Tag Archives: Mom Guilt

Self Care Ideas

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Why is Self Care so damn hard? I often wonder if I honestly just some how suck at it, or if its Mommy Guilt that stops me, or some misconstrued idea that Self Care is some how selfish? I honestly can’t tell you what the reason is, but all I know is that I suck at it. So this year, I am determined to practice more Self Care. For the good of my mental health. For me so I can feel better. For my kids so I can be a better mom for them. And for my husband so… basically so maybe he won’t get on my nerves so much. Kidding. I want to practice Self Care so I can be a better person for myself and for all those around me.

So, I present you with a list of easy Self Care Ideas. Maybe you are struggling to and this will help you as well.

Here we go.

1. Bubble bath.
2. Read a book.
3. Journal.
4. Color. Seriously, I am obsessed with the adult colouring books. I love them.
5. Dance. Put on some headphones, blast some of your favourite songs and just dance. Dance like no one is watching.
6. Go for a walk, or hike. Just get outside and get some fresh air.
7. Workout.
8. Yoga.
9. Mediate. Or try to, there are a lot of apps and great websites out there for beginners.
10. Clean or reorganize a room.
11. Watch your favourite tv show/ movie.
12. Drink water. Maybe add some fruit to it or something.
13. Cook your favourite meal.
14. Learn something new, language, learn a new skill.
15. Unplug/ turn off electronics for a day / or maybe just an afternoon.
16. Go to bed early and get a good nights sleep.
17. Do a facemask, paint your nails, wash and style your hair.
18. Do a random act of kindness.
19. Avoid toxic people.
20. Drink a hot cup of Coffee/ Tea.

And dont forget, it is completely ok to take a day to yourself. Take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, the afternoon, or the whole day. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself!

Do you have any ideas? I would love to hear them. Share them in the comments!

~ Michelle

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Hello 2018

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Its time. Its time to brush off the dust and get back to this. Its time to face it, face all of it. Lets just start by saying that 2017 was a hell of a year. It was a crap show. It was anxiety filled. It was hard. It wasn’t all bad, there were good parts don’t get me wrong, but most of it, a lot of it, was hard and filled with anxiety. 2017 was a depression and anxiety filled blur. I retreated into myself so much in 2017. I hid. I hid from the world, I hid from my family, and especially myself.

I don’t normally take much stock in New Years, new start and all that stuff. But this year, I do. This year I have to. I can’t keep going on like this. Every part of my body aches, all the time. I’m done. I’m ready to rise, I’m ready to shine. I’m ready to claim what is mine, what belongs to me, what I deserve – Happiness.

I love to blog, but as you can clearly see its been a while, last year nearly destroyed me and I’ve been trying to claw my way back to myself. When I hid from myself, I closed myself off to my blog, and a lot of social media. I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t bring myself to write happy things and pretend to be happy, and I most defiantly couldn’t not bring myself to write how anxiety filled I was. So instead I just didn’t write anything. Hindsight being what it is, that was a mistake, I should have kept writing.

So this year I’m writing again. This time I’m writing for me. This year I will find myself. This year I will challenge myself. This year will be an amazing year. This year I will take control of my anxiety, just kidding, thats impossible, but I will damn well fight as hard as I can.

I can’t believe I’m going to write this, because I honestly think its such a joke, after years of chasing it down, it never happens, but this year I hope I can find something that at least resembles it: Balance. I need balance. I don’t know how I will get it, because I have never truly had it. I’ve tricked myself into believing it sometimes but it never lasts. This year something has to change. Something has to happen this year. If I have learned anything, its that I can not keep going the way that I am. I need balance. I need self care. I need to put my needs first (sometimes) and not feel horribly guilty about it. So maybe I’m not really looking for balance, maybe I’m looking for peace? Truth be told, I don’t even know for sure at this point. I just know something has to change.

So in conclusion, 2018 has got to be better than 2017. It has to. This year I hope to find balance, Peace, and Harmony, but most importantly I want to find myself. I want to find my voice.

Its truly a horrible, and depressing thing when you look in the mirror and you don’t even know the reflection looking back at you. I’ve become a stranger to myself. A stranger without a voice. This year I will find me. It may take longer than a year, if we are going to be honest here, but I am going to start.

This is my year.

I hope to see you on my journey. And I truly hope you all have a fabulous year.

To the people that came to my blog while I was ‘away’, thank you. Thank you for your messages, and support.

2018, you’re mine.

Lets do this!

~ Michelle

Why Mom Should Get To Spend The Day Alone On Mother’s Day

Posted in Blog, Holiday, Motherhood by

Mothers Day is quickly approaching, and I have been seeing so many posts and articles all saying the same thing “10 Reasons Moms Should Get A Day Alone”, or something along those lines. The post then proceeds to list off all the reasons why a mom should get a day alone. I’m sure you have seen these posts, they show up every year. So being a mom, I thought I would throw my two cents in.


Let me just start by saying that I hate these type of articles. Mothers have a hard enough job as it is. We are moms, first off. We take care of our families, our house, the family schedule. We grow another human inside of us! We have to defend every choice we make. How we became mothers (Adoption, step parent), how we got pregnant, what age we got pregnant at, activity level during pregnancy, how we choose to bring our how child into the world, what we feed our babies, if we stay home with our kids, if we go to work, I could go on. The list is endless. For real.

