I am lucky enough to have a lot of wonderful women in my life. Growing up I was very close to my amazing Granny who was so inspiring and brilliant and I miss her every day. I always think how she would have been such an incredible role model to have in my life and someone to go to for support and just to chat.
I also have a fantastic mother-in-law, and a whole family of supportive and lovely women (and men too!) from my husband’s side and my own family, and I have so many wonderful female friends whom I adore.
But enough gushing, I’ve run out of adjectives. Canesten are currently running a campaign called #SheHelped, which is about promoting the small and big things that women do every day to help other women. It is about honouring women and celebrating the amazing women in our lives.
Canesten are committed to constantly finding new ways of supporting women to lead healthy, fulfilling lives and encouraging women to help each other, and share knowledge and advice.
Canesten help women around the world, especially those who are less fortunate than most of us. To help refugee women affected by the Middle East crisis who are living in sub-standard conditions in camps and settlements in various countries, Canesten offered a substantial donation of Canesten products to International Health Partners (IHP). IHP is Europe’s largest charity coordinator that organises the safe and responsible donation of medical products and supplies to developing countries. You can help if you’d like to, by donating here.
To join in with this campaign, Canesten have asked me to write about an amazing woman in my life, who has helped me achieve my goals, and what that person means to me.
It was a very easy decision for who to write about for me. My mum has always, always been there for me. Obviously you would hope your mother would be, but my mum has always gone completely above and beyond with all of her support and love. She’s a wonderful person, and always puts everyone else before herself.
If I need someone to talk to about something important, something unimportant, or just to vent about something – she is always there. She doesn’t live near me anymore (waaah!), and in fact we don’t talk as much as we used to, but I know I can always count on her to be there when I need anything and I know she loves me so much.
When I wrote my very personal post about depression recently, my mum read it in the morning, and then rushed to speak to me about it and to be there for me. I think I upset her quite a bit because she hadn’t known the extent of it, and I think she found it hard to understand why I hadn’t told her. But it was just because I didn’t want to talk about it, with anybody, and just found it easier to write about it. If I’d felt like talking about it then my mum would have been one of the first people I would have talked to. And I know she would have listened, offered support, and advice and been the amazing mum she is. So please don’t worry that I didn’t tell you mum 😉
A moment that always stands out to me was just after I’d had my daughter, a couple of days after she was born. I was obviously exhausted, emotional, had the worst heartburn in the history of the world so wasn’t eating, and was a bit overwhelmed. After the first initial breastfeed which was very easy, I couldn’t get my daughter to latch on properly at all. She hadn’t really had a proper feed for a couple of days and I was very upset because I didn’t want to use formula. My mum had been trying to support me and to help, without me feeling like she was trying to take over or tell me what to do. One day she suggested that I just grab my boob and shove it in my daughter’s mouth (sounds lovely, I know), and oh my god it worked. My newborn daughter finally had a decent amount of milk, and after that it got easier every time. I was so happy I cried; it was such a massive relief, and all because of my wonderful mum. We went on to have a long and lovely breastfeeding journey and I really think it’s because of my mum that that was possible. It was just one little piece of advice, but it changed everything, and I was and am so, so grateful to her.
My mum has always supported me through everything in my life, the happy times, and the horrible times, been ecstatic for me when I finally got pregnant, and devastated with me when I lost the baby. She is a wonderful Granny, always doing what she can to help and to give me a break, and is so great with Ava.
Apart from a few of my, ahem, more difficult teenage years, we have always got on really well, and don’t stop talking when we are together. We can also have a laugh together, and *may* have little swearing matches occasionally where we call each other the most inappropriate names we can think of. I think if I can say the c-word to my mum then she must be pretty cool.
I am so grateful to her for everything, and I hope she knows how much I appreciate her.
To celebrate the #SheHelped campaign and the small and big things that women do every day to help other women, Canesten have given me £100 of John Lewis vouchers to give away to one lucky reader!
All you have to do to enter is complete the Rafflecopter widget below, including a comment answering the question…
‘Do you have any stories about being helped or inspired by another amazing woman that you’d like to share?’
GOOD LUCK!
This post has been supported by Canesten, but all thoughts are my own.