one day at a time

Today’s been a rather challenging day on the mom front. Driving to and from school and the gym and school and home, I’ve had several thoughts cross my mind. Mainly thoughts of things I’ve shared or written in the past and there was a moment where I thought, ‘those are all so lame, none of that stuff works anyways’. hahahahah.

It’s been one of those days that I rarely get this ‘deep’ in my own issues and let them overtake me and I let doubt creep into EVERYTHING. Along with that doubt, I swear the kids whine twice as much, end up hating going to the pool and complaining the whole time and then end up getting ‘grounded from playing outside with friends’. Which sometimes I think, ‘smooth move, Janica… that’s the one thing that let’s them outside and get their energy out and you just contained them inside’. But ya know… adulting and teaching them stuff or something.

Being a mom is hard. Being a single mom is hard. There I said it. And I haven’t ever wanted to say it. I feel like I’m ‘not allowed’ to say it because of some of my own crazy reasonings. I feel like if I ever openly ‘complain’ about it, all I would get is eye rolls and ‘she put herself in that situation so suck it up’. Apparently I’ve still got some false beliefs that need looking at 😉 But for reals, those are the thoughts that go around in my head. Wanting to share openly like I used to and then not. ‘I created this ‘hard’ so I get to deal with it and can’t ever share the ‘hard’ days’.

But days like today suck. They suck really bad. Days like this I just want to throw in the towel to EVERYTHING. I don’t want to try and build anymore business. I don’t want to share anything I’ve learned anymore. I want to get off social media completely and just pretend I never did any of it. Days like today I feel like I’m screwing my kids up. Days like today make it really hard accepting a lot of things. Days like today I wonder and question most everything that I am doing or reaching for and toward.

YET… even as I type this I know deep down it’s going to be fine. I’m not alone and I know I’m not the only one feeling like this today.

You know what days like today DO teach me? Admist me wanting to not learn or share anymore?! haha.

I don’t give myself enough credit. I don’t celebrate the little victories. I don’t have enough compassion for myself during the crap shoot days. I don’t practice what I preach on days like this. And THESE are the kinda days where doing those things consistently carry me/us through.

What is really having compassion for ourselves though? I never quite understood it until reading the book I randomly found at Barnes & Noble the other day, The Choice for Love by Dr. Barbara De Angelis. (Go get it like now)

Compassion basically, she says is being able to honor and accept our humanness. We get frustrated when we had an amazing day of growth and learning and then the next day we don’t want to get out of bed or we’re dragging our feet. We naturally beat ourselves for not being on that same high we just felt 12 hours ago. Having compassion is honoring that we’ll have highs and lows, ebbs and flows. And loving EVERY DAMN SECOND OF IT. Because it’s just what it is. We’re human. We take it a day at a time. BEING in the present of that day in time. Always asking ourselves… ‘how can I add more love into this situation? how can I be more compassionate towards myself or others today or in this situation?’

As I’m writing this I’m starting to see the wins of today. I sat down with Lydia at lunch when Ezra was asleep and Warren at school and we ate together. Then we danced in the kitchen together, then she sat down with my and we watched the last little bit of a show together. Then we went on a walk around our little neighborhood together.

THAT was a freaking win today folks!  That hasn’t happened in a while. One on one time. And I totally let everything else bypass how awesome that was for that to happen today. AND I woke up earlier than normal and made breakfast for the kids before they woke up. Albiet it was oatmeal 😀 but STILL. WIN!

AND I actually ate enough food today. (There’s more to that for another day)

I guess there is something to writing our thoughts and feelings out. Who knew ?! *shoulder shrug with a smirk

So my leaving thought for this post…. let yourself get into the thick of all the shizzz you’re feeling. ALLOW yourself to go there. After dinner, I got upset at my oldest said something snarky and went straight upstairs fell face first on my bed and started crying, running through my head everything that I first typed out on this post. I was done. I wanted to give up. Then I had the thought to start writing on my blog. It’s been a minute since I’ve posted and thought, why not. So I did. And now I feel tons better. hahah. Love it.

So allow the feelings of emotions. Let them come up when they come up. Cuz if you don’t…those suckers are gonna get suppressed and buuuillllld up until you just go cray cray one day… and who knows when and where and on who.

Then write it out or talk it out. Sometimes I’ve recorded how my day has gone and same thing… as I’m doing so thoughts and inspiration and feelings of how I can shift will come up and I’ll leave it feeling A TON better.

ALWAYS make a list of your wins each day. A lot of times our ‘insides’ are shifting a lot faster than our ‘outsides’ (conscious mind) and we get upset at that humanness and sometimes we don’t see the subtle shifts until we give light to them. THEN you realize.. OMG I’m not a complete waste today after all and that was pretty dang good what I did.

Some days totally rock and yes some days just royally suck. And that’s totally okay. You’re human. I’m human.

Just take it one day at a time.