People tend to harp on the negatives of motherhood.
→ less sleep
→ less sex
→ less time for yourself
The list goes on.
Let’s be real, they’re not wrong. But the story doesn’t end there.
Instead of dwelling on the less than ideals, let’s talk about how those exact “negatives” can also be the biggest catalyst for living intentionally.
spending your time wisely
We’ll start with the obvious.
When you have less time for yourself, you spend your limited time a hell of a lot more wisely.
That means…
→ far less doom scrolling
→ far less wasting time watching TV shows that are just “okay”
→ spending far less time with friends who don’t even make you feel good
It’s the great shedding we all knew we needed but didn’t actually want to admit.
Babies are actually quite simple
I know what you’re thinking…
“but my baby has so many things.”
And I totally get it, especially as a first time mom, society has convinced us that we need a million binkies, a vibrating bassinet, and every baby carrier known to man.
I fell into that trap as well.
But when your baby is born, you start to realize how simple a baby actually is (simple, not easy).
They really want:
→ milk
→ sleep
→ a clean bum
→ you, their parent
It doesn’t get much simpler than that, really.
If we strip away the extras, the things that we’ve convinced ourselves that our baby “needs,” then we get down to the core needs of being human.
Which is ultimately to love and be loved in return.
You’re forced into slow living, hopefully not kicking and screaming
Moving at a baby’s speed is slow…
really fucking slow.
I’m not sure about you, but for me, it was really clunky at first.
And trust me, I was [internally] kicking and screaming in the beginning.
I truly had no idea how to just be.
I knew how to be productive, to DO DO DO, but simply “being” was a new one for me.
But after a while, I started to embrace it.
remember the story of the tortoise and the hare?
I started to move at snail speed.
The dishes would get done much more slowly.
Laundry would sometimes (okay always) pile up
But I practiced simply being with my baby on a daily basis.
If she was so good at it, surely I could figure it out.
And honestly it worked.
Things got easier.
I felt less rushed.
I stopped telling myself the story that I needed to be productive all of the freaking time.
And that right there was my greatest lesson in how to “stop and smell the roses.”
How to enjoy the mundane rather than speeding through it.
That’s when I started living intentionally in the present moment instead of avoiding it at all costs.
That’s when I started to wake the fuck up.
