Tag: healing journey

2023 wrapped + reflections!

Somehow the calendar has flipped again & we’re once again at a new year! I love a good reflection moment and the start of a new year is the perfect time to look back. This year we celebrated big birthdays for our boys, we spent a lot of time outside, I read more than I have in years past. We took trips to the snow and the beach. I leaned into creating. I built dining benches, mud kitchens and redid closets. I tapped back into my arty side and started playing with watercolors. Chris and I took our first solo international trip and visited Singapore this fall. Of course there were less desirable parts of the year. The boys started the year with virus after virus and there was relentless rain. I got a strange post viral arrhythmia that I’m still sorting out (waiting for a cardiac MRI bleh). I wrote about this last year, but it’s impossible to categorize years as “good” or “bad”. This year was made of thousands of beautiful moments. There were moments where I struggled, moments I felt burnt out at work, or in my motherhood. There’s a chasm of uncertainty when it comes to Chris’ start-up life. But all of those moments are just that, moments. They are fleeting, some are beautiful, like walking my son to kindergarten each morning and others are painful. This year I was better about allowing myself to experience these moments for what they were. And I think the more you’re able to do that in your daily life the less significance a “new year” has, instead I feel gratitude for all this year has given to me. One of my favorite new year traditions is making a list for the year, you can see previous lists here: 20 in 2020 , 21 in 2021, Monday Mindset: 2022 Wrapped. I talk about the origin of this tradition, but I like to fill it with goals, simple things, things to try etc. So it’s time to review what was on my 2023 list.

  1. Attempt gluten free puff pastry – I didn’t do this, but I did make GF sourdough so I’m counting this as an adventure in GF baking!
  2. Go to the beach – yes, and it was one of my favorite memories of the year!
  3. Read 23 books – and then SOME, 34 in total!
  4. Spend 1000 hours outside - we got damn close so i’m counting this as yes. We spent 977 hours outside this year. I am SO proud of this – it was an exceptionally wet first 3 months of year but we purchased rain suits and splashed and made it outside.
  5. Re-open my Etsy shop – nope. but I did sew burp cloths for several friends.
  6. Get a will / living trust set up – yikes. nope. 2024 will be our year for this.
  7. Plan a Stedman family trip – nope
  8. Get another dog – no but this is a rollover for 2024 and I am SET on this.
  9. Hike in the redwoods – yes
  10. J’s closet renovation – yes, one of the hardest DIY’s I’ve done. It took obscenely long since I couldn’t work on this at night or at naptime, but I finished it and learned so much and that closet is 100x more functional now.
  11. Start hot yoga again – I did return to bikram this year. But then was quickly sidelined with my cardiac issues and haven’t returned.
  12. Redo garden beds - yes shout out to my amazing husband who took over this project while I was on limited activity for my heart.
  13. Review spending every week – no.
  14. Go to the dermatologist – also no.
  15. Use my DSLR camera more – I did use it some but not as much as I would have liked. This is an example of a goal that is too vague what is “more”?
  16. Store my phone away during the day – I was fairly good at this and even took a month. of social media which felt amazing.
  17. Take the boys on monthly individual day dates – not nearly as much as I would have liked.
  18. Make a personal timeline – started this
  19. DIY avocado dye – yes, this was fun and the color is a beautiful muted pink.
  20. Do a 75 soft challenge – yes!
  21. Learn to use the cameo machine – nooope! Better luck this year?
  22. Finish my 2021 & 2022 photo albums – YES!
  23. Rescreen our sliding door – we switched to a magnetic screen door which is way more convenient for kids and pets. although idk what I was thinking getting a white one.

Monday Mindset: Our power struggle with time.

Consider this:

We don’t get or have time at all – instead we are time. We’ll never get the upper hand in our relationships with the moments of our lives because we are nothing but those moments.

