Tag: mindfulmoms

5 Tips to Read More

Like most people, I loved reading when I was younger. But fell out of the habit once nursing school, night shifts, and newborn life took over. Over the last two years I really stepped back into reading and made a serious effort to recreate a habit that I had loved so much. I decided to put down my phone and picked up books instead. In 2021 I pushed myself to read 10 books, which may not sound like a lot but it was more than I had read in many years. It felt so good to remember what it felt like to get lost in other worlds, having to stay up late to find out how a book ends! Those 10 books completely re-energized me to prioritize reading into a sustainable habit again. Last year I pushed myself to double my reading goal ended up finishing the year reading 21 books! Today I thought I’d share some tips for fitting more reading into your life, even if you’re like me and live a busy toddler mom life.

  1. Stop reading books you don’t enjoy – if you don’t like a book. put.it.down. don’t force yourself to read books you don’t enjoy! life is too short. I used to force myself to keep reading out of principle, but the reality is you’ll actually read slower and less books if you’re forcing yourself to trudge through stuff you don’t like.
  2. Utilize apps to get free e books. I use a kindle and before I would go back and forth on if i wanted to spend the money on a kindle book, especially as I was getting back into reading and honestly didn’t know what books I enjoyed anymore… Then I found the libby app. Which basically lets you rent ebooks from library. The app is completely free all you need is a library card number, which you can easily get online! This set me free from the mental gymnastics I was doing about actually spending money on e books and allowed me to download books without the pressure of having to feel like it was “worth the money”. This is how I read 99% of my books is through the libby app! You’re able to rent a book for 21 days but pro tip if it’s taking you longer DON’T close out of the book on your kindle. If you leave it up you can keep reading beyond 21 days.
  3. Know you’ll be interrupted – Life with two littles means interruptions, but I still read around them. While they’re playing outside or in their rooms, or when they’re watching a show. I’ll be reading. But I know I’ll get interrupted. When we’re outside I’ll play with them and then tell them “mommys gonna read her book know while you guys play”, and of course there are still interruptions but the more I do it the more they become used to it. My almost 5 year old asked me the other day all about my book, we talked about how words make sentences and how books tell stories and it was such a great conversation for my guy who is on the cusp of reading himself. The key for reading around your kids is don’t wait for *perfect* conditions. Doing this has helped me read so.much.more! Plus the example this sets is so powerful.
  4. Keep a running to-read list: I use the notes app on my phone and have a note dedicated to books I want to read. Whenever I’m at work and someone suggest a book or I’m on IG and someone talks about a book they love I add it to my list. So when I finish one I always have something else on my list to read. I also keep books on hold on the libby app!
  5. Take a book to bed: A few years ago I started charging my phone across the room from my bed. Mostly so I would ensure I would actually get up when my alarm was going off. But instead of taking my phone to bed scrolling until I was falling asleep I now go to bed with my kindle. Some nights I only manage to read a few pages before my eyes close. Other nights I will literally read for HOURS. This has drastically changed how much I read. And is such a better way to fall asleep. We spend a lot of time looking at our phones, being pulled by dings and pings. But reading really forces you to focus which will ultimately lead to better sleep!

What I’m reading currently: Lessons in Chemistry

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.

23 in 2023

For the past four years instead of new years resolutions, I’ve made a list to help bring intention, thoughtfulness and whimsy into the year. I make these lists without the pressure the everything must.get.done. Instead I try to pick a mixture of little tasks that I’ve been putting off (get my sons birth certificate, get dental work done, etc.), things I want to try (new hikes, new recipes, new travel destinations), and then some broader goals like decluttering, start meditating. Yesterday I shared my 2022 wrapped and what got completed on last years list. You can also read about the origin of this idea in my 2021 post, here!

So here’s my list for 2023!!

Monday Mindset – The one habit that transformed motherhood

If I were to look back and try to pinpoint what set in motion all my mindset and habit changes over the last four years, one thing in particular stands out. Waking up ahead of my kids… This ability to safeguard a little bit of time for myself at the beginning of each day without a doubt transformed my motherhood.

