2020 Women History Month: Michelle S.; A Balancing Act

Do you know how much energy it takes to mind your business, drink your water, exercise, get your coin, and balance? It’s takes a lot of work to maintain what little bit of life one attempts to have. Now add a baby or a kid and you might as well hope for the best. Salute to all women during this Women History Month!

 

Motherhood is tricky! There’s no book to help you navigate. Despite all of that mothers don’t just want to be be seen as a mother alone. We have many layers to us. We long for the days when we can give our best but also achieve the highest level of personal success. It’s almost like some of the movies except without nannies, and personal assistants! Life can be hard to balance and that’s exactly what Michelle talked about when she stated, “I feel that I have become extremely disorganized in the last few years. Since becoming a mother, I feel like I have lost some capacity to focus. I used to be more on top of things and better at remembering. I want to regain some of that and work on becoming more organized and having more control over my life.”

Control

Oh to be focused and feeling like you’re in control again. It takes a lot of finesse to be able to have that “normal” feeling that you once felt before! Listen moms, we all feel that! We all go through that. The most important thing is to remember is that you’re not alone. The days you wake up and feel like you killed it kudos. There’s days coming when that feeling will be super fleeting. Everyone is always telling you that even after so many years you should be further than you are. I call bs. Motherhood has so many layers that even when you have it down packed life changes!

I asked Michelle when she felt her strongest and she stated, “I have always felt strongest with my academic life. I have two masters degrees and while going to school and working on those degrees, I had to juggle a lot of things in my life. Those were some of my proudest moments because I was able to achieve a lot, while powering through life’s pressures.” Oh how I can relate to a certain degree. First can we throw some high fives to Michelle for those 2 masters! I know some folks who don’t have one-I am folks by the way! School growing up has always been my favorite. I know what it’s like to feel like a super student but feel like I’m missing it in other areas.

Mama Power

It’s always a blessing when you can channel the best parts of your own mom. Watching your mom do her very best encourages women when they become mothers to do what they can to be like or better than their mothers. Shout out to Michelle’s mother who she describes as someone she can “lean on at times. She has shown me that through hard work, you can achieve a great deal. I also look to my sister circle for strength. I have some fierce women in my circle.”

Strong mothers birth other strong mothers. Can we say that often times it seems as if by the time you become a mother your own mother becomes more of you’re super hero. You wonder how they did what they did and yet we do so much and we look as if we aren’t doing it so gracefully. Shout out to women who support women and especially a mother because that love and encouragement is exactly what we need when coffee and wine isn’t enough!

Strength of woman

What makes a a woman strong? Is it her ability to take it all and keep ticking? Is it her ability to be soft when you need and stern when it calls it? Michelle sees

“women are so resilient both physically and mentally. We have so much pressure from society to be perfect and flawless and never break a sweat. It is so hard being a woman and bearing the burdens that society has placed on us. The strength of a woman comes from her womanhood. We are born strong. Just by the fact of being a woman, we are warriors by nature.”

 

What a whole message. It’s almost like women are gifted with the ability to just do and it’s a great ability however we sure could use some more support. Support us when it’s not convenient or in the media to!!

Taking care of home

With all that we take on we have to sometimes switch the mirror from out to in! There are times when our own upkeep has to be there. I wanted to know what Michelle was working on and she stated,

“I desire to be more confident. I get insecure sometimes and there really is no reason for it. I know that I am amazing and can be amazing.” I know all women have been there. As strong as we all are we have our moments. Are we good enough? If you let society tell it if we don’t have heels on, a beat face, a man, a clean home, well behaved children, etc. we aren’t where we need to be. Our confidence can’t be killed before we even come into ourselves.

That confidence is killed even further once you have a child. You look in the mirror and look at this new body and you can’t even recognize yourself anymore.

What is Michelle working on?

“I’m working on letting go. Letting go of anxiety and fear, negative thoughts about the past and all things that weigh me down emotionally.”

Self Doubt

Self doubt and fear of what we could have done better or should have done is a killer. I remember many times I’m of having to tell myself whatever I’ve done that got me where I am was the plan for my life. Those scars and those lessons are the steps towards my future. On a good day we all can feel that. We look at the past and keep pushing. On those lower days it’s hard to separate the person we are from who we thought we once was. That guilt alone can be hurtful.

 

It can attempt to stop us but we need to know it’s normal to feel that. Take those feelings and make something out of it. If I’m afraid let fear walk with you until it falls out but don’t keep striving for whatever the best in life has for you. Too many women before us kept walking and we must walk to. Fear has a way of dropping off. Pain from our past we need to deal with it and then accept our part and get realigned with our future goals! What pain taught doesn’t have to be repeated.

Body power

Michelle is also “working on getting my body back in to shape and getting rid of some baby weight..even though my baby is 3 years old. I’m working out, doing Zumba and TRYING to watch what I eat!”

Michelle there are some women who ain’t even had a baby trying to get there. When my youngest was 3 a woman asked me how far along I was! I wasn’t even pregnant. Oh how humiliated I was! I made a decision never to allow myself to get there. Baby weight no matter how old the baby is usually comes from trying to balance it all and forgetting ourselves.

Journey of a Woman

I stand with you on your journey not to get back to a past weight but to a healthy weight that makes you feel beautiful, confident, and sexy! We are all in that fight but don’t give up!

Life is a balancing act and adding children only makes the act more difficult but not impossible! Getting back to you is making you a priority daily and choosing you every time! A happy mother isn’t perfect she just finds a way to love who she is becoming while mirroring that good behavior to her child!

 

Thank you so much for being open to this process and I hope you realize you are telling an amazing story that will help another woman feel heard! We all are connected!!