It’s a big cliché for parents — the moment you give birth (or even conceive!), the worrying begins. And it’s true, it does. We parents worry... a lot.

Quite recently I started to realise that I have a very vivid imagination: I can see scenes taking place vividly in my head, in my imagination, like a film being projected on a screen in my head. It can be very funny: with a friend of mine, who has a similarly strong visual mind, we can really come up with entire slapsticks like this. One of us describes a scene, the other adds to it, and we see it all happening on the screen in our brains. It is hilarious!

But when that vivid imagination is applied to the wellbeing of my children, it is not so funny. I can see bad stuff happening to my children in a not-so-safe situation, when I allow my imagination to run away with me; to play with the possibilities of what could happen.

I have realised that it especially happens when heights are involved (perhaps a hidden fear of heights?), but it can also happen around water, or around traffic. I not only realise there is a potential danger here, I actually, vividly start to imagine the possible result of the dangerous situation.

It doesn’t always happen, and sometimes it doesn’t happen on the scene but a little later, when I realise what could have happened at that specific moment. Sometimes (years later even!), the scenes replay when I wake up in the middle of the night — seriously no fun!

It might sound like I’m a completely crazy, extremely stressed and over-protective parent, but I don’t think that this is the case (maybe I’m a bit crazy, but in a fun way I hope). I actually hope to believe that I’m a relaxed mama in most situations, and that I give my kids a lot of freedom to explore their little world.

It’s funny, the things we keep learning about ourselves and the people that surround us. When I started to recognise this phenomenon in my brain and started to shape my thoughts about it, and bounced the idea off some of my friends. Some of them immediately recognised what I was talking about, but most didn’t have a clue what I was talking about (including my husband, he has no such mind).

I would love to hear your thoughts about this too. Does it sound familiar at all? Are you a worrier? Or does your mind work in a different way? Please share, I would love to hear.

xxx Esther

PS Photo taken in the atlas mountains in Morocco, where we were in a 4x4 car driven by a local Berber -- quite fast, and quite scary. I vividly imagined the car driving off that road.