How Life Coaching Has Changed My Life

Does this sound dramatic? Maybe.

Is it true? Yep.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had postpartum depression after my first baby was born. It didn’t look like I thought depression would look. I made it mean that I was a bad mom – I believed that my depression was me. I didn’t see it as a sign that I was struggling and needed to reach out for help, I saw it as a failure.

Since that first big collision with depression, my mind so easily falls back into that pattern. It can be the smallest thing that sets me off, and suddenly my brain is telling me “What kind of a mom are you? Maybe your kids really would be better off with someone else.” And down the spiral I go. Negative thought after negative thought, all piling on top of me, weighing me into the ground.

Sometimes I would be in this downward spiral for a month, sometimes a few days. Through these ups and downs I would wonder, “Am I depressed? Is this normal? Do I need help? Am I normal?” I didn’t know if everyone had bad days as bad as mine, or if there was something wrong with me.

What I’ve learned though, is that it doesn’t matter if I get the diagnosis of depression or not. What matters is how I live my life, and what I do with these depressive times. Do I allow myself to believe these negative thoughts about myself and my life, and then use that as evidence that I truly am not worthy? Or do I do my best to be aware of where my thoughts are headed, and if I’m not strong enough in that moment to redirect, do I love myself through it anyway?

The more I put this work into practice, the better I get at staying on top of my thoughts and emotions. My days now are much more aligned with who I truly am than they used to be. Coaching, and self coaching, has changed how I show up in my life. How I treat myself, my children, my husband, my friends, our home – everything. It has helped me to take all of the personal development concepts that I’ve learned and actually apply them. Applying them is where the magic happens.

I have often thought that if I had continued living the way I was, I would not be a happy, believing mom today. My faith is the most important thing to me, and when I believed my depression, I did not live how I want to.

So yes, coaching has truly changed my life. If something in my story resonates with you, let me show you how it can change yours.

Why Self Care Is Important For Moms

You know it’s important. You know you should be doing it. But how? What? Where? When? It’s been said a thousand times before, but I will say it again. Why is self care important for moms? Because we need to take care of ourselves before we can take care of our families.

Yeah, you get that. It’s not something new. You understand it intellectually. But let me ask you a question – are you doing it? On the regular?

What would self care look like for you? What are the things that fill up your insides? What are the activities that bring you joy – true joy?

How important it is to bring these activities into our daily lives, merge them with our motherhood duties. The best kind of self care is what we do as much as we can every day. We create a life that we don’t need to escape from. We can handle and enjoy our life.

What does self care look like for me? It’s getting to my yoga class once a week. Some days it’s waking up early so I can start my day with quiet, other days it’s skipping my first alarm and letting myself sleep in until the kids need to be up. It’s taking the time to sit down and write in the morning, to get my thoughts in order before starting the day. It is listening to ourselves and what we need, and making those a priority.

Guilt can show up when we are taking time to ourselves to do something we enjoy. We might think that we should be doing something more productive, or worrying about how the kids are doing. But think about that feeling you get, after you did something that you LOVE. How full, refreshed, energized you are. And how do you show up as a mom after that? Compare that to how you are showing up when you never take a single moment to yourself.

When mom takes care of herself, the whole family benefits.

How To Be a Happy Mom

When I was first struggling with postpartum depression, I would google this over and over. How to be a happy mom. How do I be happy? I was hoping for a book, an article, something with a step by step guide that I could follow to just be happy. I thought it would be easier for me to climb out of the darkness with someone showing me the way.

What I found were many stories on endless forums of moms just accepting that they don’t like to be a mom. That they won’t ever want to be a mom. These of course aren’t very encouraging to read, but I also didn’t want to accept this fact. I knew that there had to be a way to enjoy being a mom more than I was.

I also found articles on learning to have fun again, of making sure that not all of your interactions with your kids were negative. To get down on the floor with them and play even for five minutes. Of taking time for yourself and doing whatever it is that fills you. Yes, I thought, this is what I need. But how??

I would start the day with great intentions of taking time to play with my kids, to cross items off my to do list while also setting aside time to paint or sew. Some days I accomplished some of these, but many days I found myself crawling into bed at night wondering where I failed. Why didn’t I have the energy, the motivation, the patience to do these things that I so wanted to do? I also knew that if I did them, I would feel better, so why wasn’t I doing them?

The problem my friend, was this: I was trying to change my habits, my actions, my behaviors, without changing my thoughts. I’m sure you’ve heard that saying that goes along these lines - “what you think becomes your actions. Your actions become your life.” But have you ever actually stopped and thought about that?

Our thoughts create our life.

Literally. What we think and believe shows up in our relationships, our houses, what we do and don’t do with our time – it shows up in everything. So, it’s as simple and as complicated as that: In order to be a happy mom, you need to change your thoughts. This is a list of a few “how to’s”:

1.       Create new thoughts to think that are in alignment with the life that you want to live. Now this isn’t just think positive all the time! This is becoming aware of which thoughts are creating results in your life that you don’t want, and finding a new thought that you believe to think instead.

