Articles – Page 3 – Master Mom Stress

4 Truthbombs for When Life Feels Out of Your Control

After everything I’ve been through to get back to feeling sane, I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’ve accepted the circumstances of life. Rather than gripe and complain about how much better life could be (or how much this mama would love a vacation), these days I try and focus on what I actually can control – which, come to find out, is a lot more than you might think.

As we get closer to it being one year since the COVID pandemic upended all our lives, I wanted to share with you today a few truthbombs to help remind you that you still have control over your life – even if it hasn’t felt that way. My hope is that by the end of this post, you’ll want to start to refer back to these truthbombs in your day-to-day life as a way to ground yourself anytime you begin to feel like life is getting out of your control.*

*This blog post is not meant for moms who feel severely depressed nor is it a substitute for help from a professional.

1. Lack is a myth. Your life is full of abundance.

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
– Eckhart Tolle

Abundance is a state of mind and I believe that our thoughts and beliefs can limit what we have or don’t have. When I discovered this, I had to shift my mindset from one of lack (there isn’t enough) to one of abundance (there is more than enough).

One area that I practice this is in my finances. When I pay my bills (which we all have to do) instead of feeling bitter about not being able to do fun things with it, I repeat this mantra, “I have more than enough money for everything I want.” At first, it felt fake to say it, but over time, it became less awkward.

Since I started doing this a few years ago, I always have more than enough money for not just emergency expenses, but to do things that I want to do. Even after a crazy work year in 2019, then the longest layoff ever in 2020, I still 100% live by this mantra. We have a sticky note on our bathroom mirror to remind us of this every time we wash our hands.

We might not have total control over how our finances look year after year, but we do have 100% percent control over how we feel about our financial situation. You do, too.

2. You can only control what’s right in front of you – not the future, or the past.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
– Buddha

Over time, I’ve realized that I react less and less to dramatic change or events. It’s hard for me to say exactly how I’ve evolved to this state (surely yoga and meditation have helped), but I think that controlling my focus on what’s in front of me, or what’s happening today, has been a key part of this.

Sh*t happens sometimes (as 2020 clearly reminded us). By focusing on the present moment, you’re putting energy and focus into something you can control – the here and now. After all, the only moment you have is right now.

Pay attention to how often your mind wanders to the past or future. When you catch it wandering away from right now, bring your attention back. Tell yourself something like, “Right now is perfect. There are no problems to solve right now.”

Our brains like to problem solve when we are stressed out. And it will turn anything into a problem just to try and solve it. Just be sure that you are only allowing your mind to mull over present circumstances. When I do that, I feel more in control.

3. Your reactions are in your control.

No one can make you jealous, angry, vengeful, or greedy – unless you let him.”
– Napoleon Hill

You’ve learned how to react to good and bad news by watching others as you grew up. But now that you’re grown, understand that you can choose to react differently. The way that you react to life is in your control. You can choose to shift your energy in a more positive direction. Just because something crappy happened to you doesn’t mean you have to allow yourself to explode into a frenzy (because you’ve seen others react that way).

Remember, your reaction affects you (and your body). Make a conscious effort to watch how you react to others and try not to allow yourself to react negatively. If you do react negatively, try not to dwell on what caused you to react for very long. Otherwise, you are giving over control of your emotions to something or someone outside yourself.

As a highly sensitive person, I know what it’s like to want to please everyone. And when something I do or say seems to have created a negative reaction, it’s difficult for me not to empathize. However, it’s important to not allow the feelings of others to influence my reactions. I constantly check in with myself to make sure that I’m staying true to myself.

4. No one else can control your thoughts, ideas, and dreams.

What you create internally is something that no one can take away from you. It is something of which you have an infinite supply.”
– Constance Wu

No matter what craziness is happening in the world (today or in the future), the one thing that the world can’t take away from you are the things you create with your heart and mind.

Creators far and wide are known for digging their heels into their creative work during times of stress and turmoil. For myself, brainstorming ideas and dreams for my future is a way to cope with chaos. I might not be able to control when life returns to normal, but I can control what I do with my creative thoughts, ideas, and dreams right now.

Aside from the creative work I do on this blog, I try and jot down as much of my thoughts and ideas on paper as I can. Otherwise, I’ll forget because of the usual mom-life distractions. This year, I have created permanent homes for my thoughts and ideas to live, like projects I’d like to complete, in my planner*, journals, or notebooks. I encourage you to start doing the same.

(*This Amazon affiliate link takes you to the exact planner I’m using this year to help me stay organized with all the things I have to do for my blog and around my house. This is my first year using a planner to help me stay on top of mom-life, and so far I feel less stressed since my to-dos are on paper rather than dancing around my head. Prior to using a planner, I considered myself someone who hated to-do lists. But now, I’m glad my to-dos are written down somewhere so that I don’t have to remember them. It’s also helped me stay focused. Read my full affiliate disclaimer here.)

Journaling my thoughts and ideas helps me to process things more clearly. It’s something that, over the years, has helped me feel more in control of my mental chatter. If you’ve never tried this before, journaling could be a great way for you to feel more in control of your life, too.

