I Ski Because I Was Bitter. (How This Mama Does Self-Care)

Photo by asoggetti on Unsplash

The other day, I did this thing I do when all of my kids are at school. I packed the lunches, signed
the things, got the kids to school, and drove up to the mountains by myself to ski for the day because
after 10 years, I’m beginning to master this Stay at Home Mom Gig.

I spent the next few hours shreddin the gnar in 7 inches of pow, chasin freshies.
(I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I think that’s what I was doing all day.)

When my legs begged for mercy and my phone alarm reminded me to go pick up the children,
I began the drive home, basking in the glow of a spectacular ski day, and feeling like that girl
I used to be before the kids and the last 10 years of life drained the energy from my soul. There’s
just something about a day in the mountains, a winding road and country music on the radio that
refuels me.

As I made my way back to my kids and my home, I was oozing gratefulness for the opportunity to
call Colorado my home, and I realized I could’ve been taking care of myself like this for the past
10 years by doing the things that make me feel like me. But I was too busy feeling bitter about how
much poop I was cleaning up, how many dishes were still left undone, how much laundry needed
to be washed, dried, folded, or put away… I was too busy being angry about my husband’s long
hours at work, my kids making it impossible to leave the house, my inability to run a household…
I was too busy grieving the loss of the girl who loved mountains and trees to realize she was
never lost at all.

You see, fifteen years ago, my now-husband said something my 23 year-old self thought was
romantic and profound. We were deep into a discussion that covered everything, and he
said, “Love is about sacrifice.”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

He leaned back, ran his hand through his hair, and paused just long enough to make me think
he was coming up with something really deep. And then, this country music-hating young man
looked straight into my eyes and said, “It means… I would’ve listened to country music if I had
to in order to be with you.”

Did God call me to sacrifice my happiness, my personality, my love of the outdoors when I
became a mom? Did God call me to give up on leaving the house? Did God call me to
sacrifice my self-worth because the kitchen was constantly a mess? Did God call me to give
up on being the person He made me?

Or did I give my happiness, my personality, my time in the outdoors willingly because fighting
for them was just too hard? Did I cling to my “sacrifices”, believing it justified my bitterness? Did I
sacrifice so I could believe I deserved to be angry that my life now isn’t what it once was?

Sure, being a wife and a mom requires sacrifice. I mean, I knew there would be poop. I didn’t
know there would be THIS much poop, but I knew there would be poop.

And it’s true. Love IS about sacrifice.

But love is NOT about bitterness. “Love is patient, love is kind...it keeps no record of wrongs…”
(1 Corinthians 13:4-8) Unfortunately, I keep a record of the sacrifices I make for my husband, and
my children. Even the ones no one ever asked me to make.    

Here’s the thing, friend. My people never asked me to give up hiking, country music, or long
drives on country roads, but they also don’t know how much I need those things if I don’t
communicate and schedule them in. It’s not selfish to be my best self. It’s selfish to give
people my worst self because I’m drowning in pee-stained sheets and dirty dishes and I can’t
breathe. It IS selfish to allow my heart and soul to die because “it was just too hard” to fight the
battles it takes to care for them.

It’s true. Love is about sacrifice.

Because I love myself, I will sacrifice a clean house for a day of skiing. Because I love my family, I
will sacrifice the “should-be” version of me and go be my best self instead. Today I have a ski
goggle tan and a smile, and this is the face of the wife and mom I want my family to have, not the
exhausted, bitter, angry one who only exists to wipe up poop and pick up the house.

Please fight for the time to be and care for yourselves, mamas. Your families need the real you. She’s
still in there. And she’s worth fighting for.

Prison Break: How I Stopped Believing the Lies in my Head

Originally Published on flatironswomen.blogspot.com

Photo by Robert Hickerson on Unsplash

My negative thoughts had begun to run my life. I was grunting in anger or disappointment so much, my children were starting to think I was part cave woman. Ugh. I’m so fat. Ugh. This should be easier. Ugh. Why can’t you listen? Ugh. I’m a moron. Ugh.

I was trapped in a prison of should be and not enough.

So I did the most courageous thing I could think of. I went to see a counselor. A therapist. A shrink. Somebody who holds a pen and says, “mmhmm” and “I see” a million times.

“Why are you here?” she said.

