Give yourself a break, you’re doing the best you can!

Here is a post I wrote for Portlebay Popcorn's blog.

I`m a wife and mum of two beautiful boys and sometimes in the fast pace of everyday life I forget that I`m doing the best I can. It’s so easy to get bogged down and see the negative side of life when we are constantly viewing it as an uphill struggle. It’s also very easy to feel guilty about dedicating time to ourselves so we can actually focus on our own well-being for a short amount of time.

To enable me to be the best person I can be, I need to ensure I am the best I can be and part of this is giving time to myself. I have to admit that when I am worn down, stressed or fed up I know I take it out on my husband - he gets the wrath of me. Totally unfair and unjustified and I again feel so guilty for snapping at the most insignificant things. Part of my journey 'back to nature' is to focus on developing myself (and my family) as a well-rounded individual and to do this, I need to begin taking more me time and not feeling guilty about doing so.

This time to yourself is so important and we all need to be providing time to ourselves. Not only is it important to focus on ourselves, it provides us time to relax, focus on regaining our strength, doing something we enjoy and to relish in a different side to everyday life. So why do we feel so guilty when we have this time?

Part of it I due to the negative stigma provided by society which affects how we perceive ourselves and the other part of it is our busy lives eat away at our time that the most important piece of TLC gets put at the back of the queue as we feel that it’s not a priority.

How many of us think about our mind, body and soul?

Not many right?

Twice a week I take part in physical activity as something that is ‘just for me’. Sport has played an integral part of my life, particularly when I was younger and without it, sometimes I wonder what I would have done. Now I know I'm lucky, I had a positive experience with fitness, competing, pushing myself and sweating (which we all do). Every time I play I end up bright red, exhausted and will have lost a considerable amount of water through sweating, but my body will feel so much better than if I`d have stayed at home and lounged on the sofa. However, being older with my working days and with the introduction of children into my life, physical activity seems to be put aside on the priorities list along with time to myself - I'm not the first and I definitely will not be the last. At first I felt guilty about leaving my boys for 90 minutes on an evening to do something I enjoy, but why? I work 37 hours a week (and the rest), when I get in my work doesn’t stop there – housework, cooking, looking after my family etc. takes over so when do I actually get a rest other than when I sleep? I got to the point where I needed to give myself a reality check and admit that I actually needed a break from life as I know it because without it I wouldn’t be as physically or mentally healthy as I am today. For this to happen I needed to be honest with myself – something a fair amount of us do not like doing!

Recently I also re-evaluated how I view life and the trials and tribulations that occur. My recent blog ‘Making Mountains out of Molehills’ was my acceptance that I am doing the best I can and I`m happy with that. Now I will admit that it has taken me a long time to get to this, but I actually feel a huge mental weight has been lifted. How many of us hold onto the minor insignificant things in life and let them fester to become bigger? How many of us feel like we are bad people for numerous different reasons every day? We are all human at the end of the day and regardless of colour, gender, background or country of origin we all make mistakes, we all want something more from life and we all deserve to give ourselves a break. If we all took the pressure off ourselves, we would discover that we are pretty amazing people and we may begin to appreciate and respect ourselves more.

So to give you an idea of what I`m proud of – I`m a mum of two cheeky boys and wife to an amazing husband, we have a house that we are currently gutting room by room as a ‘fixer upper’ project, I work full time and work really, really hard to show my boys that hard work provides good rewards. I spend as much time as physically possible with my boys whilst also providing myself the opportunity to have some me time every now and again. I have a polytunnel and chicken coop in our garden where I grow some good veggies and collect free range eggs daily which I use in my cooking / baking. I also do the housework every week and have time to take my boys on adventures such as rollerblading, footballing and a café trip for some sweet treats. I also know that I can’t be everything to everyone and that sometimes something may have to give because there just aren’t enough hours in the day, BUT (and it’s a big one), I`m doing the best I can and for that I am proud of myself and proud of the family I have created and feel very fortunate.

What are you proud of?

What can you give yourself a break over?