Rediscover: Mom Era
For moms out there, you ever feel like you lost a sense of yourself when you enter motherhood? I’ve been on a journey on how to rediscover myself and understand who I am in my mom era.
Before becoming a wife or mom, I was (and like to think still am) a pretty easy going person who loved to travel, try new foods, discover hidden gems, meet new people and motivated to experience new things. I had the time and energy to do it all! Now…my life revolves around my family and I’ve evolved into a different person and cannot remember what I was like prior to becoming a mom and wife. This has been a struggle in the last few years as I keep asking myself “who am I now?”. I found myself in a complacent mindset and just took each day on repeat - go to work, go home, spend time with family, make dinner, sleep. While there’s nothing wrong with that lifestyle, but for me, I needed to concentrate more on me so I can be the best person for my family.
Since last year, I decided that I needed to be better than the day before by doing something 1% different and strictly for me. I wanted to specifically 1) get healthy - be more physically active, 2) challenge my mind and block out subjects or negative conversations, and 3) do something I used to enjoy and share those experiences with my family.
1) Physical Activity - You ever realize that you can sit on the couch or your bed and scroll through your phone - next thing you know it’s been an hour? And all you’ve done is stay stationed in one spot? I had this “ah-ha!” moment when I was doing just that - I realized that I could spend that useless time by just doing a quick movement so I don’t feel like a blob. I started off with just walking in place or around my house for 15 minutes straight. Then the next week it moved to 15 minutes on the treadmill. Now, I am back to working out 3x a week for about 30 minutes and it feels great. There are so many great and fun workout videos out there!
2) Mental Challenge - There are so much uncertainty in the world and it didn’t help my postpartum anxiety. I had pretty bad anxiety once I gave birth and I didn’t know what it was or if it’s even a thing. We hear alot about postpartum depression, but I had no clue that what I was going through was postpartum anxiety. My sense of worry was at an ultimate high and I didn’t know how to come back down. However, I was determined to get out of the mental rut. First thing I did was get off social media and stopped reading the news or articles. I found that I was on it too often which heightened the anxiety due to negativity surrounding the news or information I was reading. Instead, I got back to reading more books that I found interesting (such as Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero). I wanted to ground myself in a different way and found ways to make sure I stay present and not worry too much about uncontrollable future.
3) Joy - I wanted to find my joy again in what I like to do versus defaulting to what my family wants. So each week, I try to do something for myself whether it was cooking new recipes to something as simple as giving myself a manicure. However, I found that doing these activities can have room for interruptions. What I started doing is giving my husband a heads up that I need time alone, or I want to do something with zero interruptions. It’s not always perfect but I find it was important for me to make time for myself. As I said, I needed this to happen in order for them to get the best out of me when they need me. Otherwise, resentment will build up and that’s never pretty.
I am very much still trying to understand myself more and more each day. I want to be better than I was before and found these starting points are helping me rediscover who I am.
Are you on the same boat as I am?What are your tips and tricks on rediscovering yourself? How has the journey been for you?
