Tag: self care journey

What About Me? – Update

20.2_24

How is everyone doing? The state the world is in is very scary and something none of us have ever experienced in our lifetime. We are in unprecedented territory and I wanted to check in and see if any of you are feeling the same way.

The last blog post about me (I wrote with disdain at prompting from my kids), I shared a little about myself and the current journey I am on.  I’ve recently taken more time to check in with myself and take care of myself. Go here to get the beginning of the journey.

Checking in with you all now really comes from the unsettled feeling I have with the state we are all in with this COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Our lives have halted, been turned upside down, and I feel are generally just uncomfortable right now. By uncomfortable I mean scared, different, and we all seem to be creating a new normal. Not all of this is bad. The perfect example for me is of course all of my kids are home, grounded if you will. Well, they are all adults so they are not literally grounded, but they know the importance of staying in place to help stop the spread of this horrific virus. While the day in and day out of staying put has us all on edge from time to time, we really are making the best use of our time together and I am extremely thankful.

To be completely honest, with my daily routines being thrown into a tailspin, some days I feel the wheels are completely off the bus with my daily self care routines! I haven’t been wearing makeup (good for the skin!), so I have told myself I do not need to clean my face as often. LIES! I have not been going out of the house for work (my full timejob), or to do much else… therefore, I haven’t gotten up, dressed, done my hair and makeup… you know, typical fails. Why? Why do I do this when I know and have stressed the importance (to myself and everyone else) of maintaining your daily routines with no exceptions? If I’m not careful, I will fall into the same life I was living when the kids were younger.

Going forward it’s business as usual, so to speak. Although I haven’t completely let my routines go, I WILL be getting back to them. For instance, today as I am writing this, I did all of my normal morning self care, self reflection, I did my hair and make-up and got dressed before work. Ok, I didn’t get too crazy, I have joggers on, but the rest of me is business as usual! Lol!

While we are all adjusting to a new temporary normal, keeping up with those small comforts of routines and practices (at least for me) will help with the changes. Once we come out the other side of this pandemic, things most likely will never go back to “normal”, whatever that was like before. But that’s ok, because we can create our new “normal”. We have more time now than ever to reflect on exactly what we want out of life. What we want for our futures. How we want to proceed with our lives when social distancing will no longer be the norm. If there are any positives that come out of this dark time we are currently in, I hope and pray that we can find a way to come together and end the hate that has been growing and spreading in the world. Lofty goals, I know… but if we set our minds to it, we can achieve anything! Even our daily routines 😉

 

Have a lovely day,

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What About Me?

So there’s lots of new faces around here. I’ve been encourage to do an “Introduction to me” post.

Here’s the problem I’ve always had with that… who am I?

If I don’t know, how can I share with others?

I start talking about myself and end up talking about my kids every time. Why? Because they ARE my life. They are grown, and still they are my life. However, I’ve begun my own journey in the last couple of years. So maybe I do know a little more about myself that I thought. Let’s see.

I always wanted to be a stay at home mom. Not to “not work”, but to cultivate the relationships, bonds, and lives of my kids. I truly feel it’s one of the MOST important jobs we are to EVER do. We are raising those that will run this world. Take care of this earth. Raise their own some day. They not only need to be taught how to live and survive and right from wrong, they need to be taught how to relate to others. To care for others. To love others.

Now that my children are grown, I’m on a journey to rediscover myself. You always hear about parents making their kids a priority over themselves and who they are, but you never truly understand until you are in that position. And that’s exactly what I did.

So who am I???

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For now, let’s start on the surface:

I love music! All kinds of music!

I have a handful of favorite tv shows. Friends is definitely at the top of the list. Right up there with it is One a Tree Hill & Charmed. I like so many different genres and many other shows, but those are definitely at the top for me. One of my childhood favorites was Wonder Woman. The original. Wonder Woman. Like the Lynda Carter version. There will never (for me) be another Wonder Woman like her.

I love to cook for my family. Well, when I’m feeling it. The day to day rigor of – work, come home, fix dinner, work some more, head to bed – gets to me often and I just don’t feel like it. But when I have time and am in the mood, I love it!

I love, love, love to read!

Fun fact : I own every Nora Roberts book she’s written under her given name. I love her writing style and the way she develops her characters and their relationships. You truly feel like you’re a part of the story.

I’ve also been making small strides to get back to caring for myself:

I’ve recently increased my water intake to 1/2 my body weight in ounces/day. Currently (as I’m writing this post) I am on day 60! I definitely see some differences in the way my body feels.

I’ve also developed routines for each morning and each evening. (I’ll elaborate on those in another post) Before I would clean my face when I felt like it, or take my vitamins when I remember, but developing these morning/evening routines have been a huge factor in my development of self care. My youngest, Mallory, took a course in school where she learned all about deficiencies and tried to help me figure out what was the most important for me to take lol. I’ve also had a doctor’s input in that area.

I want to evolve my self care to accomplish a more healthy lifestyle. And I’ve made moves toward this. I stretch every morning and every night, Megan even gave me some suggestions for this one – being a dance instructor and all. Stretching is so important for our bodies.

When I started this journey of rediscovering myself and taking care of myself, my kids were (and are) all onboard. My son, Jacob, has even talked with me about the importance of this for me. They are seriously my biggest cheerleaders and it’s really great to experience. It makes me realize just how wonderful they’ve become and how “worth it” it really was to stay at home and raise them because we were able to build lasting bonds that go both ways.

This is (and I am) definitely a work in progress.

In order to be fully transparent, this whole post has been a struggle for me. Nudges from each of my kids have pushed me to hit the publish button. It has always been very easy for me to show love to others. To pour time and energy into others. But it’s not been as easy to do that for myself. I’m always evolving and self care is getting easier and easier. Showing myself love in that way is becoming more natural for me. However, talking about it, sharing things about myself is never easy. The tightening in my chest and procrastination was all too real with this post. I’m pretty much an open book. I will share just about anything with anyone. But writing about myself just feels so vulnerable.

I hope you stick around each week for the fun posts, but also check back in because I will be updating my progress on this self care, self discovery journey I’m on.

Until next time…