2.       Accept the 50/50 rule for emotions. You will not be happy all of the time – not only is it not possible, but you actually wouldn’t want to be. About half the time you will feel good, and the other half you will feel not good. Being a human means feeling all of the feels. Some of them aren’t enjoyable, but guess what? It’s life.

3.       Quit beating yourself up when you aren’t happy. Quit feeling bad about feeling bad. Did you know that when you feel crappy, and then you feel crappy about feeling crappy, you feel even more crappy? Right? So if you feel bad, tell yourself that it’s okay to feel this way. The emotion will pass, you won’t stay there forever I promise.

4.       Take responsibility for your own happiness. It’s easy to think well if my husband did this then I would be happy or well if my kids just listened to me I would be happier. And yes I’m sure we all would be happier if our kids didn’t try our patience so much. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter what is happening outside of your control, you are always responsible for your emotions.

5.       Know that it’s a work in progress. These are things that we need to work on every single day. This is a process that you will go through for the rest of your life. Oh, how many times I’ve wished that I could just wake up one day and have it all figured out, to be how I want. But there is no destination here, the journey is the destination. I don’t particularly like that saying, but it’s true. Quit waiting for the someday that everything will be exactly as you think it should be because that day won’t come. Instead just keep learning, and love yourself as you go.

This work of diving into my thoughts, of becoming aware of my thoughts, and of changing the thoughts that I’m thinking, has been challenging but so worth it. To work on taking out the ones that aren’t serving me in my life, and create the new thoughts that I want to think is literally life changing. It’s one thing to learn a new concept, and a whole other story to actually apply it in life.

This is the work that I want to do in the world. I want to help moms realize that their happiness, joy, contentment, whatever it is that they want to feel, is attainable through becoming aware of their thoughts. This is what I call a heart centered work. If this resonates with you, make sure to sign up on my email list to get notified of when my coaching program will be available. (The link wasn’t working for a while, so if you haven’t been getting any of my emails you will need to sign up again.)

Happiness is an inside job, truly an inside job.

Why I Share My Story

I don’t share my story for pity.

I don’t share it so that you view me as “the mom with depression”.

Not so that I would be known.

I share it because I believe that moms of families both big and small can enjoy motherhood. That it is possible to prioritize mental wellness as we raise our families. That we can create time for ourselves, to take care of ourselves. To put the work in because we want to, because we love our children, and to not give up when it gets hard. To take control of our thoughts and see how that can change our view of life. To actually apply all of these tools instead of just consuming them. To be mentally well, rather than simply not mentally ill.

This isn’t just love your life, follow your passion, and live your dreams. It’s more than that, deeper than that. It’s living from a place of love and wellness. Of accepting the bad with the good. Of not beating ourselves up when we fail, yet again. It’s working through the hard things. Not staying in the dark places, but finding our way to the light and savoring the lightness.

It is hard work to lift the darkness off, but it is so worth it. To keep fighting every time the darkness threatens to swallow. This is why I share my story, that others could find parts of themselves in mine. To take what resonates with them and apply it.

To find hope and courage to move forward.

There is power in telling our stories. In rewriting our stories, with us not as the victim of our lives.

This is why.

Someday Is Today

They say that your physical space is a representation of your mental state. Lots of clutter around you equals lots of clutter in your mind.

I pause and look around at our fixer upper house. There is so much work to be done, from the basics of mudding and taping to the finishing touches of décor. I see myself in our house – there is so much inner work to do. It feels overwhelming, that where do I even start? All the things I need to work through, which one is the one that will underscore all the other work?

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She came over for a visit, the first time since we moved into our home three years ago – to say it’s about time is an understatement! Anyway, as I give her the grand tour of our place I listen to my thoughts. Here’s the bathroom, our most recent accomplishment, but there’s still some finishing touches to do. We finished the laundry room a while ago now, but now I need to declutter it again – I don’t know why all the stuff just collects here! Nic’s working on the basement so we can have the kid’s playroom down there and eliminate some of the noise and mess from the living room. We have so much still that needs to be done, it’s a work in progress. It’s so easy to point out all the things we haven’t gotten to yet. And easy to forget how far we’ve come, how much work we’ve put into it.

I find myself thinking exactly the same thoughts about myself. Look how far your stomach still has to go before it’s flat again. You still have so much inner work to do before you are the person that you want to be. Look how you fall short of being the mom that you dream of. How far out of reach those dreams of yours still feel.

I forget to appreciate all the things that we’ve worked through, both physical and mental, with our house and in myself. How quickly those accomplishments simply become the norm and the next thing to work on becomes the focus.

“Someday it will be beautiful, finished, and ready to sell.”

“Someday I will be thin, beautiful, and ready for life.”

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They also say though, that you need to accept what is before there can be change.

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What about today, right now, this moment? As is. Can I appreciate what is? Can I remember all of the downs that I’ve come out on the other side of? Can I take a moment to sit and remember those late evenings, either with all the construction dust and noise or with a fussy baby or struggling with depression? We did it, we came out on the other side. We survived.

Its good to have dreams and goals of where you want to go in life. Just take a moment to remember the work that has gotten you here, to this moment. And appreciate it.