– Hi, a couple of months ago I did a video about being careful that you don’t say that your children are your whole world. And I talked a lot about why I think that’s not a very good thing, either for you or your kids, to grow up thinking that they are your whole world, and neither is it good for you to think that there’s nothing else for you but your children.

And I had a response from a mom that I wanted to talk about today and she said, you know what I’ve noticed that I’m in that place. I am treating my children as though they are my whole world, and I don’t want to. But I don’t know how to get out of it now that I’m here.

And that is, first of all, I appreciate her honesty around that, and so it got me thinking about, what are some little steps you can take to make those changes in your life, to put the balance back in place? So we chatted it out a little bit and she didn’t have really any help in her community, her family lived far away, you know she had some girlfriends but they had kids too.

So we talked about little ways in which she could get back to herself. Right, I honestly with every piece of me believe that you cannot be the best mother that you wanna me if you’re not giving anything to yourself. That is just not the way we work.

So her husband came home, you know about five o’clock in the evening, and I said what if once he gets home that just for 15 minutes every day you go for a walk around the block. Take a cup of tea with you, bring your iPhone, listen to some music, put an audiobook on, and just go get a little bit of time for you.

That’s easy, she decided that is a great first step to just again teaching everyone, hey, mom needs a little break. She’s gonna go leave the house because it’s very hard to get a break when your kids are around, and just give that a little bit of space. Starting with 15, then maybe we can bump that up to 20, maybe we could even get to 1/2 an hour of time where she just escapes so that she can go and have some time for herself.

And what I find is great is that when people get a little taste of what that feels like, I always say to my parents, when your little one starts going to be at 7:00 p.m. every night, you will never want that to change. Like that’s gonna become such a highlight in your day, especially if you haven’t had it, to get that little bit of a reminder that oh yeah, this feels good. This feels good to watch a movie or read a book or take a bubble bath or even eat a meal in peace and quiet. Even drink a cup of coffee while it’s still hot.

All these little things feel really good. So just giving her a little taste we got to the place where yep this was happening on a regular basis, this little escape at the end of the day, and then I suggested maybe you could do a baby swap with one of your girlfriends. That’s something I did back in the day, is that I agreed to take her child for an afternoon if she took mine for an afternoon. And that just gave me again a little bit of a breather.

I’d get my hair done or run some errands or go to a museum and walk around, just little things that would make me feel good in a week. So we encouraged her to do that, just take an afternoon now and have some time for yourself.

And then once we add an afternoon, maybe we could do an evening out with a girlfriend. So you see how you just step yourself back into this. It’s also really helpful to write down what do you love to do that does not involve your family, or at least doesn’t involve your children. Date night with your husband, maybe you love to go out to eat, maybe you love to watch movies, maybe you love to dance or do yoga, all of those things that you love to do but have been pushing back there on that back burner because you’ve been so focused and dedicated on your children.

I’m not saying that they’re not a vital important piece of your life, but they’re not everything. And the more you give and see these little spaces for just you, I promise you the better mother you’re gonna be. Thanks so much for watching today. Sleep well.