In summary

Hopefully one (or all four) of these truthbombs resonated with you today, mama. Next time you start feeling like your life is getting a bit out of control, remember:

Life is full of abundance and you have more than enough.
Right now is perfect and there are no problems for you to solve.
While you can’t control what happens to you, you can control how you react.
Your thoughts, ideas and dreams are always in your control.

Even with the best systems in place, feeling out of control will happen. This is just a normal part of life. And as with all other feelings, it isn’t permanent.

If after reading through these truthbombs you still feel like things are out of control, be kind to yourself. Talk to someone you trust or seek out help from a licensed therapist, especially if you’ve been feeling hopeless.

These 4 Bedtime Tips Will Help You (and Your Kids) End Your Day Peacefully

Self-Care

Just after the start of the 2019-2020 school year, while listening to an episode of the Melissa Ambrosini Show about blue light, I realized that my family’s bedtime habits needed to change.

When school started that year, I thought the early wake-ups would naturally shift all our circadian clocks into holy alignment and everyone would gladly fall into slumberland as soon as bedtime hit.

Ha! Yeah, freakin’ right.

Fresh off the summer months of whenever bedtimes, my daughters, then ages nine and five, would constantly squabble at 8 pm. The older one, ready to zonk out from a long day, always demanding the younger one to Just. Be. Quiet.

At the time, I didn’t have it in me to deal with the situation. I was solo parenting and the baby (who just turned one) was usually still awake. I needed to get her ready for bed. I didn’t have the patience to babysit the girls and get in the middle of their screaming matches.

I sometimes screamed back.

My son, then twelve, had a 10 pm bedtime, but he would routinely stay awake past that, oddly deciding then was the best time to rearrange his closet or practice his clarinet.

Really, dude?

Normally, I was lucky to get myself to bed before midnight.

With a shower.

Mostly, there was no shower.

I really missed having my husband around to help.

Anyway, listening to that episode on Melissa’s podcast made me realize that I was probably f-ing things up. Unconsciously, I was enabling their bedtime shenanigans.

You’d think I would have known what I was doing by now (’cause four kids), but clearly, I had no clue. (Or maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew better, but I was so exhausted from sleep deprivation, and breastfeeding, and solo-parenting that I just couldn’t think straight.)

These days, bedtime is much less chaotic. And it all started when I began practicing these four things in our bedtime routine so that everyone (myself included) could have a more peaceful (read: less stressful) evening.

1. Hey! Who turned out the lights?

One of the things I love about this house is the bright white recessed lighting.

I hate living in the dark. As soon as it’s morning, I fling open the curtains to allow all that beautiful, wonderful sunlight to stream in.

When it starts to get dark, I’m quick to flip on the lights.

At least, I used to be.

One of the things that I learned from that podcast episode was the effect artificial light, especially bright white lights, have on our circadian rhythm.

Our natural sleep rhythm, our circadian rhythm, regulates our sleep by making us sleepy when it’s night and waking us up when it’s morning.

However, many things, like artificial light, mess up that natural cycle.

Instead of signaling “time to sleep” when the sun sets, when we sit under bright lights in our homes after dark (as we often do), our body has a hard time figuring out if it’s time for bed.

Well, no wonder my kids didn’t want to sleep! All these dang lights were keeping them awake!

Luckily, I didn’t have to go out and change any light bulbs because I had enough lights in the house that already had yellow bulbs in them (range light, fridge water dispenser light, closets, ceiling fans, lamps, nightlights, etc.).

When it gets dark, I only turn on the yellow lights (also known as warm lights) and only keep on the ones I absolutely need.

The girls used to have either the bathroom or hall light on (white). It was only on until they fell asleep. I’ve stopped using those and instead flip on the yellow light of their closet, cracking the door open about 3 inches.

In my bathroom, I brought a nightlight over from my bedroom so that when I wake up for bathroom breaks (or the baby), I won’t need to turn on the bright as eff white lights to see.

I’ve made my son use a bedside lamp as his only light source before bed.

When I shower (which happens daily now that the baby is older), I only use the yellow light above the toilet instead of the white recessed light directly above the shower or the white vanity lights.

I think you get the picture.

It’s all about getting the ambiance lighting in the house conducive to falling asleep.

To summarize: white – no. Yellow – yes.

2. You gotta wear shades.

Three things: blue light glasses, iPhone night shift, and movie mode.

I bought a pair of blue light glasses in early 2019 because I found that when I spent a lot of time on my phone or laptop, I would get a headache.

Since getting them, I can’t even look at my devices without them for longer than a few seconds.

Crazy, I know!

If you listen to the podcast episode from Melissa, you’ll learn the science behind what blue light is and how it affects us.

But the mom version you need to know is this: the light from your devices is f-ing with your (and your kids) circadian rhythm.

While you wait for your pair of glasses to arrive (I bought mine from Baxter Blue), there are things you can do to help tone down the blue light – night shift (iPhone/iPad) and movie mode (your tv picture settings). On my kids’ Kindle Fire devices, it’s called nightshade, I believe.

