I don't know about you, but those days leading up to spring really put a pep in my step. Those days that the sun is shining and you can start to feel the warmth again, those longer days, those mornings that the sky is brighter before the kids wake up, the birds, the spring smells, all of it!
Every year about this time I get a renewed sense of motivation, energy, a fresh excitement. I know myself enough now that I need to be carful, I am prone to excitement overload where I can easily go in 5 directions but not get one project done, the struggle is real lol. So I need to be mindful of making lists of my to do's, what I need and want to get done, or I can find myself just wondering a greenhouse lost in my head. It's actually quite funny, I always joke about the local greenhouses being my therapy sessions because it does wonders for me when I make a visit. We literally have one that opened this week on reduced hours and it requires you to make an appointment, so I made one, which makes it seem like even more of a therapy session! Im so darn excited HA!
I'm a firm believer of looking at goals often and pivoting where you need to, gardening is no different, each year I learn from the last, expand on some areas and pull back in others. Each season I go through massive changes in my routines and my activities. Spring is a huge season where I implement a whole new time consuming venture of gardening, tending, and growing. I missed a goal last year I had of making salsa from my garden, my drive and determination is much more this year and I know where I want wrong, I'm rolling it over to my goal list yet again. I can easily get lost in gardening and forget all my other life goals, remember it is my therapy, my happy place so it's so easy for me to let my troubles loose in the garden. I've started to already be conscious of the things I will want to do in the garden this year, knowing they will take time and consistency along side all my other life duties I must continue, I don't want to drop the ball on my other important daily activities, so I'm going to work hard to balance it all out, so I can feel the rewards through all areas of my life.
If you have been dreaming of some exciting gardening ideas for this spring and you want to seamlessly add them into the everyday hustle of life consider these 3 things to make it a more enjoyable productive experience.
1. Plan it out, don't wait till the day of your gardening extravaganza to figure it out, start planning for it days even weeks ahead of time.
2. Cook extra the day before or utilize a freezer meal you tucked away, this way you have that much more time to do the thing, without worrying about stopping to make supper and the stresses that can add.
3. Find a way to include the kids or at least entertain them in the area you are working. it's amazing what good manual labourers kids are when it comes to picking rocks, pushing wheelbarrows and moving things. Just remember to make it fun.
If this sounds like you, pop over to my FB Group where we chat all the things that help us women stay true to ourselves and rock mom life.
Happy Gardening and Goal Setting.
Being stuck is plain old crappy any way you slice it. It can't just be me but it seems i'm always battling it somewhere, creatively, personal, work, finding the time I need to do some project I want to. It happens to all of us, and in different levels and degrees. I remember years ago I was stuck in life in general, I was a fresh special needs mom, 2 kids, husband that works away a lot, and isn't very helpful when he is home, so I found myself stuck in life, in the way I didn't know where I wanted it to go or even how to figure that out.
I don't feel like that anymore, I worked on my mindset and implemented some routines into my life that have really helped me get out of that massive funk of stuck. It wasn't easy and I still have my moments of being stuck but they don't last weeks or months, they last days and I'm able to pull myself out.
I find myself now days hearing so many stories of women stuck in life and not sure where to go or even how to figure it out, and I feel it, I feel it deep because that was me and I remember how discouraging, terrible and sad it made me feel. So I gravitate towards these women looking for a way to help them push through and find that excitement, and vision they crave. Sometimes it's so clear from the outside, but for some reason we as humans sometimes over look the simplest answers, it happens all the time.
I truly am put here to help others and I get excitement out of helping women reach and see dreams, entrepreneurial stuff and empowering them in their lives. So this path has led me to creating an online course for women who are legit stuck, to help them get back on track and in a spot they can start to really getting those dreams in view and feel empowered in their every day lives as moms. Get them back on track and excited for everyday, tending to their needs as women and rocking life in their homes as well.
If you are feeling stuck pop over to my FB Group Happy & Thriving Moms, lots of great stuff happens there and check out my online course: http://ebonymaria.com/page/sales-page-for-course?fbclid=IwAR3xK_3i8-aMhcp0p-EdpmLQ9MgoOV9_56OAqAja1XJ1tDGoU_SR5Jr1etE
We aren't put here to survive we are meant to thrive in our lives, it's time we stop putting ourselves last and really start to take care of our needs so we can be our best version for our families.
The world is so much different now than when our parents grew up, especially our grandparents. I'm positive our grandparents didn't hear the Word "Cancer" in the frequency we hear now, or even at all. I can't help but come to the conclusion we are bombarded with easy choices now. Convenience, easy to grab, instant, quick fixes. The food industry is booming, marketing to us, quickness and processed food. The cosmetic industry is full on about personal care choices times 1000.
Our products and our foods are not the same. We aren't growing up on grand-dads farm anymore. We are living in a time of full on temptations and the most modern, newest of the new. This trend is terrifying, knowing that our food is not just food anymore, our products have so many ingredients, many untested, that we sacrifice our health to look our best, we sacrifice our health to eat fast and convenient.
I started to question our home products when I had my first child, I was now responsible for more than myself. I started reading labels, digging deep and doing my research, it was terrifying and exhausting. I started replacing products with other products with better ingredients, but it was a process it took awhile to actually find products that were safe, I kept finding dead ends. Some products would have majority good ingredients then the dreaded fragrance (aka Perfume) would pop up, in EVERYTHING! It is now my top offender I preach about. It is an ingredient that to this day has been my pet peeve. My mom was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease many years back and now having all the knowledge I have, I find it hard not to truly believe her lifestyle had a lot to do with her current health diagnosis. I believe in body burden and all the evidence is pointing towards it being real and growing. Our bodies can only handle so much before they have to react and unfortunately that results with our health being tested, and challenged.
