How We Care for Ourselves Matters

Do you have a morning or bedtime routine? 🌅🌜Maybe you go to the gym or have your own workout routine you do at home. 🏋️‍♂️🏃‍♀️You might plan your day down to the minute and use block scheduling. ⏰📅 Do you set reminders to get up from your chair while working? 🪑🔔 Do you journal or have a spiritual practice? 📖🧘‍♂️ Do you pray every morning or set daily intentions? 🙏✨

We all do something, right? But what happens when we’re in the moment and we can’t grab our journal, run a mile, meditate, or go outside to release the stress? What happens when our day doesn’t go as planned? How do we react?

I believe we have those routines and do the things we love to help us be more resilient, emotionally resilient. When we prioritize ourselves the majority of the time, it’s easier to manage the stressors we are experiencing. Whether those stressors are political, family, work, friends, spouses, kids, you know what they are—I don’t need to list them all here.

However, I will ask this again: what do you do in the moment? How do you nurture yourself in the moment?

To be honest, I thought I was pretty good at it, and over the last couple of months, I realized I wasn’t consistently caring for myself.

Self-Care, Shifting Beliefs, & Setting Boundaries

So, here’s what was going on for me right after the new year … I was working way too much. I wasn’t having much fun and I was barely enjoying my down time. About three weeks ago, my husband told me I was starting to work like I used to when I was working 40+ hour weeks and going to school part-time (at night) for my MBA. I was starting to stuff my emotions and over-work saying that this new project management client needed more help. But what was really happening was I was trying to “save” her business and avoid what I was feeling.

Like many of you, I don’t do well when I’m ungrounded, when I’m not using my healing tools, and when I feel like I’m being bombarded with news that goes directly against my core values.

I had to stop—just stop. I had no idea what was going to come next or how I was going to get out of it. I just needed to stop.
Stop the spiraling thoughts, the doom scrolling, feeling not good enough, pushing.
I needed to BE.

And then I needed to do the next best thing — actually use my self-connection and healing tools. I had to feel everything again (aka stop stuffing my emotions away with food, social media, or books).

From there, I leaned on my support network and set some boundaries.

Here’s what I did:

Signed up for additional sessions with my coach
Asked for more help with the kids
Initiated conversations with friends and family MORE (reached out more)
Carved out time for me to have fun by going to symphony concerts
Carved out more time for me to heal, to go deeper, and to give myself the time and space to become aware of and hear the messages my emotions and body aches had for me
Started doing more fun things with my husband, connecting after he gets home from work while the kids play, or drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and showing the kids how we prioritize our time together
Started talking to our kids about the importance of our alone and that we need to care for ourselves just like we care and nurture them
Reminded myself that rest IS productive

Then something really interesting happened. I have always had tools to help me in the moment but I felt like I needed to use them perfectly. And it hit me—I was carving out all this time to help myself which is great! I just forgot that how I feel in the moment is just as important if not more important.

I had to heal and shift some pretty big beliefs around being a mom. The one that was deeply latched inside and dictating so much of my day was that my identity is only a mom now. Not Laura, not a wife, not a sister, not a daughter, not a friend, not a colleague, not a musician, not curious, not fun, not radiant, not worthy—fill in the blank.

It hit me pretty hard and I am forever grateful for the extra support I have been receiving from my coach to help me work through these beliefs and also grateful for my loved ones and most importantly, ME. I am grateful for ME.

Not only did I stop, feel, and shift—I learned. I learned why I was frustrated, angry, sad, afraid—why I didn’t feel like myself. I was trying to save everyone else at the sake of myself.

✨ Mind you, this isn’t the first time I am going through this. I am just learning and healing on a much deeper level right now. Every time this comes back up for me, I grow more, I heal more, I learn more. I’m not going backwards, I’m evolving. I’m embracing all that is ME again and it feels really good. ✨

Rediscovering the Power of the Breath

While I was relearning how to nurture and care for myself in the moment, I was using my breath connection tool every day multiple times a day, sometimes 5 times an hour. I noticed it too was evolving to what I needed in the moment.

I first realized what I was doing when I was preparing to teach an overwhelm workshop to my free Protect Your Peace Community. Then I was using this In-the-Moment tool more afterward, and recognizing how powerful our breath truly is. The crowning moment was when I taught it to one of my current clients, a new mom—a new, overwhelmed mom. I walked her through a process and this In-the-Moment tool. Her face and her eyes looked softer, and I could really see her again. At the beginning of the session, she looked stressed and tired, which is 100% normal for a new mom (any mom).