I have my iPhone set to automatically switch into night shift mode between sundown and sunrise. And, with the iOS 13 update, Apple made it to where you can also set your phone to go into Dark Mode during that time, too.

I love it!

If you wear scripts, you can order a new pair with blue light blocking technology built into them like my husband did when he got his last pair of glasses. Just ask the staff at your optometrist’s office at your next visit.

Check your tv settings to see if it has an ambient lighting detection feature that adjusts the brightness down when the room is dark. This feature, combined with movie mode, helps wind things down in the evening.

3. You know I’m gonna say it.

I know you’re waiting for me to say it. I have to say it:

Electronics before bedtime is a big no-no.

We all know that.

But we don’t listen, do we?

So here’s what I’ve been doing: I stop my kids’ device viewing time about 45 minutes before bedtime.

I really thought I would get more push back, but I didn’t.

I think combined with the dim lights, the kids are already more zen and ready for bed anyway, so maybe that’s why.

(At this point, does it really matter why they are cooperating? I mean, hello!)

My son is allowed to read after device hours until he’s tired.

For myself, I’ve been (largely) ignoring my devices after 7:30 pm. I’ll only use it to play my daily yoga video (if I’m doing yoga in the evening like I normally do).

This was a big deal for me in the beginning because at the end of the day was typically when I used to catch up on social, email, tv shows, podcasts, blogging – you name it!

These days, I’m very disconnected from my phone, often going all day without logging onto social and I’ll realize it at the end of the day. But by then, it’s too late and my phone has already locked me out of those apps. There have been a few times where I’ve broken my own rule, but it doesn’t happen often. And the times that I do ignore it, I always regret it.

I realized quickly that my evening feed watching and email reading was wiring up my mind. Once my mind woke up, I felt like I wanted to tackle chores and other to-dos.

Not the ideal time of day for someone like me, who is highly sensitive, to do a bunch of simulating things before bed.

So what are you supposed to do instead of browsing Instagram on your phone?

Because, here’s what I always keep in mind:

When you remove a habit, you must replace it with something else.

Otherwise, you’ll just be left with this giant gaping hole of time that you’ll feel the need to fill. (And something tells me you won’t fill it by folding that pile of laundry you washed three days ago. Just saying.)

Use the new time to think about things that you’ve been wanting to do, but never felt you had the time for. I think most people wish they read more, so maybe start there.

Other relaxing before bed activities could be coloring, journaling, meditating, or my personal favorite – bedtime yoga.

4. Did someone say bedtime yoga?

For me, I’ve been doing daily yoga since the beginning of 2021, and most of the time, my yoga happens while my husband is getting the girls down for bed.

I currently follow a yoga calendar from Yoga with Adriene, which helps me avoid spending a ton of time trying to pick a yoga video from her massive YouTube library. But before I did that, I would select more relaxing videos if I was practicing right before bed.

What makes bedtime yoga different? The movements and postures for bedtime yoga are more relaxing, less taxing on the body. No downward dog here.

These days, the baby doesn’t sleep in my bedroom, but for the longest, I didn’t want to do yoga in my room after she fell asleep. I didn’t want to disturb her (she was a light sleeper and boob drinker, which meant she could smell my presence).

But when she was still sleeping in my room, I realized wearing headphones somewhat solved that problem. Not sure why I didn’t think of that sooner!

Studies have proven that yoga helps promote relaxation and it reduces stress. So adding relaxing poses to bedtime just makes sense for anyone looking to wind down after a long day of staying home with the kids. Simply seek out “yin-yoga” or “bedtime yoga” videos.

I don’t miss checking emails before bed. (I’ve accepted that my Inbox, like my kitchen sink, will never, ever be empty for long.)

Ready for bed?

Since listening to that podcast episode from Melissa, a lot has changed in our house at bedtime. We

only use warm lighting after dark
take advantage of blue light glasses and screen filters
stop screentime within 45 minutes of bedtime
practice calm activities before bed, like bedtime yoga, journaling or reading

Establishing an evening routine with these four things has made a huge difference in how relaxed I feel before going to bed. As a mom, bedtime battles were the single largest stressor in my evening, and with these steps, that stress is practically none existent. Sure, the baby doesn’t always fall asleep right away and she tests us now that she’s in a toddler bed and is free to roam around. But overall, evenings are much calmer these days.

Who knew a few simple tweaks to my evening could do sooo much good for my stress levels?

Are you ready to try these bedtime tips for yourself and your family?

I’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts, ideas, and bedtime tips in the comments below or shoot me a DM on Instagram.

I did yoga every day for thirty days. Here’s what happened.

Life Lessons

In mid-December 2020, when I first learned about Yoga with Adriene’s Breath: A 30 Day Yoga Journey, I knew right away that I wanted to be a part of it. What I didn’t know was just how transformative it would prove to be.

In today’s post, I’ll let you in on how it felt to go through her thirty-day yoga journey as I share the feelings and emotions that came up for me throughout the journey. By sharing my experiences, I hope that you’ll be inspired to take your own thirty-day yoga journey.