Last Sunday I was sleeping in a dark hotel room with my husband when I heard his alarm going off for the second time. Only to quickly realize it wasn’t his alarm, it was a phone call. A phone call saying our two year old sons asthma was bad and we needed to come home. Luckily our “getaway” was only ten minutes away. If you’re a parent you know you don’t need to be 500 miles away to feel recharged, all you need is a hotel bed, black out curtains and a night or two without a toddler, iykyk. After getting home, giving Johnathan his nebulizer treatments we realized he wasn’t improving all that much. And so, in all too familiar fashion, we filled a bag with necessities and headed for the hospital. Our little bubba ended up needing to stay in the hospital for 36 hours, getting some extra oxygen his body needed.

In the past five years I’ve sat and laid next to each of my children and husband in hospital beds and each time I’m hit with this paradoxical feeling of having time slow to a crawl within the walls of your hospital room while the world outside goes about their lives. Often in our daily lives we are consumed with ideas of not “wasting time” or the pressure of “living in the moment”. We innately begin to view time as a resource that we can manipulate or control, but there’s no greater reality check on your lack of control than a hospital. In a hospital you’re forced to surrender any illusion of control over time or finitude you think you have. As much as we want to wield control over our time the universe will continue to show us that no one can master time, that you can’t outrun the flipped hourglass that is each of our lives.

In 4000 weeks, Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman describes “a more fruitful approach to the challenge of living more fully in the moment starts from noticing that you are, in fact, always already living in the moment anyway, whether you like it or not. To try to live in the moment implies that you’re somehow separate from “the moment” and thus in a position to either succeed or fail at living in it.” So stop beating yourself up for “not living in the moment” enough. You have no choice you are living in the moment, it’s how you to choose to give your attention and experience those moments that matter.

While we were in the hospital last week I kept thinking about this quote. Usually living in the moment is associated with saying yes to the spontaneous invitation, watching the sunrise, dancing without inhibition, fun, light things. Yet there I was, with the Cars 2 movie playing for the third time in 30 hours, laying next to my son, trying to memorize his little curls and the way he rolls his blanket between his hands while simultaneously sucking his thumb, and I could not have “lived in the moment” more. It was a moment I would never have chosen for myself, but it was my reality. Ask any mom about the paradox that is time. The days can drag on, the phases that feel never ending, and yet suddenly you have a walking, talking toddler and you don’t understand how so much time has already passed. This feeling of chasing time, of wanting to savor every minute of it, of older generations reminding us how quickly it all really flies by can add pressure to make sure we’re doing THE most. When what would benefit us the most is to stop splitting our attention, stop trying to see how much we can cram into our day but instead shifting our focus to our focus. What makes our lives meaningful are our experiences. But in order to truly experience something we have to give our attention to it. Burkeman notes “to have any meaningful experience you must be able to focus on it, at least a bit. Otherwise, are you really having it at all? Can you have an experience you don’t experience?”

Things like meditation and breathwork train our brains to pause. To allow room for focus in a world that is filled with pings and dings, devices that are constantly pulling our focus in a hundred different directions.

I snapped this photo this week, we were reading books on the couch before bed, Chris was reading Dragons Love Tacos, and Johnathan held my hand. And I couldn’t stop looking at that little hand inside mine. I gave that little hand all my attention and focus, feeling the warmth from it, how his little fingers gripped onto my palm, the tiny veins that run along the top of his hand, the calmness of the moment. It was hard to believe a few days prior we were in the hospital and now we’re back at home, in this moment.

I hope this post encourages you to slow down, to draw more attention to the moments you’re already living it. Whether they’re the same bedtime routine you’ve grown tired of, or a new destination, or lifes cruel realities. I hope you can find moments to take in and fully experience for all that they are.

Monday Mindset – The Power of Reframing.

Reframing is the ability to change your life without actually changing your circumstances. It is a powerful shift that costs us nothing but can make a huge impact on our daily lives. This is not to say that you have to pretend sh*tty things are actually rainbows and blessings – that is toxic positivity. But instead considering things that we come across in our daily lives that we tell ourselves are problems or burdens. What mountains have we made out of molehills? What story are we perpetually telling ourselves? In theory reframing is great but IRL it can be harder to implement, especially if all you’ve known is to reflexively look at situations through a lens of criticism, blame or negativity. Below are some tips to actually make reframing something you can put into action versus just a far off concept that you’re never able to wrap your hands around!

