Although Andrew and I are less than six months into living a Canbace Life we have seen so many changes in that time. We no longer feel the weight of being childLESS crushing down on our hearts: instead we greet each morning full of excitement and anticipation. What will the new day have in store for us? How can we fulfil its potential? What new steps are we taking as we create a new, beautiful and courageous existence together?
Our Canbace Life is not perfect.
I am not saying that our Canbace Life if perfect: there are still areas that need improvement. My endo adhesions haven’t miraculously disappeared, so my back and hip are still excruciatingly painful at times. I don’t suddenly have 200% more energy than before. More’s the pity. It’s still going to take me several days to recover from yesterday’s mad push to get the final cut of the grass done before winter sets in.
Yet, on the whole, our Canbace Life is a good life. Not brilliant yet: that will come with time. However, it is far better than it was six months ago.
So, it’s probably naturally that Andrew and I have paused for a moment’s reflection. We often do at this time of year because both of our birthday’s fall in November.
This year there’s more cause for contemplation. This time last year we were busy with the finishing touches for the FREE issue of The Childless Not By Choice Magazine. Can you believe it? We’ve completed our first year.
WOO HOO HOOO ….
The champagne is on ice for a proper celebration on 1st December.
Back to our reflections though. Due to our 1st publiversary our annual personal reflection has been extended to include the magazine. My business analyst hat has been dusted down and put to good use. The content has been looked at to identify what has worked well. We’ve considered how to make improvements. Our aims have been tweaked and objectives tightened up.
The conclusion has been that we need to re-brand the magazine so that it reflects our Canbace Life. As we have embraced our new lifestyle, we realised the potential that CANBACE has to help a wider group of people. Not only the people who have reached the point of knowing that they will never have biological children. It can help people before that. The community we serve, and support, has changed to reflect that, so the magazine we publish needs to change slightly too.
We want everybody who is struggling with the effects of being childless not by choice to be able to benefit from the magazine. No matter where they are in their journey. So, this will include people who are still trying to conceive, people suffering from miscarriage and never carrying full term. People who are grieving following the loss of their only child. To our minds these are all forms of being childless not by choice and as such may benefit from the positive outlook of CANBACE.
The Canbace Life Magazine
In order to make the magazine more accessible to this wider range of people it is going to be re-branded. From the next issue onwards, it will be called “Canbace Life”. This re-branding will not be retrospective so issues 01 to 06 of The Childless Not By Choice Magazine will still be The Childless Not By Choice Magazine.
The content will not change greatly. The focus will still be on proactive healing and building emotional resilience. There will still be video interviews and discussions. In additional there will be articles about living a “normal” life: one where we are not defined by our parenting status.
These articles could be about almost anything. So, in one issue there may “A Day in the life of a Turophile”, skydiving and photography. In the next issue it might be how not to kill your basil plant: if anyone would like to offer to write that one for me, I would be eternally grateful. The aim is to provide a broader spectrum of articles that better reflect the nature of a living a Canbace Life.
What you won’t see though are articles about how to improve your fertility. There are plenty of sources of information about that and this is not what we are about.
Trigger Warnings
One change you will see is the appearance of trigger warnings. This can be a challenge as different people are triggered by different things. However, there are going to be some subjects that will be upsetting for people depending on their story and where they are in their journey. For example, if you have never been pregnant it is understandable that an article about miscarriage or baby/infant loss could be very upsetting. We want to protect you as much as possible. Therefore, if an article or interview focuses on something that could be a major trigger, this will be made clear at the top of the page. (I’m also slowly going through all of my blogs and adding trigger warnings where necessary.)
The new magazine will officially be launched on 14th January. There will be a FREE issue always available and a Sneak Peak will be produced for each month.
If you have paid for a subscription to The Childless Not By Choice Magazine your subscription will automatically be transferred to the Canbace Life Magazine. If you want to take a look at this month’s Sneak Peak of The Childless Not By Choice Magazine you can subscribe for FREE here.
We are both really excited about the new phase that the magazine is about to enter. We hope you are too.
If you have only recently heard about Canbace you can read about why I created the word/affirmation here.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.
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