Two-Weeks Pre-Journey

I. Caught. COVID-19.

Yeah. THAT happened. And one of the first thoughts I had was, “Great, I’m already going to have to back out of my thirty-day yoga commitment before it even begins.” While sick, I didn’t practice any yoga or any type of activity that didn’t involve lounging around in my pajamas. Thankfully, I never fell horribly ill and by the time January 1st rolled around, I felt well enough to return to my yoga mat.

Take that, COVID!

30 Days of Yoga: Week One

Just before noon on day five of my yoga journey, I was alarmed by a pain in my chest. This was a new pain I’d never felt before and it scared me enough to spike my anxiety and heartrate. I immediately rushed to my doctor.

Under her direction, I went to the emergency room. I was released a little after sundown, with the diagnosis of costochondritis – a lingering inflammation symptom of many COVID patients and those with other respiratory colds or infections.

Relieved that it wasn’t anything worse, I still managed to step onto my yoga mat that evening, knowing full well that if I felt uncomfortable, I could always stop. That practice felt amazing. I spent the entire time thinking how wonderful it is to be alive.

FU, costochondritis!

30 Days of Yoga: Week Two

By day 14, having never completed that many days of yoga in a row, I started to get emotional for no reason and felt anxiety rise up in my throat and chest. Knowing that I tend to carry stress in my shoulders, I wondered if all the yoga was triggering an emotional release similar to what I experience the day after a good massage. That morning, I decided to do a tapping meditation to see if it would help. It led me to cry my eyes out.

2020 was an extremely emotional and stressful year for me (as I’m sure it probably was for you, too). During this second week of yoga, I started to think that maybe all the heart-opening poses were peeling away layers, with each layer shed allowing for deeper emotional healing.

I realized then that this yoga journey was much more than just getting back in touch with my breath. For me, it was becoming a way to release stress, stresses that I didn’t realize I was still carrying.

30 Days of Yoga: Week Three

The day after I cried, I had this to say over on Instagram:

I’m proud of myself for making it through 14 days of yoga! Today is day 15 (out of 30) and I feel giddy.”

That day, the start of week three, I asked the Yoga with Adriene “Find What Feels Good” community about my experiences over the first two weeks and others shared with me that they, too, felt the same way. I wasn’t alone.

I started the yoga journey because I thought it would be a fun way to challenge myself, to develop a healthier relationship with my breath, but I never thought about the emotional component of it. I’ve never been one to feel any sort of emotional breakthrough on the mat, so that was a whole new experience for me.

On day 15, I felt like a heavy cloud had been lifted. I didn’t even realize how dark I’d been walking around until that day. Yoga was turning out to be extremely therapeutic.

30 Days of Yoga: Week Four

On day 24, I felt extra giddy. It’s unusual for me to feel so cheerful, so when I’m like that, I always notice.

On days 23 and 24, my downward dogs started to finally feel like I was doing them right! I’ve always known that you’re supposed to grip into your fingertips, but I’ve always felt like my weight was always just going into my wrists. I never knew how to correct it. But then, it corrected itself on day 23. I thought, “Whoah, so THAT’S what it’s supposed to feel like.“

By this point in the journey, I’d felt incredibly proud of the progress I’d made and I started noticing little things shift for me while off the mat (like sitting up straighter and being able to lift my leg in the shower to shave with ease). I was pumped to see how the final week was going to play out!

On Day 24, in the “Find What Feels Good” community, we were asked:

Are you finding that your yoga practice is spilling off your mat and into your everyday life, either in small ways or big ways?”

My answer: “I’m definitely more energetic, not in the sense that I’m bouncing around as though I drank too much coffee, but in the sense that my mood is lighter and so I’m mentally wanting to be more productive (a big difference compared to most of 2020).“

I still feel that way today.

30 Days of Yoga: The Final Days

On day 28’s practice, the theme was “Heal.” I thought nothing of it when I was on the mat. I just did my 20 minutes of yoga before bed, and turned in for the night.

Then, a crazy thing happened.

Laying in bed, about to fall asleep, I randomly thought about an event that happened to me in 2009 and I started crying. It caught me off guard.

“Why the eff am I thinking about this and crying about this right now? That was so long ago. What the heck?”

Then, I remembered that day’s yoga theme: heal.

Crap. Apparently, it was time to shed another layer and heal another emotional wound.

I thought about what I could say to the Lauren of 2009 to help her heal. So I told her the truth: “You did nothing wrong. You are an honest person. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t your fault.”

When I first started crying, I thought, “Oh, Lord, I’m going to be crying forever!” But as soon as I told myself those words, my crying slowed down, I took a deep breath, inhaled lots of love in, exhaled lots of love out, and I fell peacefully to sleep.

30 Days of Yoga: The Last Day

Anxious to know what day 30 was going to be (because until then, we didn’t have information other than the word “BEGIN”), I checked my email first thing in the morning (something I NEVER do) and looked for an email from Adriene. She explained that, for day 30, she would take off her mic and would practice yoga alongside us.

