We don’t usually post on Saturday but I wanted to share this very special video with all of you for Mother’s Day. It was made for our Missouri phone support program, Mother to Mother by students from Ladue High School in St.Louis and words can’t describe how touching it is. So, get the kleenex out and for all you do, this is for you.
Click on “What Is A Mother” to see this amazing video. A true gift to moms.
Living Self-Care: Body-Mind-Heart&Soul
To make self-care a lasting habit, we must redefine our priorities shifting our attention from what’s urgent to what’s truly important.
In Beyond the Eighth Habit, Steven Covey discusses four paths which correspond to the four aspects of health essential to self-care: body-to live; mind-to learn; heart-to love; and soul-to leave a legacy. If we devote time and attention to these, we will create optimal health, happiness, and life satisfaction, enhancing the lives of everyone around us.
Summary Suggestions:
1. Make your health and well-being a priority
2. Nourish your body with food, sleep, activity and rest.
3. Manage stress wisely.
4. Be a positive thinker.
5. Don’t make assumptions.
6. Accept yourself and others wholly.
7. Trust your inner guidance.
8. Nourish relationships with family and friends.
9. Respect yourself and others.
10. Do what makes your heart sing.
11. Practice compassion, kindness and forgiveness.
12. Connect with spirit through gratitude, service, and intention.
While we can’t control everything, we can create a life filled with health, happiness and purpose if we align our actions and thoughts with living self-care body, mind, heart and soul. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make it count!
Today is the final day of the Mother’s Day Self-Care Contest/Challenge. If you haven’t subscribed to our blog yet, register by 11:59 CT tonight t win our fabulous prizes. Thanks for joining us. Hope you’ll stay with us and keep Living Self-Care.
This past weekend, I participated in a training for Mother to Mother, our free volunteer phone support program for pregnant and post-birth moms in Missouri. One conversation which stood out for me was how surviving postpartum depression (PPD) can help us become stronger and more confident. Not that anyone would willingly choose this, but sometimes it chooses us.
Experiencing mild depression after my first baby, took me by surprise. After completing my doctoral degree, getting my psychology license, and seeing 30 clients a week, I thought I could handle anything. Certainly, motherhood couldn’t be more challenging. How wrong I was!
As a new mom I doubted myself about many things, including if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I felt incompetent, inadequate and that I wasn’t “good enough” to be the mom my daughter deserved. I thought sleep, self-care and sex were permanently gone. On bad days I was convinced life as I knew it was over and I’d be trapped in motherhood hell forever.
But gradually, the landscape changed. Surviving the ups, downs and uncertainties of new motherhood, I emerged feeling stronger and self-assured. More capable of meeting life’s changes. Empowered with renewed strength and confidence.
For all moms, including those with PPD, listen now to “The Princess Who Saved Herself. It is a reminder and affirmation that while others may help us through challenging and stressful times, making our way through the darkness is ultimately what saves us.
I was listening to a mother in our postpartum support group as she described small victories; she was recovering from postpartum depression (PPD) and was feeling good about herself and how far she had come. I wondered why more women don’t celebrate recovery and victory over depression, anxiety, grief, and other emotional challenges.
A few years ago while offering phone support, one mom mentioned that after recovering from PPD, her Mother-in-law said she didn’t like who she’d become. Why was that? What was different about her? She’d emerged a stronger, more confident woman, able to voice her needs and take care of herself. A well-fought victory! We laughed about her mother-in-law’s reaction and celebrated the woman she is now who is so different than when I first spoke to her.
After two personal experiences with PPD, I like the woman and mother I have become. I feel strong for fighting and winning against PPD, to date it is the most difficult thing I have experienced in my life. Now I ask for what I want and take care of my needs. I have self confidence in who I am and my abilities as a mother. That terrible experience molded me into the person I am today. Today, celebrate the woman you are becoming and have become!
Linda Meyer is the Executive Director of Mother to Mother in St. Louis, MO. Mother to Mother offers telephone and group support to women experiencing emotional difficulties during pregnancy and postpartum.
