Ignoring the Signs

I had a really horrible experience on the weekend just gone that has left me wondering about ignoring our own inner signals. I am a mother of a vibrant, healthy and fun loving 15 month old who rarely gets upset and if he does then there is most definitely always a reason (and usually a good one!) for his gripe.

We had some friends over for an early dinner and I was so excited because I hadn’t seen them for a while and I had spent quite a bit of time preparing the meal and getting ready, we live on acreage a little ways from town so we dont get to see our friends at our place very often and it’s a real treat when we do! My son had been a bit tetchy as his afternoon sleep was a disaster, perhaps he could sense the excitement too? but I was sure he would snap out of it when our friends arrived with their little puppy dog.

We settled in with some nibblies and a nice bottle of wine and ready for a nice chat when EJ lost it for no apparent reason, he seemed to be in some kind of pain but no amount of shifting position or trying to appease him was working, he screamed for about 5 minutes and then went quiet, started playing happily and we all settled in again, it happened again, and again, and again, in the meantime we had noticed that he was walking funny, and I wondered what was going on, registering that he was in some kind of pain we thought it must have been a belly ache and so did our best to keep him calm by offering him all the things that usually comfort him when he is distressed, all to no avail.

It got so bad just as we were sitting down to dinner our guests asked if we wanted them to leave, I was so upset! I had been looking forward to this for weeks and now it was all ruined, and yes I was rather distressed that I couldnt seem to help my little boy but also rather annoyed that he had chosen today of all days to be upset and sick!!!!!

Eventually I sat down in his room with him and decided to take off his nappy to cool him off and found the most horrendous nappy-rash we have ever seen, the poor little boy had been walking funny because his nappy was rubbing him!  Such a simple, simple thing, so easy to fix and yet we had ignored all the signs and probably exacerbated his pain.  I was devastated, he was exhausted and well lets just say our evening certainly had not gone to plan!

My partner and I dissected all the clues he had given us later and were really beating up on ourselves for not being in tune and not helping our little man when he needed it most, we were so sad!

I am sure we have all had experiences like this, where we let things go when action is required a little quicker and we live to regret not doing something more.

It got me to thinking about how much we ignore our own inner signals about health, wellbeing or just plain sanity, and if we took action a little quicker, what heartache and pain we could save ourselves and others.

I thanked our little man when he woke the next morning (as well as apologising profusely) for giving us this experience and the not-so-gentle reminder that we are constantly creating our reality and if something isnt working well for us then its time to take action and do something about it, instead of leaving it until things have gone too far.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! we certainly wont be needing that lesson again any time soon.

Is there something in your life that requires action? Are you ignoring your signals or that of loved ones around you? How can you start to take action to remedy this??