This should be interesting.

And it was interesting. I tried to predict what our next move would be and most of the time, I was right. Sometimes, I was in sync with Adriene, other times I was a few beats behind. The whole time, I kept mentally hearing Adriene say, “inhale lots of love in, exhale lots of love out.”

What was the most shocking to me though, for that final practice, was how I about lost it and nearly boo-hoo cried (in a good way) during our first mountain pose. I don’t know if it was because of the energy of the pose or the playlist she selected for that day’s practice. I really don’t know. But, it was a new experience for me. Because, like I said before, I’m not usually one to get emotional ON my mat. And even if I did, mountain pose would be the last place I’d expect that to happen.

Of course, I really almost lost it just before we said “Namaste.” I know that was 100% because I could tell Adriene was about to lose it herself. I’m pretty sure she sat there crying afterward. Bless her heart. I loved doing her yoga videos before this journey. And now, I just love her.

My Final Thoughts

I did yoga every damn day for thirty days.

I did that! Yes, me.

I don’t think I’ve ever committed to doing anything for thirty days (before you think it, marriage and having kids don’t count). I’m usually the one who says I hate routines and doing something for thirty days sounds pretty damn routine. However, it never felt routine because I never practiced at the same time every day. And each video was different, no two ever felt the same.

To think that around this time last year, I was still only doing diastasis recti safe yoga poses and workouts. I never thought that I’d be sitting here today, able to hold a plank for longer than every member of my household (yes, we had a friendly, family competition). I can lift up my six-year-old now without even thinking twice about it. My core feels strong!

Physical accomplishments aside, I feel similar to how I felt after the first time I delivered one of my kids without any pain medications – I feel like a superwoman! Unstoppable. Unbreakable. (Is that a Carrie Underwood song?)

I feel…

… inspired to take on more 30 day challenges.
… like all the yucky stress from 2020 has been sweated out, cried out, and released.
… excited about the future (though still very uncertain).

Most notably, I have hope.

I’m pleased to report that I’m still doing yoga every day. By the time this post goes out, I will have been doing yoga for 38 days. My hope is that I can continue to use a yoga calendar (like the one Adriene put together) to help me stay consistent with practicing yoga every day.

While I’ve always been a fan of yoga since discovering it to help manage pain, I’m now officially obsessed. (I’m going to have to go buy more yoga pants.)

My hope is that by continuing my daily yoga practice, I can prevent stress from permeating into all cracks and crevasses of my life. Yoga can be a key part of my preventative medicine rather than something I only turn to when I want to workout.

Thank you, yoga and Adriene, for helping me let go of the old so that I can make room for the new.

Interested in Doing Yoga for 30 Days?

If you think you might want to try doing yoga every day for thirty-days like I did, you can learn more about Yoga with Adriene’s “Breath: A 30 Day Journey” here.

If you decide to participate, let me know so I can cheer you along! If you’ve already completed Yoga with Adriene’s Breath, I’d love to hear how your experience went. Drop your comment below or sent me a DM on Instagram.

You can find Yoga with Adriene on YouTube here and her Instagram here.

4 Easy Ways to Add the Stress Reducing Benefits of Essential Oils into Your Self-Care Practice

Self-Care

Adding essential oils to my self-care practice was the last thing on my mind when I was in my early days of chronic stress recovery. In fact, I used my stressful state of mind as an excuse not to try essential oils. The idea of adding one more thing (that thing being research) to my already long to-do list gave me a headache.

I just didn’t have the mental energy.

But eventually (and rather unintentionally), I added essentials oils into my life. And then a few years ago, I finally did some research, and began intentionally added more oils into my life.

Ever since then, essential oils have been a staple in my self-care practice. If you’ve been wanting to add them into your day-to-day, too, keep reading to learn exactly how I started using essential oils in my own self-care routine.

What are essential oils?

Before I get into the details of how I began adding essential oils into my self-care routine, let me briefly explain what essential oils are and the benefits of using essential oils as a way to reduce stress (in case you aren’t sure if they’re right for you).

As defined on the Rocky Mountain Oils website,

…essential oils are concentrated, liquid plant extracts used for aromatic and wellness purposes. They are called “essential” because they contain the essence of a plant. Essential oils come from a variety of plant sources, including flowers, grasses, fruits, roots, trees, and leaves.”

One of the things I didn’t know when first researching essential oils was that the use of essential oils is a treatment known as aromatherapy. Silly, I know. I’d heard of the term aromatherapy before, but just never connected the two. I’m sure I’m not the only one. *face palm*

According to this article from WebMD, the goal of aromatherapy is to improve your health and well-being. I find the science pretty fascinating!

Basically, the right blend of essential oils can help send messages to your brain and tell it what to do. In my situation, I was looking for oils that would help tell my brain to calm the eff down.

Why it took me so long to try essential oils

But, as I said in the beginning, getting started with essential oils was very intimidating for me. First, there’s the fact that there are SO many types of oils and blends (not to mention just as many companies selling them).

Also, it just seemed far too complicated and time-consuming to learn something new – at least to my then super stressed out mind.

