with their lives.
I keep coming back to it. I like the idea of it and I don’t. I love writing. I think I would love a blog. I have free guides to social networking booklets coming out of my inbox all saying how every business needs a blog – they are now an essential. BUT should you do one...never...never...mix business with pleasure! This would be a no no. Well this is where my blog journey grinds to a halt. How could I not? What I do for ‘business’, if you want to call it that, is my pleasure. I sell things I like. I hire birth pools because I believe in birth. This is tricky for me. I guess I am a bit radical and I do have opinions. Will this damage my business then? Will rambling away about other things be not just irrelevant but also a deterrent? Well, you know what. I don’t really know and I don’t think I really care. There is only way to find out.
My close friend sends me messages with blog posts that she has found and that she thinks I will enjoy reading. She is wonderful at sharing and quite inspirational in that. She sends the ones that she knows I’ll enjoy reading, that may challenge or enrich my ways,  that we can talk about next time we meet for our families to play. Lately they have enriched me. Sometimes I am surprised at their content, how much they have shared - at times I have thought it was too much and other times not enough. Will I end up doing this? Will I know when to stop? Should I need to? Oh brain..please be still for a while and relax and see.
 I’m supposed to be keeping a reflective diary as part of my studies. I guess I have given the game away there by even using the word supposed in that sentence. You would be right in thinking that I haven’t really been doing a very good job of doing this so far! I think far too much to ever write it all down! I’m not saying others don’t, we humans think too much for our own good, but I do more...here goes...’reflective thinking’. I daydream, I muse, I remember, I visualise and I, well distract myself a lot. It would be good for me to channel this I think. But the diary thing just doesn’t do it for me. This is why a blog could be great for me.
But shouldn’t it be good for others too?  What will I be giving in this energy exchange? People ask me regularly about how I set up The Natural Parenting Club, how to go about organising a support group like the Homebirth one I run. Why did we decide to unschool and what on earth is elimination communication anyway? If I share these thoughts will this be a good enough penny for mine? 
I guess we will just have to wait and see...