Breaking Free from Wellness Expectations: improve your health by living in the imperfection

Oct 21

Stop putting pressure on yourself to do all of the things - and find joy and gratitude for the everyday. None of us mothers can do these things to the "perfect" standards people show on social media. Instead, let’s get back to the basics; embracing a slower, simpler way of living and watch all areas of our health improve with more ease

Letting go of the pressure

I love everything that has to do with improving our health - especially how it pertains to a mother's wellness and mental health. But there is so much pressure to be healthy!

After my twins were born, I felt this INTENSE pressure to get back into shape and a healthy living routine. I saw other moms bounce right back after pregnancy, and I would have so much shame and (self) judgment. Why was it SO hard for me to bounce back? Why could they do it and not me??

What was worse was that by the time my twins were born, I had spent 10+ years of my life studying all of the mental health and nutrition things. Improving mental wellness for women was my passion. My mission in studying these topics was to make achieving and maintaining wellness more simplistic for women. I wanted to see women of all ages achieve better health without feeling like they had to keep up with this impossible standard of wellness that we come across on social media.

But I felt I was failing to accomplish all this now that I was a mother.

As time passed, I felt more depleted by everything I saw on social media. My health was suffering, motherhood was feeling extremely tough, and the stress of everything in our society was building — **for perspective, this was probably around early 2019** — I felt there had to be a better way to manage things without pressure and setting these high expectations that always seemed to fail.

My complete exhaustion and utter annoyance at everything I saw on the interest eventually led to a deep dive into vintage living, returning to our roots and a more simplistic way of life. Thinking of how my grandparents and great-grandparents lived their everyday lives ignited the spark I've always held about making health easy, accessible, and affordable to mothers; mothers who are completely overwhelmed by the day-to-day, mothers who desire to be healthier for themselves and their families.

But without that INSANE pressure or the unrealistic goals we can come across in our scrolling.

God is our motivator; Intuition is our guide.

Mama's - Let's all accept it will never be perfect; we will never be able to eat completely clean and live in a non-toxic environment. Our homes will never be perfectly neat and tidy, with laundry washed, folded, and put away daily. We will only sometimes get that extra time to sit in prayer (meditation) as we desire.

We can take little steps here and there. In time, those little things will add up.

To relieve ourselves of the expectation of everything needing to be all or nothing is

freeing

On a personal level — it has made me realize I do not have to be perfect *because I never will be* in my wellness to help other mothers achieve better health.

Our health consists of so many different things —

our mental health

our spiritual health

our physical health

the health of our relationships

If we are 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 out about not doing all the healthy living things, we do more harm than good.

If we are ignoring our spiritual health and have lost our connection to God, we are going to feel depressed and lost and not have something to ground us when the chaos hits.

The foundation for our health is about finding gratitude and joy in our lives. As we build a strong and *rooted* foundation, the other things we wish to accomplish (like our nutrition, fitness, etc. goals) will fall into place, with much less effort needed.

JOURNAL IT OUT:

What is one thing you can start with today to help get you more firmly rooted in your wellness goals?

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