So, I did what many people do when faced with too many choices – nothing.

I froze. Plus, as a highly sensitive person, I just don’t do well with decision making, so you can imagine why having all those options paralyzed me.

Instead of charging into the unknown during a time when I was already overwhelmed by so much, I accidentally added essential oils into my life in other ways.

Here are two ways that I accidentally incorporated essential oils into my self-care practice, plus two additional ways I intentionally added them (after I did my research and found a company I trusted).

1. I swapped out my personal care products.

In the summer of 2017, I read about something called parabens and the connection between them and my hormones.

Convinced that parabens could have been playing a factor in my follicular cysts, one of the very first things I did was eliminate all parabens from my face wash, shampoo, and body wash. In doing so, I inadvertently added essential oils into my life because many products on the market that don’t have parabens have essential oils in them.

Win-win, right?

2. I tried new cleaning products.

Still trying to correct an imbalance, I took things one step further by setting out to eliminate all household chemicals.

That’s when I found a bottle of Mrs. Meyer’s on the shelf in Target. (Okay, so there wasn’t a woman named Mrs. Meyer’s sitting on the shelf in Target – in case that’s how you read that.)

If you aren’t familiar, Mrs. Meyer’s uses essential oils in all their cleaning products. I’ve tried most of their line, but my favorite switch has been to their Honeysuckle, Basil, or Rosemary scented dish soap. (During Christmas time 2020, I tried and fell in love with their seasonal Peppermint scent.)

By switching my dish soap to one with essential oils, I turned standing at the kitchen sink into a mini mental retreat. Since 2019, I buy Mrs. Meyer’s (as well as most all my other clean personal care and household products) through my Grove Collaborative membership*.

*I am an affiliate with Grove and if you place an order through my link here, I will make a small commission for referring you. You can read my full affiliate disclosure here.

3. I began adding a few drops to my bath water.

Eventually, a friend recommended Rocky Mountain Oils as a source she trusted to buy her essential oils. Packaged in little dark colored glass bottles, one of the first oils I bought to calm myself after a stressful day was lavender oil. I like to add a few drops to an Epsom salt bath. The bathroom smells like lavender for hours! And I always come away feeling relaxed. Lavender oil is a great oil to start with because of the current research backing the claim that lavender oil reduces stress and anxiety. To learn more about the benefits of lavender oil, check out this detailed article from Dr. Axe.

4. I tried roll-on essential oils.

Pretty quickly, I realized that it’s not safe to use essential oils directly on the skin without first either adding it to water (like in the bath or diffuser) or to a carrier-oil (like coconut). Hence, the simplest way to apply oils directly to your body is to get a roll-on. Roll-on essential oils are either a blend of different oils or a single oil. Rocky Mountain Oils make them in 10 ml tubes that resemble the size of a tube of lipstick or lip-gloss. Because they are already diluted, all you do is grab the tube, unscrew the top, and touch the ball to your skin and roll. How easy is that! I like using roll-on oils instead of using perfume.

To recap, here are the 4 easy ways you can add essential oils to your self-care practice:

Swap out your personal care products
Test some essential oil cleaners
Add a few drops to your bath water
Save time with roll-on essential oils

Since adding essential oils to my life in these ways, I get to experience mini mood lifts throughout my day (especially considering how many dishes need washing in my household of six).

Sometimes, the smell of the oils lift me up a lot, other times only slightly. The effects sometimes last a long time, while other times it only lasts a few minutes. Regardless, I enjoy being surrounded by great smelling (non-toxic) things and I’ll continue to include essential oils as part of my self-care practice to help reduce stress for as long as it continues to bring me joy.

Hopefully you’ll experience similar benefits after adding essential oils to your self-care practice, too.

Love & light,

3 Reasons Meditation is Oh, So Good For Helping Moms Cope with Stress

Self-Care

Meditation (something I’ve practiced irregularly since 2016) has been a key component in helping me cope with not only the stresses of life but the stresses of motherhood.

Without meditation, my brain (which, I’ll admit, has taken a beating since having children) simply wouldn’t function how I need it to.

And I wouldn’t have the mental bandwidth to be writing to you today. That, I know for sure.

And just so that we’re on the same page, I’m going to assume that if you’ve decided to take a few minutes to read a post titled “3 Reasons Meditation is Oh, So Good for Helping Moms Cope with Stress,” then you’ve probably already decided that meditation is something to seriously consider adding to your own life.

Certainly, there are numerous reasons why meditation is great for you – not just three. And while I’ll be the first to admit that even I still struggle with being consistent with it, meditation still remains a helpful tool I use to help me cope with stress.

Today, I want to speak (err…write) to the meditation benefits I’ve experienced in my own life as a stay-at-home mom of four.

But before I begin, I need to share a little back story.

I started my meditation practice when I was at what I consider my “rock bottom,” a time when I felt deflated, unmotivated, and (dare I admit it) a little depressed.

I’d undergone years of stress while solo-parenting (two and a half years, to be exact), and, at the time, I didn’t quite understand that my lack of stress management and self-care contributed to the decline in my mental and physical health.

