Understanding that we can be moms and still have identities outside of motherhood. We can still have desires, hobbies, and wants that have nothing to do with our daily responsibilities. Motherhood swallows us whole, and we take it with heart and keep pushing. However it's ok to look up and say I want and need something else to fill my cup. If we can do everything for everyone else without skipping a beat, we can do a hop skip and jump for ourselves too.

There's no way to really stop overthinking, but there are ways to move through it! Everything doesn't work for everyone and nothing is cookie cutter, but this method is something that has worked for me before and still does. It's not the 'perfect' technique, but it's gradual and more realistic for those of us that don't do well with stopping things cold turkey....the more you're told to 'just stop' or 'just do it', you just get more anxious and stressed...right?

This is a method that allows you to do both. We're Going to overthink, we just don't have to let it handicap us and keep us from making decisions and mistakes. Overthinking isn't a 'bad' thing, but it can and will create bad habits if we let it! It's not about taking it away, it's about moving through and not letting it take over. Take a listen and as always, share your thoughts! 

We all feel all the feels when it comes to mommying, and there's nothing more frustrating than feeling all the feels and then feeling dismissed, unheard, and misunderstood. So instead of opening up about our frustrations we end up swallowing it and moving on, while continuing to mom.

 At some point we feel like there's no escape and being a mom starts to feel like a chore on top of everything else. We're then coping with things internally (our own feelings while trying to mother) and externally (society telling us to just smile and keep going).  That my friends, will cause a burning fire of rage in any human. We try to do it all and make it look easy. 

The reality is that it's HARD and it's normal to want to escape from things you get no relief from. Instead of bashing and casting judgment, let's try to understand, empathize, and relate.  We get ragey, and that's ok.

Having the patience to sit while in panic seems impossible. We want the feelings gone, we want it done and over with right now, we don't like suffering and the symptoms and after effects that come with it.

I had two panic attacks last night and only used ONE of my tools ONCE, and it DID help! We go to all the therapy and get all the tools we need, but don't practice them when we're not panicked and don't actively use them when we ARE panicked. We generally believe tools can be cliche, embarrassing to use, useless, take too long, and whatever else.

My thing is, especially when we're actively panicking, what's the worst that can happen if we actually attempt to take a breath, just to humor ourselves to see if it works...we know it won't make it worse, right? We hate it and want it to just go away, but aren't making the conscious decision to do anything helpful to combat it.

If we can challenge, question, fight the other situations and things in life we don't like, why not challenge this (ourselves/panic) too? Why not challenge the false feelings of fear, why not push back, why instead let the beast that is mental health take over without so much as a push back?

We have to give ourselves patience. We have to make a conscious choice of what we're going to allow and not allow. We have to be willing to sit in it in order to fight back. No easy feat right, but what is the alternative? The ultimate goal is to gain back that control little by little, at least when it's needed most. To get there, we have to have the patience to sit with the panic, so that we can do the work. More episodes on this to come. Subscribe, like, share.

This one's just a snippet! Full version available on audio, next episode will also have full video available.

There is no magical formula or secret recipe, no one is going to hand it to you, and it's not going to fall in your lap. The key is to move towards the fear, the uncomfortable, the awkward, the intimidating, the overwhelming. The more you move, the more you DO, the more you GROW.