8 ways to support your emotional and mental wellbeing as a mother
We all feel it. It may actually be one of the biggest challenges we face in motherhood… navigating the mental and stress load we hold as mothers.
We need to be everywhere at once. We need to tend to this sore knee and that argument over a toy. We need to hold thir big feelings, even though we aren’t quite sure how to hold our own.
I’m all for a toolkit of stuff to support our own healing and expansion in motherhood. Ultimately that’s what we want – we want to be able to get through the day without a major incident yes, but we want lasting change.
We want things to feel better and more connected – more often.
We want a softness and lightness to life – more often.
We want our own inner landscape to feel more spacious and less tense – more often.
It’s not about perfection, it’s about micro-changes that welcome in some of those more oftens.
Here is a list of 8 helpful ways to support YOUR EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL WELLBEING.
Because without the strong foundations of the mama bear, everything else feels wobbly.
1) TIME FOR YOURSELF: I know it’s hard, but we need to make this happen. There are roughly 84 ten minute time slots in our waking day, use them. Pause and sip on a tea. Sit outside in the sunshine whatever is your vibe. Let’s change the mindset that we can’t even find 10 minutes for ourselves!
2) FIND YOUR JOY: Look at your life and assess what, if anything, is bringing you joy. Of course, our kids do, but let’s look at this more broadly. What do you do for yourself that makes you happy inside?
3) HAVE HARD CONVERSATIONS: If you need help or aren’t feeling appreciated/supported then you need to say it out loud. Even just moaning about it to a girlfriend can help ease that frustration. Holding onto stuff fosters resentment and it depletes us.
4) SAY NO WHEN YOU CAN: Stop over-committing. We live the busiest lives mothers have ever had to manage. We are expected to do it all. But there are things we can place down to create space for ourselves and ease the stress.
5) GET REFLECTIVE: Often when we are stuck in a stressful or hard time, we avoid looking at the things that really can make change, because they do feel too hard. Reflect on your inner and outer world and get clear on what you really need/want.
6) JOURNALLING: I absolutely love journalling – of course partly because I’m a writer and I love words. But this actually wasn’t always the case, I learnt this tool many years ago and it has helped me move through, process and understand my inner world on a much deeper level.
7) LOOK AT YOUR PRIORITIES: A busy life can sweep us up and before we know it’s 12 months later and we are still doing the same old thing. What are your dreams as an individual? What are your dreams for your family? Make sure your stay in touch with your priorities and be mindful of how easily life sweeps us up and takes us away from these moments.
8) UNDERSTANDING YOUR OWN RED FLAGS: We talk a lot about how our bodies feel in our house (a supportive technique for our Autistic boys we learned years ago) and it made me realise we can be so disconnected from our bodies – and therefore disconnected from the red flags and warnings signs our bodies give us. Are we sensitive to sounds, more reactive, less patient? Do we feel sick, rundown or more fatigued than usual? Are we emotionally sensitive, picking fights, feeling resentful for small things? The warning signs are there, we just need to listen.
We don’t need perfection – we just need awareness. Life will never be perfect. There will always be rough edges. There will always be challenges. We will have moments in parenting where we hate the space we are parenting from. There will be days when it feels balanced, good and like we are killing it. It will always ebb and flow.
I think the greatest gift I ever gave myself as a mother, was permission to not be perfect. To know that I am just learning to be a mother and that this process never stops because we are growing alongside our kids as they grow up and face new challenges.
We don’t need perfection. Neither do they.
So focus on the small wins. Think about some of those micro-changes of awareness you can bring into your everyday life. I’m telling you, these little moments matter and they add up over time!