Then once a year here comes Mother’s Day. A day that is supposed to be set aside to honour mothers, spoil mothers, let mothers know how much our families appreciate all our hard work. Then come these articles and blog posts, which are filled with nothing more than lists of multiple reasons defending and justifying yet another choice of ours – the choice to spend the day alone.

Don’t we have enough to defend without having to list off a whole bunch of reasons to justify what we want, on our special day of all days?

So I will tell you the reason, not 10 reasons, not 20 reasons, one reason, no arguments, no justifying, no defending, one reason why a mother should get to spend the day alone. Here it is: Because she damn well wants to.

No mother, scratch that, no person, should have to argue, defend, justify, be made to feel guilty, or give a list of reasons as to why they want a day alone.

The simple fact that a person asks for, needs, deserves a day alone, should be respected, and accepted without question.

Mom, if you want to spend the day alone, if that is what you want, I hope you get it! I hope you a relaxing day alone and that its all you ever dreamed of.

Now, I don’t know about you, I personally have never spent a Mother’s Day alone. But I will be honest with you, the thought of it does sound nice. Maybe I will ask for that this year.

~ Michelle

Self Care

Posted in Blog, Motherhood by

Hello New Day.
Hello New Week.
Hello New Adventure.

HelloMonday

Last week, yet again, I wrote about getting back on track, back to the basics. Do you know how many times I have written something like that? A lot. Why? Because I keep falling, I keep going down the wrong path, I take 50 steps back. But do you know what I also do? I always try to get back up again, and each time I do I end up learning something new about myself. I find new strength in myself. I find new passions. I find a new way of looking at things.

Something  I have learned over and over and over again, is that I suck at self care. I blame it on my anxiety and depression. Do you know what else I have learned over and over and over again? Self care is super important. Like really important. But still, I suck at it. My anxiety and depression monsters tell me I am not worthy of it. I don’t deserve it. I am not worth it. My time would be better spent doing something else. That I am selfish if I want to spend time alone, do something just for me. Its hard. It really is. These monsters, they are so loud. They are so powerful. They are so convincing at times. They wear me down, they drain all of my energy until I can no longer fight them.

I have decided to start yet another journey, this one about self care. I have also started a fitness journey. They happen to be one in the same. For the first time my fitness and workouts are not about actual physical fitness, they are purely for my mental health. And you know what? I enjoy my workouts even more now. I don’t feel pressure about how much weight I may or may not lose, how many calories I am eating, because right now, they don’t matter, they are not my priority. Don’t get me wrong, my psychical health and over all health is important, they just aren’t my focus right now when doing my workouts. As I focus on my mental health, everything else is falling into place. I feel better after I workout, and so I make better choices about the food I put in my body, and slowly I have started to feel better both physically and mentally.

Lets be honest here, I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know how long I will be able to do this. I don’t know how long it will be till the monsters knock me back down again. But what I do know is that when that happens, I will get back up again, eventually, slowly, but surely, I will get back up. I will continue to try. I will learn something new. I will find new strength. I will continue this dance with the monsters, trying to tame them, over come them??? Honestly I am not sure, but I will not give up, that I am sure of.

How do you take care of yourself? How do you make sure you are getting enough of what you need? I would love to hear! Leave a comment or message me!

You can follow along with me on Instagram as I try to do this thing called Self Care.

~ Michelle

How I Gave My Daughter Separation Anxiety With A Pixar Movie

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I try to be a good mom. Every day I try. I try to be the best mom I can be to my beautiful children. Some days are better than others. However I never thought I could or would give my daughter separation anxiety. And most definitely I never thought it would be caused by a Pixar movie! Of all things, a Pixar movie! A movie made for children!

My beautiful girl. We have always had a close relationship, going back on 2 and half years now! But seriously, we have always had a close relationship. I joke that it is because I was on bedrest for pretty much her entire pregnancy so it was just me and her alone in a room and she never got used to anyone else’s voice. Breastfeeding for a year and half may have contributed to our close relationship as well.

The other day I thought it would be a good idea to watch Finding Nemo with my daughter, you know getting her ready for Finding Dory. My daughter right away realized something happened to the mommy in the start of the film. And kept asking for her. When Nemo went missing, she got so sad. She kept saying over and over “Nemo gone”.

And now thanks to watching what I thought would be a cute movie, my daughter freaks out when I leave the room. At night my husband can no longer put her to bed, she has to know where I am at all times. At night when she wakes up she calls for both of us just to make sure we are both there still.

My sons grew up watching Finding Nemo and it never once bothered them. I never imagined it would cause this reaction in my daughter. Can you say hello Mommy Guilt?!

Despite the happy ending in Finding Nemo, she still asks at the end of the movie if they will find the mommy. Hello Mommy Guilt! “Nemo mama gone. Gone! Nemo mama gone!”

I seriously question now why I didn’t see this coming, why I didn’t think of this before hand?! My poor daughter! This was not the reaction I thought was going to happen. I figured she would just love the little fish, just like her brothers did!

Mommy Guilt comes in many shapes and sizes, never did I expect to give my own daughter a bad case of separation anxiety! As if we don’t spend a lot of time together, I am a stay at home mom, and we co-sleep, yet I still managed to freak her out.

So now the question… Do I hide Finding Dory and Finding Nemo forever and never let her watch either one, or maybe I should let her watching Finding Dory and she will be happy as Dory finds both of her parents at the end! Maybe I can help undo the damage of Finding Nemo?!

~ Michelle