“Because I hate my life.” I said.

“Do you really?” she said.

“I don’t know.” I said. “I just know that the words, ‘Ugh! I hate my life!’ get screamed in my head over and over and over again all day long.”

“And do you believe that those words are true?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I mean… I don’t really hate my life. I just think I hate my life a lot. My life’s not that bad. But every day shouldn’t be this hard. Right?”

So, slowly, we worked on noticing the icky thoughts, saying, “Oh hi, icky thought.”

It made me feel like an idiot, but it worked… little by little. “You’re just a thought, ‘I hate my life,’ just a thought.”

I found this terribly annoying. “Little by little.” She said. “Just keep noticing your thoughts.”

Whatever. I’m talking to my thoughts like an idiot. But it works. Sort of. I still think I hate my life. But that thought doesn’t own me anymore.

On a visit to my best friend in her Pacific Northwest home, I said, “I’m still sad. I’m still angry. I’m still annoyed. Life is still hard, and I feel like it is taking forever to move forward. I feel like I’m a turtle still wallowing through the stupid crap of her life.”

“Know what my therapist made me do that really helped?”  Her mid-thirties had demanded the courage to talk to someone too.

“She made me draw two pictures. One of me when I was in a bad headspace, and one of me when I’m in a good headspace.”

“And…”

“And it helped.”

“What did you DO with the pictures?”

“I just drew them and wrote down my thoughts.”

“And this helps?”

“It helped me.”

“Okay. Well, it sounds fun. Maybe I’ll try it when I get back home.”

Fun. I said. It sounds fun.

So on a day when two of my three kids were at school and the third was taking a long, glorious nap, I sat down with some blank paper and a cup of coffee.

I drew an egg-shaped round body with a crazy messy bed-head-looking ponytail, angry eyes, slumped shoulders and big thighs. I wrote thoughts that plague me. Thoughts that pop into my head when I fail, when I get frustrated, when I look in the mirror, when I try my best and feel like I’ve succeeded, but no one else seemed to notice or care. I wrote “Mean Me” on the top of the page and began to pour out all of the negative things that run through my brain on a daily basis. I labeled myself with the words, “jiggly, messy, flaky, gross, bored, lonely, empty, selfish, alone, angry, cheated.” I called myself things that I would never call anyone. Words that cut so deep I wouldn’t dream of saying them to or about another human being. Words I had begun to believe described who I really was.

It was not fun. Nope. Not fun at all. It was terribly painful in fact. But it was also the most freeing thing I have ever done.

I scribbled and sketched out the negative junk for about 25 minutes. Then I looked at my creation and ugly cried for an hour.

Because the only truth on that page was that I believed it all.

I can’t believe I believe all of this about myself. I thought. These are lies. They’re all lies. And they’re in my head constantly.  

I realized the thing people had been telling me for years was the truth, “Emily, honey, you’re too hard on yourself.”  But I have known no other way to be. And so, I have believed the lies.

As painful as writing the bad stuff was, writing the good was more difficult than writing the bad because, like Julia Roberts says in Pretty Woman, “Sometimes the bad stuff is easier to believe.”

It felt like I was trying to be Stuart Smalley, from a Saturday Night Live skit portraying a ridiculous self-help counselor. “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough…” Gag.

I bit the bullet, though, and I drew the “good version” of me. It was reserved but truthful. I used words like “strong, adventurous, funny, cute, interesting, natural, barefoot, present.” Nice Me climbs mountains, plays outside, gets dirty, has guts, wants to hear your story, and is full of great ideas. Nice Me LOVES wearing ponytails and no makeup. Nice Me is who God wants, who my kids, my husband, my friends want. Nice Me is who everyone is rooting for.

But Nice Me is also the girl that Mean Me swallowed when she was eating her feelings a long time ago.

Nice Me is the truth, and she is amazing. She is a force. She is encouraging and kind. She is full of grace and grit and authenticity. 

She is incredible. 

I stared at the two sketches for a long time separating the lies from the truth, and it occurred to me that I could, in fact, stop believing the voice in my head that told me I was worthless and not good enough. I could, in fact, put one foot in front of the other and walk right out of the prison of guilt, shame, anger, and self-loathing lies that held me captive just an hour ago. And I could do this because walls made of lies don’t actually exist. They were only there because I believed they were.