I gave myself permission to rest...

As women, we often put ourselves last. Everyone else comes before us...even the dog! No one did that to us. We did it, well I did it, to myself. 

It's fine. That's what I say. Even when life isn't fine I still say it's fine. But in reality it's not. I don't do it intentionally. I do it because it helps me to get through my day. 

I still remember one of my first tragic life events. My uncle had a bad car accident. It left him in a coma and paralyzed. During that time, the movie The Lion King just came out. I remember the Hakuna Matata saying...means No worries for the rest of our days. I said this saying over and over to help me understand that no matter what the pain I was going through that brighter days were coming.

This is also when I started perking up in Church and paying attention to what Father was talking about. I remember the aw ha moment, when I realized that life isn't supposed to be easy. We aren't always going to make the right choices. We are going to get off the path along the way.

Once I became a mother, I remember thinking, I'm not going to be that overworked overweight mom. And I was right...for the first three kids. I was good. I was in shape. I was eating right. Getting sleep. All was good. And then I got pregnant with baby 4 and 5. This was when life got hard. 

**I don't share the numbers for any real reason other than to point at where I was at in life. Any of this could happen with baby 1 or baby 10**

I always heard about postpartum but never experienced it, until then. 

After the fourth kid, I thought I was dealing with postpartum but wasn't sure. I was afraid to talk to anyone about it. I mean, how was I going to admit I was struggling, when I had truly a great husband, kids, and life. But I was just all off. My sleep was so jacked up. My moods shifted but I am good at not letting it show. My weight just kept gaining. And then I got pregnant with baby 5. Everything kept compounding. Also, I stopped going to the doctor. I only with if I absolutely had to...which in my mind was if I was pregnant..because it was the baby's health that I was concerned about and not my own. 

At first, I had the mindset, just push through. Workout and eat right and it'll all work out. 

I was wrong.

I believe that this mentality, at this point, was sabotaging to my mental, physical and spiritual health.  

During all this, I stopped wanting to go to church. I stopped pretty much everything and admitted to myself that I can't just push through this time. I had to rest. I gave myself permission to rest. I didn't force myself to workout. I didn't force myself to pray. I didn't force myself to do anything except to rest when I had time. 

Now granted, I was still working (and doing very poorly and making awful life changing decisions-more to come on that later-) and still being a wife/mother. I was still volunteering and doing all my normal stuff. For some reason, I couldn't admit that I just couldn't do and be all of that. 

But, I did finally give myself permission to rest. 

This was a good thing. But the consequences came. Gained more weight. 

Why, as women, do we sabotage ourselves to be everything for everyone else?  

Giving myself permission to rest was a good thing and yes I did gain a lot of weight. But it's what I needed to do.

Since I kept doing all my other stuff....it took awhile to catch up on rest. Honestly, about 6 years. Awful. I know. But I feel like it took 6 years before I started to feel human again. 

What I learned from all this, is that our mental health has got to be a huge priority. But it also goes hand in hand with our physical health. I'm still struggling. But now I am mentally strong enough to focus on my physical well-being. 

Tomorrow, I have my first doctor appointment for me. And not because I'm pregnant and not because it's one of the kids appointments. It's because, I AM IMPORTANT. And I HAVE to focus on ME. I choose to focus on me. 

Why does it have to be such an ordeal to focus on myself? I don't know the answer to that but I can assume it's something along the lines of....I truly do not know how to put myself first. I just don't know how. But I'm searching. My appointment is with a women's wellness doctor. I think I will feel more open to share with her what's actually going on with me.  

I challenge you to put yourself first. Start small like me. One small step at a time. What have you been putting off? Yep...that's the one. That's the one you need to do....