SAHM is enough?

Is being a stay at home mom enough? Well, i'm trying it on and seeing how it feels.

I often looks for another person to be an example of what i want (or don't want) and use that as permission to allow myself to start doing that thing(try One Meal a Day fasting option) or stop doing something(going to parent teacher interviews).

SO this time i decided to be that person first of being a stay at home mom and feeling that IT IS ENOUGH. 

What do you need permission for right now? What do you wish you could see an example of and feel it is ok to be that way? Well you can start that before you find that permission, just give yourself that permission now. Be that example for yourself now.

Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hi guys, how's it going? I'm just sitting in the underground garage and waiting to have a coffee with my best friend and I have about 20 minutes. I arrived early on purpose so I could record this for you and I have been thinking a lot about me wanting and looking for permission to do something or not do something or to feel a certain way. And recently, I've been trying on this idea of permission that maybe being a stay-at-home mom is enough. You know, because I don't know about you, but my brain's always wired to, this is not enough, we should do more, we should have a career and a business and make a lot of money and da-da-da-da, and it's never enough. And that's just not comforting. That's not satisfactory, right? It doesn't feel good when you feel like it's not enough. So I've been really trying it on the kind of like sitting into the idea of maybe it's enough. And that has been giving me a feeling of abundance. And I wanted to bring it to you because I think that maybe you are doing that somewhere in your life, like looking for permission to do something or not do something or stop doing something. And like listening to me do this, you might be inspired to do to, you know, give yourself permission for something. For example, like last year. My big boys were in grades 7 and 5, and I had a couple of parent-teacher interviews with their teachers where I didn't have anything to talk to them about. And I felt a bit silly, and I walked away thinking, well, that was a waste of time. And then I started thinking, okay, everything is great. Maybe I don't need to talk to them. But... I did not give myself permission to not see the teachers until I talked to this one mom. She's a mom at our school, but she also works at the school. And I talked to her, and that's what she does. She says, I don't go and talk to the teachers unless there's a problem. And I told her, thank you so much. That's exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for an example. of this and now I feel like I got this permission to just not see the teachers unless there's something to talk about which felt crazy I've never done that before it felt irresponsible and like you know I'm being a parent but it makes more sense now I guess with bigger kids and so it felt so freeing to stop doing this to now this year we had one or two parent teacher interviews I, we know we would have a review their board cards, talk to the kids. And I would ask the kids, is there anything that you want to talk to the teachers about together? And they said no. And we weren't concerned. So I was just so happy to have given myself permission to not go talk to the teachers. Because now big kids, they have, I don't know, five, six, seven teachers each. Like, there's no reason for me to go talk to all of these teachers if I don't have any questions, right? I still talk to the little kids, teacher, the twins, they're nine, they turn nine now, and they are in grade three, so I really was just curious how they're doing. And I was curious, how are they being in one class? Are they working together? Are they competitive? And that the story has always been that they like being together, but they're never really in the same circles. And they work separately. So really, it's not interfering with anything. So that was one of my examples of looking for permission to stop doing something. Now, the other reason permission seeking thing that I had was with intermittent fasting that I didn't even realize I wanted but when I came across intermittent fasting at first it was all these different numbers that you're given you can fast for 20 hours and eat for four you can ask fast for 16 and eat for eight and you can fast for 18 six and you know 24 one like and For some reason, maybe because I'm a rule follower, I don't know where I was brought like that. It never occurred to me to just be flexible with the numbers. And I always felt restricted by that. And it didn't really feel like a lifestyle back then. It felt like another restriction or a diet. And it kind of would stress me out, right? Because sometimes the time would come to eat and I'm not hungry. Okay. All right. What do I do? Do I wait? Or then... if I am hungry but the time hasn't come what do I do again it took me years to experiment to now come to this place and find Jackie who is extremely flexible with her fasting and instantly that seeing her example gave me permission to also be that flexible which I love love love love love like I aim, you know, to for a longer fast in general, something that feels good. But sometimes there have been times where, let's say it was a family birthday or something, something or a vacation, where I did have to, you know, cut my fast short. And that was not a big deal. And that was so great, felt really freeing, felt amazing, to have that flexibility to change my fast that day and then go back to what I was doing the next day. No big deal. I still got to fast and I still got to enjoy the event. I still got to enjoy the food, the family, everything. So that was great. I guess I had to be ready. I think this is my belief that, you know, we find the answers when we're ready. But and I was ready. I was ready to find that flexibility in the fasting. And I love it now so much. Like so now it's I only have an average of my fasts. I don't have like a specific, you know, I fast for 18 and eat for six. And so that's what I do. So these are my two examples that I have to share with you today about permission. Like, what are we looking to get permission for? Can we get permission to feel like what we're doing is enough? And so I'm telling you this because I find that when I see other people doing what i want that kind of gives me permission for some strange reason maybe because we're like a pack animal or feeling good when we belong to a group that is the same as us and we're not kind of going on our own and doing something very different that is very comforting for me and seeing someone else do it gives me such like really gives me permission and i feel like oh Oh, thank God. Well, if someone else is doing it, well, I might as well try it, right? So I really wanted to hear. I was like looking for something. Someone give me permission to embrace, you know, being a stay-at-home mom and that being enough. Because the truth is, it's not enough. It's actually plenty. You know, it's so much. Constantly being on call, being there for six people constantly, all day, every day, every night, all weekends, all holidays, right? For years on end. That's plenty. That's what I say when people ask me. I say, oh, that's plenty. So, and I thought, okay, you know, if I'm looking for that permission to hear from someone else, well... Why can't I just do it for myself and maybe inspire you guys with just this talk? So that's where I'm at today. I am really excited to keep on sharing my stories with you and hopefully you get inspired. And I really want to encourage you to keep looking for your own answers and trying on different flexible solutions, right? Just like tweak it. the way you want it. And you know, I've heard it many, many times over the years and it did not click for many, many years when I would hear it like in different classes, like in yoga or... So have a great... Have a great week. I would love to hear from you. If you have anything that you want to share with me, I love getting emails from you, messages. You can always send me fan mail, which is just a message. It doesn't even say who it's from, or I think you can fill it out there. But I'd love to hear from you guys. Have a great week, and I love you. Talk to you soon.