I simply didn’t know any better.

But my life changed once I started meditating.

And because adding meditation at that time of my life became a pivotal turning point in my own journey towards stress healing, in this post, I want to share 3 reasons why every stay-at-home mom out there should consider using it as an effective coping strategy, too.

Reason # 1: Meditation gives you a break.

How often do you take a break, mama? I’m seriously asking because there is this cultural message that says that we stay-at-home mamas just go-go-go and never get to rest.

Like, it’s expected that when someone asks us how we are doing, that we’ll respond with words like “busy” or “tired.”

While it’s true that certain stages of parenting are busier than others, that doesn’t mean we should be productive during all our waking hours.

In fact, it’s counterproductive. Without breaks in your long days at home with your kids, you’ll only lead yourself to exhaustion – which means less energy to tackle that ever-growing to-do list.

A quick meditation break during your day (no matter when it happens) would allow your brain the chance to recharge and recover.

Because when we aren’t giving our brain something to focus on, it can perform subconscious tasks that aid with memory retention and alertness.

The world is a very stimulating place, especially in today’s world. Breaks give your brain a chance to catch up and process everything that it’s been absorbing.

If we don’t give our brain those opportunities, it can lead to exhaustion, burn-out, and brain-fog.

(Side note: Remember, I’m not an expert. These are just things that I’ve learned and noticed while trying to understand how my body handles stress.)

Reason # 2: Meditation reduces anxiety.

According to Anxiety.org, “anxiety is the mind and body’s reaction to stressful, dangerous, or unfamiliar situations.”

Normally, I feel anxious when the future is uncertain. If you get anxious often, you totally understand, as I do, the countless “what if” thoughts that tend to spiral in your mind.

So often, when we’re anxious, we walk around thinking about what just happened or what potentially could happen (and we always think up the worst-case scenario).

With meditation, it might seem like you aren’t dealing with your feelings of anxiety head-on, but your brain is absolutely doing some rewiring to help.

The act of constantly bringing your attention and focus back to your mantra, breath, or whatever your guide is asking you to focus your attention on (if it’s a guided meditation), that is the meditation practice. You are rewiring your brain to think and behave differently.

You might feel like a failure for letting your anxious thoughts pop up during your meditation, but as soon as you acknowledge their presence, you are setting habits into motion that will ultimately translate into less anxiety when you aren’t meditating.

One day, you’ll notice that you don’t allow yourself to go down the rabbit hole of “what if” scenarios for very long before catching yourself. Then, you’ll consciously choose to pivot to focus on the present (instead of thinking anxiously about the future).

Having this play out in my own life has been remarkable. I’ve noticed a major shift in my mindset, and I have meditation to thank for it.

3) Meditation better prepares you for handling stressful moments.

Here’s what happens after practicing meditation enough times that your brain has rewired itself enough: you’ll feel like you’re able to mentally bounce back quicker from stressful moments and react to them more calmly.

It happens because you’ve put in all the practice of bringing your focus and attention back (bringing it back, and bringing it back some more). Suddenly, as you go about your day and something stressful disrupts it (say your toddler dumps out the entire box of Cheerios on the pantry floor (true story)), once the stressful thing is dealt with or the “danger” has passed, you’ll be able to bring your focus and attention right back to carrying out the rest of your day. Your body will be able to return to normal quicker because there’ll be a shorter blip of cortisol pumped into your system due to spending less time thinking about the stressful event.

Before I started meditating, I’d have a difficult time recovering from the stress I’d just faced. It could possibly take days or weeks for me to come down from the adrenaline overload.

However, whenever I keep up with my meditation practice, I can dive back into life quicker, which helps me feel happier and much less bogged down.

Okay, let’s quickly recap the 3 reasons why meditating is good for moms:

Meditation gives you a break.
Meditation reduces anxiety.
Meditation better prepares you for handling stressful moments.

I know that when I first started out, I was skeptical, but remember: I was at a point in my life where life felt heavy. For me, meditation was the only thing that seemed like it would require the least amount of effort.

I mean, you just sit there with your hands on your legs and do nothing! That sounded easy enough!

I’ll never regret starting my meditation practice in 2016. It’s done wonders for helping me master the stresses of being a mom and I’m pretty dang sure that a meditation practice can help you in a similar way, too.

My hope is that this post has helped you come to a better understanding of how meditation can benefit your life as a mom.

Love & light,

PS I hope you enjoyed this post! If so, let me know! Also, feel free to share this with fellow mama’s! You never know who might be looking for this information.

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3 Simple Steps to Help You Recover From Long-Term Stress (AKA 2020)

Self-Care

In 2016, when my two and a half year stretch of solo-parenting ended and I had my husband home again, I felt like my insides had been hollowed out.

The week before he came home, my mom tried to console me by saying that I just missed my husband and that I would feel better when he came home.

I’d made the incorrect assumption (probably based on her statement) that as soon as the stress of solo-parenting came to an end, that I would instantly feel “normal” again.

But I didn’t.

