Priorities

This post might start to sound a little "woe is me" with a side of victim mentality but stay with me, I promise I have a point. Have you ever felt guilty for taking a shower? To most of you, that might sound like a stupid question. If you answered yes, then my guess is that you are a mom. Let me explain. When my husband wakes up he doesn't think to himself, "if I take a shower that means Sarah is going to have to watch Harrison and feed him breakfast". He doesn't think about that. He just knows that he needs to take a shower so he gets up and takes one. When I need to take a shower I think, "ok I need to hurry because Brandon will have to watch Harrison and if I take 45 minutes to get ready that means that he is going to have to get him dressed and blah blah blah ..." WHY DO WE DO THIS??? Let me clarify that it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my husband minds watching our son. Quite the opposite actually, he loves hanging out with Harrison. Our son is as much my husband's as he is mine so why do I feel selfish and like I'm inconveniencing my husband so that I can bathe?? My best guess is a two part answer. First, I have made myself such a low priority that even something as simple and NECESSARY as a shower feels selfish. Second, we were raised by generations of women where the norm was for all of the responsibilities of raising the children were almost exclusively the woman's. Now we live in a generation where the majority of women work, whether that be by choice or by necessity. We are working moms but we still feel this pressure to do it all and to do it all perfectly. Before I get misunderstood let me make something perfectly clear. Even if you are a stay at home mom, your children are not SOLELY your responsibility. I know that this will not feel like the case for some because I do know some people that have husbands who truly feel like it is not their job to help out in any way when it comes to the children. However, I would venture to say that the majority of your husbands/partners are like mine and don't mind at all. They just don't know that we need/want help or need/want a break if we don't tell them!

Do you think that if I was feeling guilty about something as simple as a shower that I was making it a priority to work out? Um, no. Here is the thing though, I have come to realize that I am able to best show up for my family when I am taking time to spend on myself. The quality of time that I am able to offer to my son and husband is on an entirely different level when I have taken some time to take care of me. I would much rather lose thirty minutes to an hour with my family to take care of myself it that means the next 3 hours that I do get with them is good quality time that I am present for and not overwhelmed and frustrated. I have news for you, they would much rather get that quality time with you over any quantity of time that you are exhausted, frustrated and stressed. I urge you to think about that quality over quantity and think about how much more you will be able to offer to your family if you feel sane because you took 45 minutes to shop for a new outfit or 30 minutes to go for a run. Take time to go do things for you. I have started carving out at least 1 night a month for dinner with my girlfriends (you know who you are!) and let me tell you we ALL look forward to that time away. We recently took a weekend trip to Chattanooga with just the girls and I'm telling you we needed it so badly. I felt so recharged after that trip because I made myself a priority and took time to do something for me. Find a way to do something for yourself and I think that you will find yourself a little happier and a little more motivated to tackle the tricky stuff! If you are a husband/boyfriend/partner and you have children or even if you don't have children, encourage your loved one to spend some time taking care of themselves, I promise it will benefit you more than you know.