I am young and my baby was “unplanned.” In the last year I bought a house, got married, gained and lost two jobs, gave birth to my first born son, and lost my sister to suicide. Mothering is hard! Life is hard, but I am actually thriving not just surviving. How? My past experiences of dealing with anxiety, being rejected (acne and social awkwardness made high school not my time), and being a foreigner (living in Thailand) taught me important coping skills that prepared me for motherhood. The truth I choose to live into everyday: motherhood is hard but the good stuff is hard earned and hard work is so good! So from my short years filled with various hardships, I acquired mental health rituals to thrive by God‘s unfailing Grace.
1. BENDING that ATTITUDE: Not just the cliche saying “count your blessings” but the more like transforming grumblings into gratitude. When mentoring black middle school girls in college, I constantly told them: “You can’t control how others act towards you, but you can control how you respond” especially when they shared the struggles of girls starting fights at school. Well, this sound advice has haunts me now as a momma. I cannot control if my baby takes a short nap depriving me of my much desired break or is extra fussy requiring my attention. But my mentality towards the situation can shift from “this sucks I really wanted more me time” to “well, now we get extra time to play together today, let’s go on a special trip to the park because we have more time” or the shift from “can this baby just stop crying I am getting a headache” to “what a chance to use my mommy comfort powers to soothe my baby who will one day won’t want mommy cuddles so much!” Even a much dreaded sick day can become an opportunity to just slow down. Now, this mental exercise means first acknowledging the frustrations then finding the silver lining.
2. BLOCKING : Setting aside little blocks of time to accomplish big tasks. Often projects feel much too large to be accomplished in much too little time. The step by step discipline allows functionality in the climb of busyness. When in college with tests, papers and classes, not to mention a social life and volunteering, to manage my dense schedule, I set aside two hours a day to work on school work (studying, writing, reading, etc). I created weekly goals to handle major papers or tests (i.e. 1st week outline, 2nd week rough draft, and 3rd week final draft) so that I had the flexibility of extra time to deal with the unexpected. So this scheduling discipline really makes motherhood much easier! I delegate an hour a day to chores (30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon), and list out daily goals such as fold laundry, vacuum downstairs or running errands. Although these necessary tasks are daily allocated, really they are weekly goals and I always schedule a no-chores fun day (most of the time Friday) to allow that flexibility for the unexpected such as a bad night of sleep, or a chance to help a friend. Kind of like creating a budget, if you don’t allocate your resources, in this case time, then you waste a lot of it. So schedule a little to earn time peace!
3. BREATHING: Three deep breathes resets your mind. In for five seconds (pray- Jesus Christ Son of God) out for five seconds (pray- have mercy on me, a sinner). Also, breathing also refers to taking mental breaks like: podcasts, books, journaling, artwork,etc. The general rule: NOT CHORES but stuff that makes you SIGH blissfully in your head. Intentional downtime that makes you refueled. I mentally block out at least one hour a day to play with baby (30 minutes morning and afternoon right after chore time) to connect with my son and 30 minutes in the evening to walk the neighborhood and soak in that vitamin D. Also, I journal the first 10 minutes during our nap time or right before bed. Plus I squeeze in those encouraging podcast or a good book not related to motherhood to feed that hungry mindif My hubby often finds me asleep, pen in hand and mid-sentence. Finding those moments to pause, read, breathe literally and mentality is not a luxury but a necessity like eating. Please do not starve your brain!
With this trinity of serenity, I am refreshed and ready for that hard good work of mothering! So take away all or some of that bending your attitude from
grumbling to gratitude, blocking little chunks of time for the big things, and breathing mentality and literally. You mind matters in motherhood!
تعليقات