A mom friend told me as a stay at home mom you have oodles of time to think, but do little else.
To be honest, it’s made me dread a whole fresh week of nothingness. When I first started as a full-time stay at home, I watched hours of mindless TV. But recently, all this unusable time has given me pockets of spirituality. It’s cultivated within me something that I never had before and didn’t know I needed. Time to sit, rest and be.
I no longer fear Mondays. In fact, I recently discovered 5 simple ways to transform every day from drudgery to delight, which is no small feat when you’re wiping butts, making meals, washing dishes, rinse and then repeat. There are still ways you can carve out time for yourself and look toward the week like a spiritual retreat. This will minimize your own mommy tantrums when you’re dealing with your kids all day. Add your own but start with these and see my other ideas in Meaning Making Mom.
- Listen to podcasts.
TGFP otherwise known as Thank Goodness for Podcasts! I love listening to Young House Love has a podcast, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast, and podcasts from SoundsTrue. I do it while I’m putting away the dishes, picking up my son from school and walking the other son in the morning. Doing this makes me feel like I’m a human being not just a janitor, babysitter, and housecleaner. I get to learn something new, laugh, and discover my inner creativity. It’s like taking a class on life and makes me feel alive. I’d recommend a dose of podcast to anyone who’s stuck in the doldrums.
2.Write down everything you wish for yourself.
We often get caught up with hyperfocus on our children. It’s a worthy cause so why not? Well, our kids need us to have a life of our own or else we depend too much on them. Spending a few minutes writing down your bucket list, your dreams for yourself on both superficial and deep levels can be reinvigorating. You might not have time to not achieve all of them, but it will remind you that you and what you want matter too.
3. Look at something shiny and pretty.
Whether it’s a glass vase of fresh flowers, or your recently polished nails having something around that makes you feel good even when you haven’t brushed your hair or teeth yet, is soul nourishing and necessary.
4. Stop holding back.
I think the problem we have as mothers is a fear of being who we are. We don’t have a great career to broadcast to the world so sometimes we confuse our own accomplishments with that of our children. Because of that we hold back sharing how vulnerable we really feel, how we’re afraid of messing up, or how we’re struggling. Yet what we really yearn for is connection. I love what Immediate Fiction author Jerry Cleaver says about writing, “Push things to the limit, to the extreme…Creating more trouble forces your characters to use more of themselves. In using more, they reveal more. When they reveal more, you, the author, and the reader have a deeper experience of the character-identification.” When I read this passage I thought about how often we as mothers hold back our true selves. Not that we’re supposed to rob banks and murder for love, but that if we take more risks by saying what we really feel or taking a class we’re afraid of failing, we will achieve connection with others and ourselves.
5. Do one thing a day (minimum) for you.
Massages, manicures, all those would be great. But on a daily basis, you don’t have to do the big expensive things to feel good about you. Writing this blog, reading Immediate Fiction, and doing 10-minute exercises are enough to make me feel like I’m taking care of myself, which is like breathing air when you have two young kids.
This is just a small sampling, but I hope you will try it. We’re in this together dear friends. Motherhood is a battlefield, won with lots of love for our kids, but most importantly for each other.
