Any mom who gets up every morning to ‘mommy’ away and struggle with chores, her small business or office duties is a busy mom. So whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, an ‘on-site’ working mom, or a work-from-home mom, it’s very easy for you to lose yourself in the day-to-day activities of family and work life. Things like school morning routines, commuting to work, preparing several meals a day, laundry, keeping the kids in check, struggling with office duties and so much more will often come before her much-needed personal time and needs. This is understandable because all of these activities and duties, as overwhelming as they can be, are very important parts of our lives and they need our attention. But so does having some quality time to yourself. Self-care is how you stay connected to yourself as an individual, it’s one way to prevent the unfortunate loss of self, purpose and direction.
Paying attention to yourself is also an essential part of being a good mother. Self-care gives you a point of release; relief from stress, burnout and exhaustion. A mother who stays connected to herself, listens to her body and finds ways to fill her cup will find that it is easier to keep pouring into other parts of her life. So if you have self-care at the bottom of your to-do list or maybe it has never made it to your list at all, it’s time to place it at the very top. It really is not impossible to be healthy, and have a sense of purpose while juggling family and work. Here are 5 ways you can start prioritizing self-care:
1. Start Small
Start where you are right now and use what you’ve got. You might have the busiest schedule, but if you really want a change and look deeper, you will find ways to squeeze in some time for self-care every day. Take advantage of the early mornings before the kids wake up to have a quick meditation, do some simple exercises, read a page or two from a book, write in your journal or do whatever it is you find impossible to do during the day. You can start with as little as ten minutes dedicated to yourself alone. It will go a long way. You can also plan out a nighttime self-care routine for yourself before going to bed. Again, these might sound unattainable because of your schedule but try to see possibilities no matter how small.
2. Do Away With Every Form of Guilt
If guilt is what forces you into dedicating every single time of your day to your family and other aspects of your life except yourself, you have to let that go. Self-care is not selfish. It does not translate to abandonment or irresponsibility. The sad truth is that you might actually never get around to your own needs if you keep feeling guilty about it. But before you can do away with the guilt, you will need to understand the revitalizing benefits of self-care and why you need to prioritize it. This will help you disempower or reduce the feeling and give you the clarity you need to come up with the best ways for you to practice self-care.
3. Accept That Things Are Different Now
Every day comes with stress from work and family needs that seem to increase each day and it gets easier and easier to just lose yourself in the whirlwind. One day you will find that you have completely stopped doing the things you loved so much; the things that fueled your sense of purpose. Many times it’s because you expect to do them the way you used to before you had a family and when you can’t, you feel heartbroken and abandon them altogether. You have to accept that you might not be able to do all the same activities you used to before having a family, but you can always find a way. You won’t get 7 hours in one day to read a novel by your favorite writer but you can dedicate several minutes a day to it until it is finished. The most important part will be that you finished. You can deal with that thing that gives you a sense of purpose and sets your soul on fire in the same way.
4. Listen to Your Body
Stop waiting till you fall very ill before you schedule a doctor’s appointment for annual check-ups or screenings like pap smears, eye and dental care, blood tests, or breast examinations. Your health should be a priority just like your kids’ is. Pay attention to what you feed your body too. Eat nourishing foods as much as possible. Train your mind to accept only healthy foods by educating yourself on the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle and the benefits of fueling your body with the best foods you can afford. Training your mind will help you overcome whenever daily stress forces you towards fries and soda. Prioritize sleep and exercise to help your body fight diseases and excessive weight gain.
Self-care is also paying attention to what you feed your mind. The internet has tons of wonderful information we can use to better ourselves but it is also full of horrors and so we have to learn how to filter the things we encounter and choose what we allow the mind to absorb.
5. Make Room for Support
Finding support is almost impossible, if not impossible for many mothers but for many others, it is because they don’t leave room for support. If you’re the kind of mom who always has to be in charge of everything all the time because things seem to always go wrong when you’re not, you have to loosen up. There’s no way doing it all by yourself isn’t leaving you dangerously drained at the end of every day. Your partner might not leave the kitchen or bathroom spotless when he cleans but you can use the time you need to clean it yourself to care for yourself. Your home might become a huge mess if you leave the kids with their father for a girls’ night out but if you’re able to unwind and find release, why not?
The funny thing is that self-care as a mom is still not just for you. When mommy is stressed out, she becomes cranky and irritable and this can affect the whole family. A baby can become very fussy because its mother is upset. Older kids can respond to your burnout and crankiness by acting out, and this will only increase the tension. So ten minutes or an hour of your day to do whatever makes you feel like YOU, won’t do any harm, instead, it will make your life easier.