While we can say being a mom is hard, wouldn’t it be great for us to have nurturing tools that allow us to care for ourselves when it does get hard? Instead of us just getting more overwhelmed and feeling like we aren’t ourselves anymore. Helping us work through the guilt that bubbles up when we get any inkling that we need more time for ourselves.

Embracing Vulnerability & Seeking Support

Not only did I need to stop and prioritize my self-care, I needed community. I reached out to my husband, friends, my brother, my parents, and connected with them on a deeper level. I was already communicating and chatting with them, but I needed more. I need to share that I was struggling. Struggling to me isn’t a bad thing, it doesn’t feel great, but it’s not bad. It just means I am out of alignment and there is an opportunity for me to move forward (heal, grow, nurture—fill in the blank).

We do not need to stay stuck when we struggle, we do not need to keep all the balls in the air—we need to ask for help AND receive the help we are asking for so that we can get unstuck and start working towards balance and thriving.

Being called a superwoman/supermom used to be a compliment for me.

Now, it’s out of alignment with who I am and how I live my life.

A compliment for me now is something like what I received from one of my best friends the other day. I’m sharing this with you because we all need someone like this in our corner. We all need someone who really sees us.

“You’re always awesome at [boundaries] though. I feel like that’s your ACTUAL super power. You used to run yourself down being super woman, but you’ve evolved so that now you’re great at recognizing when it’s too much and drawing boundaries and reorganizing yourself to fix it.”

It was so helpful to read this in a text from her. I immediately got chills and this knowing that I am good at caring for myself. Do I need the approval of others? No. This is different. This is validation and a reminder that the work I am doing is noticed by others which means it’s noticed by my kids too.

The Power of Leading by Example

I have noticed that our kids are still experiencing BIG emotions, meltdowns, and they’re not lasting as long. They aren’t asking for screens as much. They watch me stop and tell them that I need to calm down before I say anything. I reassure them that I’m not mad, I’m overwhelmed and I need to care for myself before I can help them. Then I sit there and breathe with my eyes closed, sometimes I’m holding one of them because they’re crying. However it happens, they’re watching me not let my triggers and emotions dictate how I react.

Today, our son told me his tummy was hot. This is his way of saying he’s nervous or overwhelmed. I get tummy troubles too when stressed. Immediately after saying his tummy was hot he said, “let’s go outside in the cold and breathe! It’s going to be so fun! I will breathe 6 times and you will breathe 4 times, okay?.”

You know what? It helped so much because we were having a tough day.

Then a couple times during the day, our daughter started singing this feel-good song I came up with, “I feel like I’m having a good day. Hey! Hey! I said I feel like I’m having a good day!” And she’s dancing while she sings, and we all chime in.

You know what? That helped too!

Then I saw this mom on Instagram and my heart came out of my chest. The following is as much for me as it is for her—for all of us.

A Message of Compassion for Every Mom (Care Giver) 💖

Dear fellow mama,

I just saw your reel where you said you’re in a stage where your babies need you more than you need yourself …

*Big breath out* I wanted to jump through the screen and give you a big hug. I see you. I hear you.

My babies are now 5 years old and 2.5 years old. I understand what it feels like to be the one your babies need in the middle of the night. The one they turn to with all their worries and problems. The one they turn to for all the snuggles and the struggles.

I understand that there are wonderful moments that keep us going when those rough patches get us down.

And those wonderful moments aren’t enough to overflow your cup. They don’t replace how you care for you.

You are worthy of being YOU.
You can carve out time for your needs — it’s necessary, it’s nurturing.
You can ask for and receive all the support you need and more.
You do not need to live your life like a squirrel in the road, reacting to everyone’s wants and needs.
You can slow down. You can even stop.
You can prioritize YOU.
You can have fun and play.
You 100% need yourself more than your kids need you.

That last one may be more triggering than the others. Hear me out. Your kids already love you. They adore you. They need your love, your calm, your clear thinking, and they need to see how you care for yourself because YOU are their model.

You teach them how to walk, talk, read, play, clean. You can also teach them about their emotions, their bodies, how to prioritize themselves and their own self-care. It’s not selfish, it’s necessary.

I’m not just talking about carving out time for naps, walks, alone time, or anything else you need to care for yourself. I’m talking about how you show up every single day—how you sit to eat, breathe through a difficult meltdown, stop and listen instead of blindly reacting, how you talk to yourself, and how you move in the world.

Yes, they need you. You need you too.

Please never forget how worthy, loved, and AMAZING you are.

Much love & compassion,
Laura

In-the-Moment