Start finding the good – The harder you look for it the more you will find. The easiest and most effective way to start finding the good is something I’ve talked about before, gratitude. Simple gratitude lists will shift the way you see your day to day life and the more you do it the more powerful this practice becomes. It doesn’t have to be fancy or in-depth, keep it simple. Keep a gratitude list pinned to the top of the notes section in your phone. Next time you’re standing in a line instead of mindlessly scrolling see how many things you can find that you’re grateful for.

The power of pause – when you find yourself doing dishes and telling yourself “this sucks, there’s always dishes, I can never keep up, my kids make such a mess” pause! Try to create some space and reframe. Often times we can’t control what happens to us in life, the dishes will inevitably be there day after day, the unexpected work project, the cancelled babysitter, so much is out of our hands. But the control we have lies in how we choose to react and respond to our lives. There is immense power in seizing that control versus simply relying on old habits or built in reactions. Pausing and reframing takes practice like all of these – often times you won’t pause until well after you’ve complained about xyz, but even catching yourself later that day is progress. As you continue to reframe and look for the good it will get easier to catch yourself in real time. The first huge step is even just realizing you were building a negative narrative in your mind whether you notice a minute after or a day after, progress is progress!

Write. It. Out. Journaling is talking things out with yourself, a diy therapy session… How are you supposed to know what you want, or what’s bothering you, or how you actually feel, if you never give yourself a moment to be with your thoughts. In today’s world we are bombarded by stimulus through our phones. We so rarely turn inward to assess our inner dialogue. At the end of the day all this stimulus can leave us feeling some sort of way that can be difficult to pinpoint. Was it that rude interaction at the store or in traffic, was it the triggering tiktok that you stumbled upon, was it an off handed comment a friend made, was it a narrative your subconsciously told yourself? Writing can give us clarity. It can help us find the good.

Ultimately reframing, like most mindset changes doesn’t happen immediately. It takes practice, and each day present new circumstances and challenges. With mindfulness and mindset improvement it’s so important to remember the journey is not linear. On my own personal journey I’ve often felt the idea of two steps forward, one step back. I’ve thought “I’m writing gratitude, I’m meditating, why is this so hard, why am I still losing my cool and yelling at my kids?” And the reality is it’s because life, and motherhood is freaking hard and I’m human! Over the years I’ve learned how important it is to hold grace for myself the same way I give it to others. We are human and life is hard. But that is what makes it beautiful, and choosing to lean into our emotions and become more aware of our thoughts is powerful. It allows us to feel and live life more deeply, even if it feels like we move backwards from time to time.

Monday Mindset: Affirmations For Every Situation

Consider this: “We think in words, and these words have the power to limit us or to set us free; they can frighten us or evoke our courage. Similarly, the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives eventually becomes our lives.”

Dan Baker, What Happy People Know

Try This: Affirmations. I used to roll my eyes at the idea of affirmations, but science has shown us that affirmations are in fact a way to help alter our internal dialogue, that will otherwise gladly tell us: we aren’t good enough, smart enough, we’ll fail etc. For many of us if we let our subconsciouses run wild they will chatter at us in negative and anxiety ridden tones. It takes work to change our narratives but one of the most powerful ways we can do that is through affirmations.

Below you’ll find affirmations for most situations! It can sound so silly when you first start saying them. But other ways I like to incorporate affirmations are:

  • Write it on a sticky note and put it on a mirror you look at daily
  • Pick one or two to say daily at a specific time (ie: waking up / going to bed / rocking your kid etc.)
  • Save an affirmation as the background on your phone, when you’re going into a tough situation or experience. It’s the perfect easy reminder to see some words that should bring you calmness or courage!
  • Save my PDF version with these affirmations!
Affirmations for every situation PDFDownload