My journey into Motherhood has taught me so much more than I ever imagined or expected. In addition to learning a myriad of details about babies, toddlers, my husband and myself, I’ve also gained an entirely new perspective on LIFE as a whole. I’ve also realized that the many new “life lessons” I’ve learned over the past couple of years are applicable to everyone at every phase of their lives; not just new moms and dads.
Life Lesson #1:
The times in your life when taking care of yourself is hardest to do (and seems impossible) are actually the times when you need to be doing it the most!
I think we’ve all been there; it’s a particularly busy and stressful time in your life. Maybe you have a big business deadline around the corner that you’ve been working day and night for, or your family has all caught that nasty flu. You’re at wits end, exhausted, and it seems like you can barely pick up the phone to order take-out and then crawl into bed.
You’re feeling so depleted not just because you’ve been so busy and overworked: it’s because you’re literally running on empty. You’ve been giving, giving, giving and not spending any time or focus on yourself and what you may need amongst the chaos. You haven’t been giving your mind or body a chance to refuel, recharge, and reboot; you’ve just run the battery dead.
To be at your optimal, best, most energized state for anyone or anything else in your life, you need to be caring for yourself first. And when your surrounding environment is so demanding, don’t you need the best possible version of yourself to be showing up for the job?!?
The next time you find yourself overworked or overwhelmed, here’s what you need to do:
- Make a list of what you know you need to feel your absolute best.
- Take at least one thing on that list and make sure that need is met today.
When you take the time to make sure that your core needs are met, then you’re that much more prepared to take on the world at the fast, efficient pace that is being required of you.
Life Lesson #2:
Stop filling all of your time and empty some time instead.
When we live such busy lives (as I know each of you does), and have such easy access to other people and information (ahem, smartphones), it’s so easy to get caught up in it all. We feel the need to constantly be filling any of our “free” time with something- even if it’s not very fruitful or enjoyable. It can even get so bad that we feel like we are wasting any time that we aren’t completely filling up! Have you ever been in line at a store and instead of just waiting, looking around at the people and taking in the whole scene, you’re whipping out your phone to check your e-mail and text a friend? Case in point right there. You’re probably in line for less than 2 minutes- do you really need to make sure that every second is filled up?
Today’s always-on culture is causing us to have a seriously hard time being present in the moment and enjoying it, and that’s a huge problem! If we can’t just BE and LIVE in our current moment and be happy (even if it’s just for a little bit of each day), then we’re just fast-forwarding all of our moments away to get to the next thing, then the next…until we don’t have any more moments left to spare!
If you can’t remember the last time you had spare time, here’s what to do:
- Think of a time today that you know you normally fill up with unnecessary fluff.
- Instead, use that time to focus on the moment, yourself, and your surroundings.
- Breathe and enjoy!
I bet that you’ll find that the time moves a little bit slower, you can breathe a little deeper, and you feel a little lighter. Here’s to getting back to living life on purpose instead of just helping it quickly pass by!