Give yourself the gift of time and kindness today. ❤️
KINDNESS ADVENT 2017 ❤️
Day 20: A gift to myself
The most important and last thing I always tell my clients is to take time out for themselves. It's also always my first advice when mamas come to me overstretched, overwhelmed, exhausted.
Breathe in, breathe out. Go take a yoga class, a quiet coffee by yourself, a mani pedi massage, whatever it is that puts a smile on your face and makes the world right again. Go do you, go get recharged and renewed and filled up, then we can fix it all. Then we can do the hard heart work. Then we can try try again.
Because there is no use when you are running on empty. There is no use me teaching you all the secrets to teeny tiny crazy when you can't even breathe right now.
Go out for a date with your husband, go have a girl's night with some friends, go buy tickets for a concert and dance!
Just last night, I was telling a mama, overwhelmed, overstretched, exhausted, adjusting to life with two and all the messy crazy of a new normal that it's okay. It's okay to take time for you. It's okay to call a time out. It's okay to love on you so you can love on others.
In an emergency, you always put your own oxygen mask on first. It isn't selfish, it isn't wrong, it is the only way you can save the ones in your charge.
Yet as mamas, we tell ourselves that we have to do it all. Without complaint, without saving, without help.
The last four days have been hell. I have never worried as much or prayed as much or hurt as much for a brave little girl that trusted mama to make it all okay.
This morning she turned a corner. This morning, the light was back in her eyes, her sores, as horrifying and scarred as they look had dried and scabbed over. She wanted to play, she wanted to eat and sing and call friends and laugh and go out and be a toddler and throw a tantrum because she only wanted to eat the crispy bits of my KFC.
This morning, I knew, she was going to be okay.
So this afternoon, I reminded myself to go take care of me. I told my guilty self it would be okay to go out for a sanity break and a breather and to feel the sun shine and do something for me.
That was my kindness advent for today and I hope a reminder to you too. Be kind to others, but be kind to yourself too.
I bought myself a giant obnoxious delicious Godiva dark chocolate ice cream and shared it with my best friend. I browsed a store without hurrying and stopped to try the samples and slowly picked out Christmas gifts for the ones I loved. I didn't worry about Ella Grace because I knew she was in good hands and even if they did it all wrong, I knew they would try their very best, I knew they would be there, I knew that it would all come from a place of tremendous love.
I gave myself permission to not be a mom for a while and just be Racheal.
I gave myself permission to breathe.
I gave myself time to fill up so I could go love on her, and care for her, and miss her.
But mostly, I gave myself time to be me so I could give my best to a man that loves me unconditionally and a little girl wants to be just like mama when she grows up one day.
I want her to know, when she's overwhelmed, and overstretched, and exhausted, that it's okay to take time for her too. xx
