I don’t rest enough. I don’t do things for me very often. I work full-time. I am in school full-time. I am a wife, a mother, and a small business owner. That doesn’t leave much room for me. My mother-in-law often tells me, “You have to take care of yourself first, or you can’t take care of anyone else.”
All the stress and exhaustion from the inside out has been wearing on me. I’ve been finding it harder to smile, harder to laugh, and easier to be annoyed by anything and everything. I don’t truly confide in anyone, I don’t keep a journal, I don’t have as much time to do the things that relax me and make me happier. I try to be rational and remind myself of how much I have to be thankful for, and how incredible my family is. However, exhaustion takes its toll.
My mother-in-law’s words kept reverberating in my tired brain… I realized that I really need to start doing me. I did as much as I could for myself all at once over the course of a week:
- A nice long bubble bath
- A pedicure
- A trip to the hair salon to cut off about five inches and add some highlights
- A massage and some hot stones (I let my hubby join in that one by opting for a couples massage.)
Before we got to the massage part, I was actually able to open up to my other half that I haven’t been doing so well and have been trying to take care of myself. He knew something had been wrong, so it actually ended up doing both of us some good before we got to our couples massage. Doing me is good for everyone. 😉
Oftentimes as moms, we tend to forget to take care of someone very important while taking care of everything else – ourselves. We can’t forget this essential piece to motherhood survival. We all have various ways to take care of ourselves; we just have to find out what those are. So, for all you hard-working moms (at home and out), you can’t be good for anyone else if you’re not good for you.
Do you, mamas!