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(Link to kiddie pool! We have had so much fun in this thing!)
I woke up today feeling like I needed to reach out to the moms who may come across my blog at any point in time. You need to hear that you are a resilient human being and you can do this. I need to hear that, too! This phase of life can feel isolating and lonely at times but also amazing and wonderful! Sometimes I fly through all of these emotions in a short period of time. It can feel like being on an out-of-control roller-coaster. One minute I feel like I’m losing it and the next, everything is fine and the kids are playing nicely. Motherhood is basically emotional whiplash (in the best way), am I right?!
Even as I type this I wonder if this is resonating with anyone else because fear and guilt tell me that I am the only one. It tells me that other moms enjoy playing for hours on end with their kids and having zero personal space 24 hours a day. I am trying to quit listening to fear and guilt!
Be Resilient, Not Perfect
I don’t always feel resilient. There are a lot of days where I just feel worn down completely with nothing left to give. I think that’s the beauty of it even if it doesn’t feel quite like that in the moment. It’s the days where I struggle to just make it through but I pick myself back up and keep going that show me how resilient I really am! That is where I look within myself and see resilience and I hope you can find it there too! There is nothing perfect about it! I have to continuously give myself grace, forgive myself, and oftentimes ask my kids for their forgiveness too.
Who Is The Thief of Joy and Resilience?
You guessed it – comparison! The photo above was taken after a full day of meltdowns and tantrums from sun up to late afternoon. It was a day where I lost my cool multiple times and raised my voice with my kids. A day of complete overwhelm. It would be easy to look at that photo and think that we had a blissful day filled with sunshine and rainbows but you would be so wrong! This was a sweet moment in our day and I had to look really hard for it. If you’re focusing on what you think is going on in someone else’s life based only on what you can see on the surface, I can promise you that you’ll be wrong every time.
The internet gives us all a very incomplete look into the life of others. That doesn’t mean that anyone is trying to deceive you and I think that is important to remember. I will never apologize for taking and posting pictures that evoke happiness but I’ll be the first to tell you that the picture you’re looking at might have been the only 2 seconds of happiness in my entire day. Haha! Don’t compare yourself to ANYONE. You will feel defeated and it will be for completely false reasons.
Gratitude Always
There are days where it is a bit of a struggle to feel gratitude but I push myself to identify how blessed I am. Especially if I am having a particularly bad day. I may not get the chance to write it all down in a journal (though I should probably try to do that when taking a few moments for myself in a calm space) but I make sure to stop and think about a few things that I feel thankful for. I have learned that so much of how I feel is directly linked to how I think. This applies to all negative thinking! It doesn’t always make me feel instantly better but over time I can see a difference in how I feel when I choose to think about what is positive in my life.
The Struggle Is Real!
No matter what your struggles are, you got this! We are all in it together and that is the real message I want to send. I hope this finds someone on a day where they feel like they’re the only one going through something. You aren’t! 🙂
