Self-care is the foundation of my sanity
My soul is tired. My body is fatigued. My emotions are heavy. The only part of me that has energy is my mind. It doesn’t turn off. It reminds me of the tasks I am forgetting and the work still to do. I am beginning to realize that my mind, the strategic motivated overthinking brain I have nurtured for 37 years, has no interest in my wellbeing.
I’ve been on a work trip that I have desperately been looking forward to as an escape from home life. And now here I sit, at the airport, after four days away from my family, and I am even more exhausted than when I left.
I got to sleep for four straight nights on this trip — no middle of the night wakeups from bad dreams and toddler potty needs. I haven’t had to make different versions of one dinner to appease my two boys with the most opposite palates. I haven’t had to clean said meals up off the floor after each meal. I haven’t had to reason with an unreasonable toddler about getting his shoes on for school. Or intervene in the nightly toddler wrestling session that typically ends up in one or both boys crying.
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Go away! I love you.
This is my bathtub tonight. Looks cozy, no? Those pure white bubbles, mmmm…they’re not the organic orange and lavender bubble bath I meticulously picked out for my daughter. It’s Clorox. When friends walk into my home and smell the bleachy-fresh air, they think I’m a neat freak, but, to be honest, it’s usually the sign of a bad day.
Today was a doozy. It was clear from daycare pickup that L. was more than usually exhausted. As though to prove me wrong, she decided to abandon her friends on the toddler playground and climb to the top of the 25-foot spaceship at the park.
My husband and I: afraid of heights.
L: fearless.
While I try to engender this confidence in her, I wish it didn’t manifest itself on a rusted, rickety spaceship. After ensuring her safe return to the ground, we leave the park for Target, where she cheerfully points, “I want that. And that. And that.” I harness my temper.
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We can do hard things
You can do really, really hard things, mama.
Here's how I know that:
Because you already did!
Take a moment and reflect on the top three hardest challenges you've gone through in your life. Imagine what it felt like when you were in the thick of it, and how manageable it feels now. Maybe still emotional or painful, but way less sharp when you think about it.
Next, identify the key lessons and takeaways that you learned from these experiences.
I imagine that you will find that you have manifested some characteristics through your hardships that are considered virtuous:
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Find an excuse if you have to
Do you ever wish you had to be hospitalized? Just for something minor: a botched mole removal that needed to be fixed, something to remedy a perceived cosmetic flaw, but imagine three or four days of sheer, uninterrupted sleep, clean(-ish) sheets, prepared healthy meals…it kind of sounds like a spa. This may be a sign that I need just a bit more self-care in my life.
On that note, I’d like to share the secret to my (questionable) sanity. It’s Whole Foods. While the prepared foods section would be a good start on a hectic night when dinner plans aren’t quite going my way, it’s actually the massage section that really won me over.
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Defending my worth as a mother
Last week, I got a message from my husband saying he wasn’t excited about the kids spending an extra night a week with me because the ‘kids sleep better etc.” when they are with him.
Hmmm, that’s interesting: Etc. Etcetera? ETCETERA?! What the $&*! was that “etc” supposed to mean? I’d like to say I was initially interested in understanding what he meant with the “etc,” but really I wasn’t interested in much understanding at all. I was interested in one thing: DEFENDING MY WORTH AS A MOTHER.
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Love Your Body, Eat the Cake
When I was six months postpartum, I felt this incredible need to get my body ‘back’. Not only had I not lost any pregnancy weight, but I added some because of the insane sleep deprivation and lack of self-care that every new mother goes through. I conned myself into believing that if I ate less or stuck to a whole foods diet, the weight would come off faster. So I did this and before I knew it I found myself in a binge-restrict cycle that is always the outcome of a strictly regimented diet.
As soon as I realized this, I stopped what I was doing and started practicing total body acceptance at my current size. I shifted to eating from that mindset, rather than from the belief that my body wasn’t good enough. I now know that eating as if my body isn't good enough, will always keep me locked into believing that, MY BODY ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
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(Don't) Be Afraid to Try
When we first had the idea of creating an app for Mamas I was ecstatic. To be able to build something for my friends that give them a daily encouragement was an exciting idea. Plus I got to make something that was going to benefit my own self-practice - and I would be forced to start practicing what I preach. But then we started talking about what it takes, and since neither Sahra nor I had $20,000 lying around to build an app, we would have to make it ourselves. Tell me to build something and I am all in. But ask me to market it, promote it, and share it with my people and I basically crumble into a ball of fear on the floor.
There is something about showing my work to others, work that is most likely not perfect has glitches, and will continually need to be updated, that causes me to have twitchy eyelids, a nervous tummy, and just general anxiety in my body. All of a sudden I feel like I need to take a nap… far far away. So when I hear “don’t be afraid to try” I laugh at first - because it sounds so simple. But damn it’s hard.
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Reconnecting With Yourself
You are a mama. And you are a woman, a friend, a sister, a wife, a warrior. You are a mama and so much more. Here are 5 ideas of how to reconnect with yourself while navigating your motherhood journey.
1. Go see a concert, play or movie. If you love live music take a night off and go see a show. Excited for a new movie that is coming out? Hire a babysitter and make it a date night.
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Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself.
Maybe our parents, our teachers, our friends assumed that being kind to ourselves was a given. That we would just be.
Walking through the world with a smile on my face and an internal whisper that says, I am not enough, I failed, or I should have done better. Perfection was always just out of reach. The perfection that everyone else was seemingly able to achieve, except for me.
No matter how hard I tried I just kept coming back to, I am not enough, I failed, or I should have done better.
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Do What Works For You
It is so easy to get caught up in the parenting advice, the shoulds and the comparison of motherhood. Aside from worrying about the progress of our children on every percentage scale and questionnaire from pediatricians and teachers, we also spend way too much time trying to keep up with what we think motherhood "looks like".
We love what blogger Lisa Schmidt has to say in a recent Huff Post article about comparing ourselves to other mothers...
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