I love education in general but find great passion educating people on safer choices, how to identify toxins in everyday products and educating why we should care. I think it stems from the empowerment it gave me once I had finally figured out the ingredients to stay away from and the feeling it gave me as a parent to know that my home and all things in it were finally safe. Knowledge is empowerment, I love giving that to women, I think it makes us stronger as women and builds our confidence, allows us to walk and path we want with our heads up. In this case it's understanding our body systems and how we can keep them thriving, proactive health care. I know I don't want to be in a position where I need to have reactive health care, I want to live my life nurturing my body and keeping it thriving.
If you want a crash course in toxins and label reading head over to the Dirty Dozen Home Challenge I created, you will find it in my GROUP under the GUIDE section. I go through the 12 ingredients you should be aware of and try to avoid if your looking to ditch the toxins in your life.
Have you herd of the 5am club? I've been part of it for years. I was struggling finding time for myself, my kids went to bed early but I was tired, and struggled with if I did stay up at night, I paid for it in the morning. Yes I enjoyed myself at night but my body was tired and I found myself doing chores around the house not doing stuff that challenged my brain and made me excited and inspired.
Im writing you currently at 5:15am with a hot coffee on my desk and pure quiet in my home, my husband is at work and the 3 kids are sleeping. I'm truly enjoying my time. Did you know you are most creative in the early hours, it's a time our frontal cortex is most active allowing our creativity to flow. Now don't get me wrong it took me awhile of building this 5am routine to be able to get my feet on the floor and be ready to rock and roll, but just like any routine your mind and body adjust and you get better and better.
I constantly hear moms talking about wanting to achieve balance in their lives, so many struggle with finding time for themselves, and they express how lost and unfulfilled their lives seem, always catering to everyone else and forgetting about themselves. It breaks my heart honestly, because I can feel that, I was there once. That's when I started getting up in the 5am hour, it was out of wanting to change how I took care of myself, it was a mindset shift, necessity, and knowing if I didn't do me first I wasn't ready to do anyone else. I wanted to be happy to see everyone get up and happy to take care of them all day without the lingering thought in my brain, when is it my turn. So now my turn is at the beginning of the day, i''m worth putting first, I deserve to take care of me first, I know I will be taking care of everyone else all day long. What a great feeling it is knowing that i'm waking up each day to do something I'm excited about. This time can truly be the foundation for balance in your life, such a huge part of balance is taking care of yourself so you have the energy both physically and mentally to make all the other pieces fall into place.
That's where my 5am club fell into place, constantly seeing moms searching for balance, wanting to have time for themselves, struggling. I wanted to help them, I knew this was what was going to help them, but I also knew with no support they may not truly see the potential and the gravity on how this could change their lives. This is where the 5AM CLUB was born.
I want every mom to feel like they are worth putting first, I'm so over hearing about moms who put everyone before themselves. We have one life, to be able to give our best we have to be at our best and that only happens when our needs are met, we feel fulfilled. If you are ready to change how you approach your life and to start finding your balance pop over to the 5AM CLUB you will find it in the units section of my GROUP. Let's change how moms are taking care of themselves in a big way!
Do you find yourself making excuses for certain things and why you will do it later or the time isn't right at this moment. I did this for a long time with setting time aside for myself and also for not pushing myself and just creating the career life I wanted. I would tell myself, the kids are going to be older soon, things will get easier time freedom wise, i'll do that thing for myself when they all start school. Why do we do this, why do we always put ourselves last. Truth is, it doesn't get easier nor should we be waiting, the time is never right we just make the decision to make the time right and put our needs and wants as a priority.
If we are putting important things on the back burner it's time to dig a little deeper and find the true reasons we are doing this.
Fear is a huge player in this, we may have a fear at failing at the task or job
Being Comfortable it's how we feel about our life, it can really affect our motivation to jump into the things that will make our dreams happen. You may be in a spot where you are comfortable but not coming closer to your dreams, your not in a spot where you are in that much pain that you must make the steps to get to a new spot of desire. It's time to asses and figure out if you will really settle for mediocre for your life story.
Distractions are a huge rd block, they cloud our visions, when we have to much going on we get caught up sometimes in survival mode and forget what our real passions, dreams, and intentions for our life was. Eliminating unnecessary distractions and simplifying your life can make everything clear again.
Excuses are a given, we all have excuses, but being conscious about our inner talk is key. For every one reason you should do something there will always be 2 telling you not to. Belonging to a group for accountably or having someone along side of you doing the same path is a great way to push those excuses out and not let them creep in and paralyze our progress.
Uncertainty can put a halt to everything great, you need a clear picture of where you are going, what your dreams are, the things that need to happen to get you there. Making a voyage without a map boils down to luck, this is life, if you leave it up to luck you may be greatly disappointed. This is where mapping out a plan will pay off, figuring out where you want to be and how you are going to get there isn't as hard as you think, it actually is pretty exciting to get excited about the things you are going to do to get you to your goal.
All these things held me back at different times in my life, and that's ok. What makes me not worry about all the time I wasted getting hung up on them is the fact I made a choice to push through. Recognize I needed direction, found it and put the things in place I needed to rock life. Being a stay at home mom is a full time job, it leaves little time to even realize that these things may be impacting your greatness. Setting time aside to self asses, breathe, be with your thoughts is so important. Us moms are known for putting ourselves last and that doesn't show our kids how to live. So stop with the negative talk and start getting your dreams in line. If you want to hang out with other moms who want to do that exact thing and moms who are, pop over to my FB GROUP (Happy & Thriving Moms) it's a place we learn how to move forward, push past the doubts and carve out the life we always wanted.
It's never to late to start working towards your dreams.
Ebony