When I started waking up early I was pregnant with Johnathan, Will had dropped down to one nap a day. Suddenly I was scrambling for time to get things done, uninterrupted. My day would start with fussing and crying and I would instantly feel behind. I had started my coaching business, and my to-do lists were long. I was feeling frustrated, short tempered and was quickly realizing I needed to change something. I started small, just 15 minutes ahead of when Wills sound machine would click off. I’d take a few minutes to wake up, maybe jot down a plan for the day, wash my face in silence, sit and pet Juno. This quickly increased to me waking up 30 min early so I could get my workout done first thing. An amazing thing happens when you start giving your body and your mind this space. You begin to CRAVE this silence, this peace. I pretty quickly noticed a shift. Mornings where I didn’t get up early felt tense, I was easily thrown into a bad mood, I was on edge. Mornings where I gave myself a few minutes to wake up allowed for a sense of calm and the ability to handle whatever came at me!

Now I know what you’re thinking “there’s no way I could wake up any earlier than I have to”, stick with me here. I want to be clear, I was never a morning person. I love to sleep in. My former nightshift self relished in getting to sleep until 5pm. However, for the season of life I’m in, with young children, sleeping in is not only unattainable but also not functional or efficient for my life. In this season, when my kids are at home the majority of the day and still need me for many things, I need to front-load my day. When I do this I’m happier, I’m more patient, I’m certainly more productive. I’m able to approach my kids and my family from a place of calm and compassion. Instead of waking to the onslaught of toddler demands, I’m able to exert a little control in how I start my day. If I want to listen to a podcast, if I want to sit in silence and drink coffee, if I want to meditate outside, I can. When I give myself this gift of space and time to wake up, I’m no longer thrown off or upset when I find my two year olds night time diaper malfunctioned or whatever unforeseen event is waiting for me when the rest of the house wakes up. The reality is there are few places throughout your day where you’re able to find some extra time, so giving yourself even a 15 minute cushion of time in the morning allows for you to feel less stressed and more prepared for the day. As mothers we act from a place of servitude, however resentment can rear it’s ugly head when you feel like you’re serving others from the moment your eyes open each day until you fall in bed that night.

** Important caveat here – there are seasons of your life where this is not possible and sleep takes priority, hello newborn bubble. If you are in a season like this, grace. Grace is your biggest friend. Give yourself a big serving of grace, take seconds if you need to, and know that this season will pass **

consider this:

We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic but what it is a profound failure of self respect and of priorities. Then nearly a quarter of us do something else that starts us out on the second wrong foot of the day. We reach for our cell phones within one minute of waking up. Over half of us are checking messages within ten minutes. The majority of people go from out cold to processing mountains of information within minutes every morning. There are only six cars that can go from zero to sixty in under two seconds. Like most cars, humans are not built for that kind of sudden transition, mentally or physically. 

Dan Baker, What Happy People Know

Try this: skip the AM scroll.

Pick a day or two this week to set your alarm 15-20 min early & hold off on immediately scrolling, instead focus on a transition. When we immediately start our days by staring into our prized little rectangles we are giving our energy to other peoples messages, emails, we begin subconsciously comparing and our minds are instantly drawn to things we thing we “should” be doing. When we start our days with high pressure or high stress, we program ourselves to stay in that state the rest of the day and it can be hard to self correct out. By giving ourselves even just a few minutes to transition we can drastically alter the tone of the day.

I’ll share the framework of my morning routine in an upcoming post, but know, it has seen many iterations through the years. And ultimately our needs and circumstances are all different. Some women will want this time to read, to make lists, to workout, to pray or to run their businesses. What works for me in this particular season may not serve you as well. It’s less about how you fill this time and more about creating time that serves YOU. If spending 5 min unloading the dishwasher before everyone is up will make you feel on top of your game do it. If spending 15 min reading while you drink coffee will energize you do it. Consider you pain-points. What is making your morning feel chaotic… is it trying to get ready while little hands grab at you, is it never having time or motivation to workout, is it trying to prep school lunches and make breakfast? Most of our morning tasks can be completed much faster when we’re alone, it’s those tiny people that drag efficiency down… love em’ but it’s true!

I would love to hear if you already do this, or if this is something you’ve tried but struggled with or something you’ve just never considered. For me, waking up 30 – 40 earlier than my kids gives me vastly more energy than staying in bed would for that same amount of time. It sets my day off on the right foot, I dictate the tone and the energy. Try it and see how your motherhood transforms!