Where it Begins

What are you doing to take care of you today?  How are you treating yourself?  What are you saying to yourself?  

Once upon a time I was at a party at a friends house and this woman randomly found me in the kitchen pouring drinks.  I was a new mama.  Amelia was maybe a year old. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and lost.

She comes up to me and starts to talk about how I need to take care of me first.  Frankly, I thought she was completely nuts.  How in the world was I supposed to do that?  

My mom certainly never put herself first.  She ran herself ragged trying to meet all of our needs.  I was determined to be as selfless a mother as she was.  Only....I was extremely resentful.  I resented the loss of my youth.  I resented the loss of sleep.  I resented never having a second to myself.  

In fact, I was really, really angry at the time.  It was bubbling up from I didn't know where.  I was really terrible to myself back then, too, so I immediately took my troubled spirit as a sign of my weakness.  Work harder.  Do better.  That was my motto.  

This sincere albeit intense and overbearing woman was telling me just what I needed to hear, but it took several years, another baby, a changing lifestyle, and a breaking point for me to really start putting her good advice into practice.  

Within months I started to feel direction, and the lost feeling began to slowly drift away.   The dense fog turned into more of a misty haze.  Within a year I enrolled back in school to study religion, knowing full well that I was taking a step toward my purpose.  I was only there for a semester before we moved to this remote-ish village in MI last year, but it restored my self confidence, and reminded me that I was capable of excellence.  

By the time we moved here my self care was established as a necessary part of my life, and now, I know just how essential it is to my purpose here.  

I adore my mother.  Adore, Love, Appreciate, Honor.  I am ever grateful for her consistent presence.  

But I can feel and express that without doing exactly as she did.  

 >>My own way lifts me up and makes me a better mother than I could be otherwise.             
                      I Honor that.  


  >>My own way fills me with JOY.  
                    I adore that.  


  >>My own way is guided from the deep recesses of my soul, and by the spirit that 
                                                 fuels me.  
                                    >>Gratitude<<

  >>My own way allows me to shine.  
                        I love me and I love to shine.  

I would never have found my way if I hadn't started to take care of myself. 

I would never have started to take care of myself if I hadn't ask the big questions that changed my world.  

I desired change.  I desired happiness.

Boy did I get it.