As a mother I spend most of my time helping my children to progress and grow. I am kept busy training and teaching them skills in relation to homework, sports, cooking, housework, emotional/spiritual/mental strength and daily tasks.
I celebrate and find joy in the little achievements they make and feel a great sense of peace and happiness in seeing them flourish and mature in their development.
Often I forget about myself.
I do not stop to see how far I have come and what personal growth I have achieved.
Becoming the mother I always wanted to be did not happen the moment I had a baby. Nor did it happen when the baby came home from the hospital. I needed time and experience to learn, to grow and to develop. Often it came from painful experiences, many times caused by my own mistakes and those moments in life where you feel stretched past your limit. I know you know what I am talking about!
When I had my first daughter, having one baby was all I knew and it was all I could handle and cope with. There were days when it was just too much effort to leave the house and to go to the shops. It was hard and I felt exhausted and stretched to my limit. I felt grumpy, tired and often depressed that I was not being the type of mother I wanted to be and I only had one child! and she was a good, happy child too! I had no idea how I was going to cope with having a large family and knew that this was going to be a lot harder than I thought.
Now, I have had more experience and I can go to the shops with seven children if I really need to. It is still hard but I can handle it and I have grown into the role of mothering seven children.
{painful shopping experiences that is for sure! I still remember clearly this one day when I had four kids with me all screaming their heads off in the grocery store and a lady walked past and said 'I am so glad I am not you!' and walked off not even bothering to help me out!}
some good
{I can cook better, discipline better, be better organised and have life skills to handle situations that come my way}
and some not good
{talk about growth...my butt has grown, my chocolate eating has grown and my stress levels have grown}
To do this I need to look beyond the daily routine of life which consumes so much of my time. When I find I can get a moment to myself it makes a real difference when I can see how I have improved and blossomed. Most of these moments are simple:
- celebrating cooking a new recipe
- making time for exercise
- finishing a book
- staying calm in difficult situations
- finishing my to-do list
- catching up on paperwork
- keeping up with the bills
- getting everyone to an event
- getting everyone home from an event!
To look for personal growth I also find it helps to keep a healthy and realistic perspective.
"Rise to the great potential within you.
I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity.
I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure.
I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know how. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.'
Gordon B. Hinckley
This is a beautiful post. I am a friend of Shawni's family and noticed your comment on her travel post. We are an LDS family with 4 kids (2mos-8yrs) and have just accepted a position in Canberra for the next 3-4 yrs (moving early next year.) Any advice or tips for young families in that area or anything that I might find helpful as I try to transition the little ones smoothly? Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteThat woman in the shopping centre is an evil cow!
ReplyDeletebeautiful post. I think it is important to take time out for yourself so you can be an effective human being
ReplyDeleteI loved this post. It sums it up so well. I don't like it when mothers of 1 or 2 children say, "You must be super woman." Because I know that I was just like them. You really do grow into your roll as a mother. It does take a lot of effort, but you never know what you can handle until you are there doing it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for "liking" the Joyful Jungle on facebook! Your children are absolutely gorgeous!!! Great blog!
ReplyDeleteYou can go to the shops with 7 kids?! I am so impressed just by that...
ReplyDeleteGood on you, great post and I loved your list for personal growth...it had a good variation and it has got me thinking about my own list...Staying calm in difficult situations would def. be one of them!
Thank you for your kind words on my Body Image post...it was hard to write! I do hope you do it too though!
Gill xo
Naomi, thank you so much for writing this, it was just what I needed to hear. Today has been a particularly challenging one, so thank you for putting it in perspective :)
ReplyDeleteA very well written post! I know I spend so much time focusing on my family I do tend to forget about myself. It is nice to be reminded to look in on myself.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post. It is the simple things in life that make us grateful.
ReplyDelete