Permission Slip

Some times I just can’t.

I just can’t do social media; I just can’t do the dishes or clean the house; I just can’t show up for that Zoom coffee we planned. That was hard for me to wrap my mind around let alone give myself permission for.

The pressures of ‘being enough’ are hard to live up to anytime. But when my tank is empty, it’s glaringly obvious that I cannot keep up. And I’ve finally acknowledged that I never should’ve been trying to in the first place. Not being able to keep up caused me a lot of heartache.

I would judge myself harshly for not keeping the house clean enough; for not spending enough quality time with my family; for not stimulating my child’s learning enough; for not feeding myself or my family ‘healthily’ enough; for not working out enough; for not sleeping enough; for not working enough; for not posting enough on my business page or in my group; for not having enough followers on Instagram…Enough!

After I had my baby I experienced severe post-partum anxiety. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know it.
The fact that I couldn’t sleep, was binge eating daily, and I was angry at my husband all the time didn’t register as a ‘real’ problem to me. After all, didn’t all moms struggle?

Part of my journey back to mental health and getting out from under my binges was acknowledging and accepting that some days I just could NOT.

I had to get super clear about what REALLY mattered, to ME. I had to stop living into someone else’s definition of ‘winning at life’.

I know now that if I have enough energy to play catch OR do the dishes, that I’ll choose playing catch every time. The difference now is that I don’t experience guilt about it.

And you know what? Somehow we always have clean dishes to eat off of and clean clothes to wear.

As I healed I found my own version of ‘clean enough’ for my house and ‘done enough’ for my business. I’ve had to decide what MY definition of a win is.