Instead, it took me a solid six months of time to recover from the stress of those years – which is apparently totally normal.

Hence, I’m fully aware that recovering from the stresses I faced in 2020 is going to take some time. But, I’m older, wiser, and my toolbox is fuller than it was in 2016. So, I’m hopeful that I can recover faster this time.

But it won’t happen overnight.

Recovering takes time

What’s something challenging that we can all agree takes time to recover from?

Perhaps alcohol abuse, for example. Would you assume that an alcoholic can give up drinking and suddenly feel amazing?

No, you wouldn’t.

You understand that there is a sobriety process that takes place. The body of an alcoholic will go through a detox period, a period which could feel much worse than if they were to just pick drinking back up.

The same happens when we experience long-term stress.

When we undergo long-term stress, our bodies get used to a steady drip of cortisol – days, weeks, months, or years. No matter the duration of the stress, a dump of hormones for an extended period of time will throw your body off balance. When that drip stops (when your body has sensed the stressful danger has passed), your body will still have stress hormone to deal with. It doesn’t just magically disappear.

I’ve learned that, just like an alcoholic’s recovery, I have to have patience (and sometimes take action) in order to restore balance to my body.

In this post, I’ll share 3 simple steps (adapted from my own experiences) for how to help your body recover after a period of long-term stress (aka 2020).

See a therapist.

If you feel like you’re coming up for air for the first time in a while, therapy could be a great place to start for helping you recover from a period of long-term stress.

During stressful times, our nervous system works overtime – dumping extra doses of cortisol – because our body thinks our life is at stake. We enter “fight or flight” mode. And if this goes on long enough, it can lead to emotional exhaustion.

According to this article from Healthline:

“Anyone experiencing long-term stress can become emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. In difficult times, emotional exhaustion can sneak up on you, but it’s never too late to get help.”

If you think you could be emotionally exhausted (and who isn’t after 2020?) and can’t talk to a trusted friend or family member, I’d highly recommend seeking out the help of a licensed therapist. A friend or therapist can help act as a sounding board for the stresses you’ve been experiencing.

Take a break.

Because you want to encourage your body to return to a calmer state, the last thing you want to do after a period of stress is to add more stress than necessary.

Give yourself permission to do a whole lot of nothing. Let go of productivity expectations around the house. Order take-out for dinner so you don’t have to cook. Put someone else in charge of the laundry (or just put it off as long as possible).

Everyone’s situation is unique. And the type of stress you were under will determine how your break looks.

In the situation where I wasn’t parenting alone anymore, I took a break by taking a step back in my parenting role. I could have easily just pretended like my husband wasn’t home to help, but I didn’t. I allowed him to take over in many areas and I leaned on his presence to help give myself the break I desperately needed away from the stress of raising our kids.

Release any built-up stress.

This might sound a little woo-woo, but when we undergo stress, we sometimes store some of those stressful emotions in our bodies. They get there because, during the period of time that we were stressed out, we failed to address our emotions as they came up. Instead, we stuffed them down to deal with later.

Well, it’s later.

Here is a list of several methods you can use (aside from therapy) that might help you release them:

EFT tapping
Meditation
Yoga
Massage therapy
Reiki (a form of energy healing)
Chakra balancing

All of these methods can help you discover and release old emotions that you’ve been hiding in your body.

I’ve done all of these and use many of them regularly for preventative care. Because I’m also an empath and highly sensitive person, it’s extremely important for me to release leftover emotional baggage (especially if it isn’t even my own).

I know it’s easier to just walk away from stressful experiences and not revisit their impact. But, if you want to recover faster, I strongly recommend doing something to help you release any emotions you might be unknowingly holding on to.

But I’m not an expert.

I can only speak from my own experience, and I know that these strategies for releasing built-up emotions have helped me recover from times when I’ve been chronically stressed.

One of the first things I did when recovering from the stress of those solo-parenting years was to try meditation, yoga, and Reiki energy healing. While yoga and meditation helped to stretch my mind and body, Reiki helped turn things around for me emotionally. If you’re highly sensitive or an empath, you might find that starting with energy work might be the quickest way to feeling better, too.

Recently, to recover from the stress of 2020 specifically, I found Yoga with Adriene’s 30 day Breath practice to be extremely therapeutic. I was able to release a lot of residual anxiety trapped in my shoulders and heart chakra space. You can find all the videos for #YWABreath over on Adriene’s YouTube channel.

Whatever you do, be kind to yourself

Whether you choose to see a therapist, take a break, or release all your built-up emotions, just make sure that you take the time necessary to properly recover from whatever long-term stress you’ve recently faced.

In America, we live in a culture where even proper childbirth recovery isn’t accepted. We put an artificial timestamp of six weeks for post-partum recovery and expect that a woman is going to feel like her pre-pregnancy self by then.

Um, wrong!

True recovery from childbirth AND from long-term stress (such as what we faced in 2020) takes time. And only you can tell whether you’ve recovered or not.

Don’t allow society to push you when you aren’t ready yet. Take as much time as you need, mama. The world will keep spinning until you’re back on your feet.

Love & light,