This blog post is full of questions. I encourage you to get a pen and journal your way through them. You can’t see your thoughts clearly if they aren’t on paper in front of you. There’s a lot going on up there! My purpose in asking these hard questions is to wake you up a little. If I were there, I would shake you gently and tell you to stop smothering yourself in self-doubt and self pity. It’s not doing you or your children any good. I would tell you how amazing you are. Not just as a mother – but as a woman. You’ve forgotten that. Your confidence and your day face is phony. Stop it. Slow down. Get out of the race for a minute. Take the time to figure out who you are and what you actually need, so that you can show your children how to be fully themselves, too.
Be courageous enough to feel good, and not feel guilty for it.
Motherhood. I would confidently argue it’s the hardest job on the planet. Is it the most rewarding? It has it’s moments, sure. But I would say if most of us told the truth – the hardships take over more often. They become our focus. They suck us dry. They drown us on a daily basis and we are too in it to see it.
What if someone asked you about yourself? Do you know who you are? Do you even remember how to connect to just you, not the mother you? We have incredibly high hopes for our children. We see them. We believe in them. We worry, stress and kill ourselves on a daily basis for them. But we forget to do the one thing they need the most. We forget to love ourselves. When we put ourselves last, we only give them a portion of what we are capable of. We make it harder than it has to be. Of course we feel like we are not enough!
How in the world can we give our from our empty vessels and expect our children to feel whole? How can we desire the most for them but show them the least of us? We can’t. If you don’t understand that sacrificing who you are in motherhood all for your children is NOT the goal – we will repeat this generational process through ourselves, our children and all generations to follow. Sacrifice in parenting is a given. We give up a lot in our lives to make our children’s lives better. But we are not supposed to give up ourselves. We are not supposed to get smaller as we build them up bigger. We are supposed to be living examples! And not fake ones – children see straight through that. Show them how to love themselves fully AND be a functional adult. When we give to ourselves – we have more of us to give to others. What more could this world use than more humans who are self-fulfilled and as a result overflowing and excited to give to others? Those are the people that can change the world. The ones not looking to fulfill their own agendas through others because they already gave to themselves.
Mama, on many levels we all feel the same. Deep down in our core – I think we all feel overwhelmed. We all feel lost. Our love for our children is what keeps us going and pushing through even when we feel like we can’t. We get up and we give day in and day out because we love them enough. We just don’t love ourselves enough. Quick fixes won’t work. You can change your body, your job, your home or the decor you put in it, but if you don’t work on who you are at your core – you will never, ever stop chasing something. The relationship you have with yourself cannot be last. It cannot be optional. It has to come first. Your children will thank you for it. They will thank you with their lives. This is how you leave your legacy.
❤ MA
The Well Mom Collective 