by savemumsanity
on October 23, 2013
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I wonder as mothers why we struggle so hard to put ourselves first? Is it for fear of being accused as ‘selfish’? Is it a warped kind of guilt that if we’re not busting our arse for our family all of the time that we’re failing them? Is it that lingering societal pressure that women have to keep a perfect house, perfect children and be perfect themselves?
It’s probably a combination of all of these factors. All I know is that since becoming a mother that I’ve put a tonne of pressure on myself to live up to some impossible ideal. And it wasn’t making me a better mother – not by a long shot. The truth was, I was angry, frustrated, sad and unbelievably busy. Maybe you feel that way too?
It was almost a year ago that I got the biggest wake up call of my life – my family that I was working so hard for was falling apart. Dramatic, yes. And I could hear the whisperings in the wind that I should never have shared that story with the world, that it was my job to put up, shut up and leave my dirty laundry hidden at the bottom of the pile with the hand washing I never get time to do.
But the biggest revelation that came from that horrible time was that deep inside there was a little voice that came out clear as a bell and sat on my lips for the very first time – “I am worthy of happiness and love”. At the time I didn’t know what form it would come to me in, whether my marriage would survive or I’d be doing it alone – but that one revelation gave me strength to start creating a happier future for myself. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on October 15, 2013
I am proud and honoured to welcome my friend Deb Eccleston here to Save Mum’s Sanity, to share her health wake-up call with you all. Deb’s powerful words are a reminder of how important it is to listen to our bodies and seek help when we feel it’s telling us that something is not quite right. Over to you, Deb!
In October five years ago, I was tired.
I had three young children, a part-time job that helped pay the bills and my husband had just started his dream job as a fire fighter.
Life was busy, so it was only natural to feel tired, stressed and maybe a little overwhelmed.
What wasn’t natural was my determination to ignore what my body was telling me. I was underweight and as a result had frequent dizzy spells. I had a cold that never went away. But rather than take off my self-imposed blindfold and address my own health, I just brushed it all aside with the feeble excuse of “I don’t have time to be sick”.
What came next made me wish I’d made the time when I had the chance. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on October 1, 2013
Well, it’s now been more than two weeks since the whirlwind of the Problogger Training Event passed me by and since then I have been fervently trying not to fall into the ‘life is getting in the way’ excuse for not blogging. But in saying that, it really has. Work and home life has been charging on at an unrelenting pace and there was the case of conjunctivitis that had both me and Jarvis a bit sore and sorry for ourselves last week. But this week will be different, hey?
While I’ve managed to reflect on the conference itself here, on the Sunday after the official proceedings I joined a Health and Lifestyle experience with four fellow bloggers Nicole from Planning with Kids, Deborah from Diet Scmiet and Eleise from A Very Blended Family with the ever-delightful Shelley from Tourism & Events Queensland behind the wheel of the mini-bus. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on September 17, 2013
Last weekend I, along with more than 450 other bloggers and online business owners, attended the Problogger Training Event at QT Hotel, Gold Coast.
Before the event, I’d written about how I was trying not to succumb to the usual fear I feel about things like this and then in Problogger Darren Rowse’s opening keynote he talked about the main things that could hold us back as bloggers and there it was up on the big screen behind him … fear! His main point about fear was that it is a signal that something important is about to happen and by stepping through the fear, past your comfort zone and into the relative unknown is where the sparks fly.
And that’s just what I did and I felt those sparks fly as ideas buzzed in my head, as I made connections with a bunch of interesting people from all around the country and as I started to believe that my dreams about making a positive mark on the world could actually be realised. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on September 11, 2013
I was in yoga class a couple of weeks ago and near the end of the class, our teacher tells us we’re going to do shoulder stand. “Oh no!” my inner voice yells … “you’re going to look so stupid!”. Ignoring the voice I push on, I awkwardly roll my heels headward and use the momentum of the movement and my arms towards my lower back to start bringing my legs up towards the sky. I have no idea what I look like, or how close to vertical my legs are but I’m starting to feel like I’m getting there. A wobbly, slow moving and definately not very graceful movement but my legs are almost pointing towards the sky, my chin is locked into my chest and then the voice kicks in “Oh my god, my legs are in the air, I don’t know if I’m doing this right, I don’t want to fall over” and then slight panic kicks in, sending me toppling out of the pose. That over thinking mind of mine just caught me out again! But rather than dwell on the fact that I fell out, I chose instead to dwell on the progress that saw me anywhere near close to that pose. And taking that positive thought into another week on the mat, last Sunday I may have almost nailed it (don’t expect a photo anytime soon, though!). [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on August 26, 2013
So, these are some yummy little numbers I baked yesterday. I’ve been looking for a good gluten-free cookie recipe for a while and I’d never had all the ingredients, so it became one of those things I’d get around to when the pantry supplies and recipe gods aligned, which let’s face it would be never! So with repeated requests to ‘make cookies’ from big boy, I decided to throw culinary caution to the wind and make do with what I had and the result were these tasty cookies. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on July 1, 2013
Yesterday, I took myself off on a little me-time solo journey to YogaFest – a full day celebration of all things yoga and yoga-related at Brisbane’s beautiful Old Museum. It really did remind me of my music festival days of highlighting the program and cursing the ‘clashes’ between two red hot acts you’d like to see, or in this case two red hot yoga classes you’d like to try.