Bonding prenatally and after delivery creates a foundation for the parent-child relationship.
Here are some bonding tips:
Jamie Bodily is founder and director of ParentsCount. Jamie offers private and group “Happiest Baby on the Block” classes encouraging gentle baby calming for fussy babies. For more-www.parentscount.com.
The media creates images of perfect mothers such as June Cleaver and Claire Huxtabel. TV moms look perfect, have spotless homes, and great relationships. Magazine covers portray moms holding beautiful babies, breastpumps and briefcases who are perfectly made up. From such images women define their “shoulds” and “musts”creating unattainable standards of perfection and judging themselves for not keeping up.
The truth is that motherhood is hard work. As women become mothers and face the accompanying stressors and challenges, they often internalize their inability to cope flawlessly as personal failings. Add sleepless nights and fussy babies and it’s not hard to see why mothers lose confidence. When the idealized view of one’s self and motherhood collides with reality, they criticize themselves rather than recognizing how well they are doing given the endless expenditure of physical, emotional and mental energy that goes into caring for children. Pretty amazing!
Nuclear families encourage isolation, especially in the early days postpartum. Experienced mothers rarely discuss hardships inherent in mothering. No one wants to admit they felt less than adequate, irritable, anxious or depressed maneuvering new motherhood while this is true. Although the internet provides some connection, many moms lack the face-to-face support needed to see that everyone faces challenges and make mistakes. Supporting themselves and each other by acknowledging that motherhood is hard work and that perfection must be tempered by reality is what’s needed.
So, starting today cut yourself and the moms around you some slack. You’ve earned it. You deserve it!
Jamie Bodily is founder and director of ParentsCount which provides birth and postpartum doula services, childbirth education and counseling
As soon as a woman announces that she has a positive pregnancy test, everyone has their advice and questions on choices she must make. Will you have an epidural or not? Will you use cloth or disposable? and the list goes on. This myriad of opinions can feel overwhelming, confusing, and even irritating as a woman begins her journey towards motherhood.
Because women have been conditioned to nurture and please others, we agonize over choices, worrying we are going to hurt someone’s feelings by not doing it their way or that we will make a “wrong” decision and harm our children. Society exerts considerable pressure to conform and attain a level of perfection in mothering that is impossible.
But parenting is more of an art than a science. Intuition is as important as what experts say. Learning to be ourselves and accept our choices, whether they conform or differ from others, is an important part of the journey of becoming a mom. The ability to transcend the opinions of others and make our own best choices enables us to become the mothers our children need instead of anxious, guilt-ridden mothers subject to the popular opinions of the media or others.
Following our intuition means we must take time to know ourselves, to nourish ourselves and to trust ourselves; it means we must take time for self-care or the voices around us will drown our own.
Jamie Bodily is founder and director of ParentsCount which provides birth and postpartum doula services, childbirth education and counseling.
Cultivating healthy relationships and eliminating harmful ones is essential to proper self-care. Whether it’s with a spouse, child, parent, sibling, friend or co-worker, a healthy relationship is one that is characterized by RESPECT- for us and the other person.
This includes:
Good relationships (including with ourselves) are treasures. They must be nurtured. Make time for them. Cherish them. Enjoy them.
Today’s author is Mommie Kate. Visit her at http://faith4moms.blogspot.com/.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to express gratitude for what you are thankful for. While this tradition often gets buried beneath mounds of stuffing and mashed potatoes, Ann and I believe it’s an important practice to remember. So, we want to thank all of you for LIVING Self-Care with us and sharing your comments and lives. As our Thanksgiving gift to you, here’s a holiday song to enjoy with your pumpkin pie.
Please share it with all the moms you know to express your gratitude for them. And for other songbirds out there, send us or upload in the comments a video of you singing along, and we’ll put it up. Or if you have other original songs redone to holiday favorites, send us or upload in the comments a video of that. Who knows? It could be your ticket to fame (lol).
drdianesanford.com 