Category: parent

depression · inspire · inspired · life · love · mom · parent · quote · quotes · selfhelp

Wabi Sabi

darklightnessLeave a comment

I have lost touch with who I am. I always expect the worst, and I don’t know how to enjoy the present. Last night, I watched the movie Buzz Lightyear with my kids. I got annoyed with Buzz as I watched him. ‘Why do you think you can do everything by yourself, when you have friends who can help you?’ As the movie went on, I realized that I am like Buzz. I always try to plan, organize and fix everything. I put too much pressure on myself. I make my life difficult. God has his own plans, so why do I keep trying to achieve perfection?

Perfection is impossible, so why do I set myself up for failure, and then get angry with myself. I trap myself in a cycle of disappointment and frustration. I need to change, but I don’t know how.  I am so drained, both mentally and physically by the pressure I create for myself. My expectations for myself are unrealistically high. I always say that I am the person in the group who has planned for contingencies, just in case something goes wrong. But it’s exhausting being in my head. I don’t want to be 10 steps ahead. I don’t want to be the go to person. I want to simply be.

I need to embrace wabi sabi. I am not sure if that is the right way to use the term in a sentence, but wabi sabi is about finding happiness and significance in the simple, the natural, and the flawed. It is about accepting yourself and others as they are, without judgment or criticism. It is about letting go of expectations and attachments, and living in the present moment. Wabi sabi is about being perfectly imperfect.

I need to change, and I need to learn how to change. I need to let go and find joy in the flaws. So this is my first step. Recognition. I recognize that I need to be gentle with myself, and allow myself and others to grow and make mistakes. Allow myself to make mistakes.

— xoxo Sandy

babies · baby · canada · depression · family · inspire · inspired · life · love · mom · parent · post-partum · quote

Why Can’t I Breathe?

darklightnessLeave a comment

For the first 3 months postpartum, every morning when I opened my eyes I was consumed by fear and sadness. I was scared that I would have to go through another entirely new day full of the unexpected. Would my son cry a lot today? Would he feed okay? Would he want to be held for most of the day? There were too many unknowns and I had no idea what to expect. It was unfamiliar territory and it made me feel very vulnerable. Waking up in the morning was a challenge, and I hated it. I would wake up and have a panic attack. And if I am completely transparent, I wasn’t a single mom, I had a lot of support, but there was something in my head that kept telling me I wasn’t good enough. That I was somehow going to mess this all up. That my son would need something, and I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to help him. I just wanted him to be okay, and because of this, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect. I felt I had to be perfect, so that he would happy.

I became a very anxious person. I never understood the power anxiety could have over a person until I experienced it myself, and boy was it an awful feeling.

But when he turned 3 months, its like something changed in our relationship. Its like we started to connect. Perhaps it’s because I started to speak to people about my struggle. But for the first time, I felt like I was actually starting to bond with my son. When we locked eyes, I felt like I could take care of him.

Make no mistake, I was still very very far from feeling confident in my parenting skills, but I was starting to build a support system to help me through some of my concerns.

I also stopped Googling for “help”. Whenever I wanted to understand a behavior my son’s exuded, or a solution to help him with a struggle like gas, I would Google. I found that Google left me confused and it stressed me out. There were so many solutions, I became overwhelmed. So, with the guidance of a doctor, I decided to stop.

Best. Decision. Ever.

When I started to slowly trust my own instincts and to reach out to people I knew, instead of a comment wall, I started to feel more confident in my own skills. If a solution didn’t work, I could reach out to the people who initially guided me and say “hey that didn’t work, got another idea?”. The open dialogue helped me work through my anxiety.

I still suffer from anxiety today – but I feel like I have the tools to work through it, and with time, I hope that I can overcome it.

babies · baby · canada · depression · family · inspire · inspired · life · love · mom · parent · politics · post-partum · quote · quotes · selfhelp · Uncategorized · work

My Girl Squad

darklightness1 Comment

When people think of a group of girls, they often associate them with “cat fights”, “being bitchy” or the movie “mean girls”. But when I hit my lowest point, I found myself being uplifted by some truly exceptional women. The more I opened up about my negative self-reflection, the more determined these women became to rally around me to provide me with the support I didn’t realize I needed.

It was a strange feeling.

When it comes to my emotions, I have a history of being more introverted. I don’t really engage in friendships and I like to keep my circle very small. I have acquaintances, but not friends. Yes there is a difference.

But in this instance, I knew I needed help. I had to expand outside my regular circle. If people reached out to me and asked me how I was doing, I told them the truth. I told them I was struggling. Those who didn’t want to support me brushed over the topic, and those who wanted to help constantly checked in on me. I was okay with either. If you didn’t want to help me, I appreciated the indirect honesty. But, if you did, god bless you, you have no idea how much solace I found in our conversations.

I appreciated the advice and I appreciated the support. I truly felt like they were my pillars when I couldn’t stand on my own. I also appreciated the people who were around me who didn’t necessarily have the life experiences to guide me, but were around to just be around. To step in when I felt like I was going to have a mental breakdown. To fill in the gaps where I felt I was weak.

My girl squad was and has been my greatest blessing throughout this experience. I started to understand the importance of expanding my circle and investing my time and energy in relationships that I may have otherwise overlooked.