Martin Luther King Jr., amongst his many famous quotes, once said; “Take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” There isn’t a more bittersweet word that inexplicably permeates itself into every facet of the parenting story. Courage takes us under her wing, urges us to expand ourselves, reach new heights and embrace the possibility of blossoming in ways we never could have imagined.

From the time even before conception, when we make that life altering decision to either start or expand our family, we feel it’s tug. In whatever way this precious new life arrives in our home, hands and hearts it calls loud for us to take that first step in faith.

This chord of courage pulses through our souls on a daily basis. When we wake each morning to greet our children – with faith we reach out, hoping that our modelling, our teachings and our values equip these children with the foundations they need to grow into magnificent human beings. People that will achieve greatness in their life, whatever form that takes. The undercurrent of fear weaves her way through the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. She’s always there, urging us to rise, unfurl and bloom.

When we choose to walk a different path to that which most parents around us already take, when we need to set boundaries with our children and when we feel like we’re barely keeping our heads above water as we tread the depths of our daily responsibilities – we question, am I doing the right thing, am I doing my very best here. With taking that first step in faith we set off, holding the hand of courage and follow the voice from deep inside – that desire, our dream, an inspired sense of something that’s calling us to be who we came here intending to be.

Zig Ziglar said that “F-E-A-R has two meanings; ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise’ – the choice is yours.” We can give in to the first or be confronted by the challenge of the second. It takes all the courage of our Mother Tiger voice deep within our primal roots, in making the decision to Face Everything And Rise. With that age old saying echoing in your ear being spoken by the voice you recognise as your own Mother’s of yesterday – “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” For to expand ourselves to new places, to rise up and meet a challenge wholeheartedly and to blossom in unimaginable ways, we honestly have to step outside our comfort zone, don’t we? There’s uncountable moments of our parenting journey which are engulfed with the need to do this – to Face Everything And Rise – for our children, for ourselves and for the betterment of the world.

What’s been the most profound moment in your parenting journey so far, that has required you mustering all your courage to face everything and rise?

::I wear Marlin in the Sakura Bloom Silk Essentials sling of Sandstone and Shale::

This entry has been written for both myself and our daughter Chilli, as submission to Volume 5 of the Sakura Bloom Sling Diaries. If chosen as Sling Diarists in this upcoming group of participants, you’ll see and hear stories from an organic living, home-schooling, outdoor loving, whole-foods cooking, crafting family in the southern area of Australia’s island state – Tasmania. I’d love to be able to share my experience of the precious mothering art of baby-wearing with a sling that I so wholeheartedly believe in and appreciate – deeply, daily and for so many reasons. Having outgrown her years of being carried in a sling, our daughter Chilli amazes us every day as she continues to grow into a wonderfully kind, loving, good natured and intelligent little girl who bounds from strength to strength. Her imitative forces are so powerful from a home-based early childhood, free of media influences, yet filled with a world of creativity and imagination. She too of course, since Mumma does, carries her ‘babies’ around in a Sakura. Her sling of choice – the Mini in Purple and she too would like to journey along with me in bringing her stories to the baby-wearing, Sakura loving community of parents around the world following in on this next instalment of Sling Diaries.