As well as all the yoga classes to do, there were market stalls to peruse and lots of yummy healthy food to try. As it was raining all day, there wasn’t as much sitting on the grass as I’d hoped but sitting in a cosy room almost shoulder to shoulder with other yoga enthusiasts certainly was a warming way to spend the day. There was just a lovely atmosphere and lots of good energy, lots of smiling at strangers and random conversations – I just felt very much at home and happy I was there on my own to go with the flow of the day.
The highlight for me was having a go at something I’ve wanted to try for sometime – Nia Dance. Having read about it, I still didn’t really know what I was in for, but when I saw our teacher warm up by sensually slithering along the floor complete with orgasmic facial expression, I started to get a bit scared! [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on June 12, 2013
It didn’t seem so long ago that I was blogging about my toddler boy and my newborn, but that was over a year ago. I looked at my boys playing together the other day and I realised I really can’t say I have a toddler and a baby anymore. My baby has become my toddler and my toddler boy is now a fully fledged preschooler and it reminds me how quickly life rolls on, stages upon stages until I imagine a house full of teenage boys and a gigantic grocery bill.
The toddler boy relishes getting his own back now, but is just as likely to give his big brother a sloppy kiss as a bop to the head. The big brother is prone to acts of defiance with a swinging arm, but can be heard saying ‘sorry bubba Hugo’ when the crying starts. They are loud, cheeky and some days it feels like I’m constantly breaking up fights, sharing out toys and saying ‘leave your brother alone’ while silently counting down the hours until bed time. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on June 5, 2013
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Save Mum’s Sanity Yoga a day challenge here on the blog. I’ve found the quick Facebook update as something pops into my head has been the best way to share what’s been happening, but even that’s been sporadic. But the main thing is that the challenge is still on! As those who have been reading here for awhile know, I tend to start things with the best of blogging intentions but they don’t always continue. So even though alot of my yoga a day has been happening ‘off blog’ rest assured it is happening and in a bold statement, which also sounds incredibly cliched, it may just be changing my life. [click to continue…]
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by savemumsanity
on May 20, 2013
When you write for a living, a weird thing can happen to your written voice. It becomes so malleable, smooshed into a house style to fit and be accepted that when you sit down to write for yourself, on your own terms, about whatever the hell you want to, the voice can take a while to get itself out. There’s a stutter, a whimper, a whisper. It’s so unsure of itself. What does it stand for? What is it trying to say? What’s the most natural way to say it?
Well, I’m not sure if that happens to all writers but it happens to me. Regularly. So regularly infact that there are large chunks of time represented as blanks in this blog’s more than three year history. Blanks where I am sitting somewhere stressing out about my blog’s direction, my inability to do justice to the ideas in my head and then the subsequent avoidance. There have been times that I have felt my voice ring out loud and clear on these pages as I share something close and dear to me or something personal and frightening. And just as I do, as I open up and let my readers get a real feel for me, I freak myself out and bolt that voice away lest it get too loud and lead me closer to where I actually want to be. It’s an act of self-sabotage of that I’m sure.
I’m not writing this from a place of revelation, I am still a little unsure of what I’m doing here. But I know I want to be here all the same. And for me, that’s good enough. Sometimes, I feel like I have to have something really big to say to write here, but the big things tend to scare the voice away. The voice doesn’t feel like it can do the big things justice somedays, or that others can say these things better than it can. So maybe I’ll stick to the little things again for awhile, to see if I can tease it out from it’s word cave. And at the moment, it’s the little things that are giving me the most joy. Little steps on wooden floors, little face kisses and an arm casually slung around my shoulder and little heart leaps from a place of numbness. The little things are the things of real life, of little chats with people in my neighbourhood, of laughs with friends, of making loud noises during fireworks, nailing a yoga pose that a few weeks ago sent me toppling and of that morning coffee feeling as it warms my hand.
And if that is all, then that is all.
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