Preparing For The New Year
As we all prepare for 2023, you might be thinking about your plans for the new year…you know…what you’ll start, what you’ll stop, and what you look forward to bringing into fruition.
I’m sure you’ve read those listacles about the activities and character traits that the most successful people engage in to get their day started. Exercise, meditation, and an earlier than conventional wake up time are often mentioned. Over the years, I have implemented exercise and meditation to start my day, and I can attest to the power of both to set the pace for what’s to come. But, the wake-up-at-some-ungodly-hour-to-get-work-done approach has never sat well with me.
Between caring for children, work, and making sure to have me-time at the end of the day, I rarely get to bed before 9pm. When this happens, an early wake up isn’t in the cards. I work hard to get at least six hours of sleep. I’d say I’m usually closer to seven if I haven't fallen asleep on our kids' bedroom floor and need to put myself back to sleep in my own bed. Can you relate? Maybe not, but I try to always keep it real here.
Since turning 40 in October, I have been stepping deeper into my own flow and glow. The result is being bolder and firmer about what I need to show up as the best person, mother, and partner that I can be. This photo was taken on the evening of my birthday celebration.
Over the last several weeks, I’ve gone to sleep at 9pm and my body has woken me up at 4am. The first time this happened, I decided to lean into it and work on a thinking project that’s hard to do during the day. The second time it happened, I did the same. It has happened a few more times since the first time. And, I have now labeled this period of the day the “get hard things done” block.
From 4am to 7am, I worked on the two things that were weighing me down the most and let me say, I felt on top of the world!! I got the kids up at 7am and even made pancakes with them from scratch because I felt like I had conquered so much. My mind was lighter and so my spirit was lighter. I was able to show up for them with more energy as a result.
Often, we feel weighed down by what we haven’t gotten off our list or out of our head. It gnaws at us because it’s hard to steal time during the day to work on those things.
As a result of accepting that this is the season of life that I am, I have faced the music in a way that I never thought I would. By sacrificing my end of day decompression time, I gave myself the gift of feeling better than I would have had I been able to get an hour or two of catching up on a show while drinking a glass of wine or eating a scoop of ice cream.
Ila took a picture of Nico and I napping today. I’m not typically a daytime napper but guess I was channeling the “sleep when the baby sleeps” suggestion.
I’m sharing this as encouragement for anyone who is grappling with the balance of self-care and domestic and professional duties. Sometimes the solution is running a mile in the morning. Sometimes it’s carving out time for a 10-15 minute meditation. And, sometimes it’s an unlikely early rise that will have you wanting to go to bed at an earlier than normal hour so you can tackle scary things on your to-do list and feel light for the rest of the day.
The key is carving out the time you need face yourself while it’s quiet. It may not come to you in the ways it might have before having kids. But when it comes, take it.
Self-care is about setting the boundaries and choosing the activities that will pour life into you. They’re actually not always easy to choose, especially if we had sketchy self-care practices prior to having kids, but in parenthood building the muscle for self-care is paramount to our survival.
My biggest hope for us all in 2023 is taking action on finding the time we need to be the best versions of us.
Have a great week!
Petrushka
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