Greetings Friends and Happy New Year!
As we welcome the New Year, many of us look inward towards self-improvement, home improvement, and to the often overlooked activity of relaxation! The long, cold winter allows us to take solace in hibernation and find peace in the monotony of being snowed in and cozy at home. Perhaps you get cabin-fever and enjoy staying busy. This is the perfect time to catch up on indoor projects, housekeeping for business (tax time!), or personal projects. This year, resolve to also Take Your Time to enjoy hobbies, spend time with family and enjoy the downtime!
Speaking of Taking Your Time, I did just that! I apologize to my readers for being MIA, but I was a mom on “sabbatical” and took some time during an extended maternity leave to unplug, focus on my family, friends and life offline. Yes! I said the “M-word”-maternity – that means baby!!!
After having a healthy but very queasy pregnancy, I had the most perfect birth! In July 2016, we welcomed another healthy, lovely baby girl, who is now a rambunctious 18 months! Her name is Emily! For this princess, I designed a birth announcement “Once Upon A Time,” to go with her fairytale-themed room. That’s when I realized that our little family’s initials are T.I.M.E. Tracy, Isabella, Michael and Emily! With initials like that, it is a constant reminder of what’s important and a memo from above that, time with loved ones is priceless!
Now that my oldest daughter is four, I am constantly amazed by her inspirational personality and infectious smile! Her wit and wisdom defy age — she makes our world bright and colorful! My husband is amazing as a father and husband; plus, he is doing well in his real estate business and day job! Did I mention he’s super human–or just really Ukrainian! Well, I couldn’t imagine life without that Uke as my teammate in all things. His overachieving personality was especially appreciated in the past couple years…
With our new addition to the family, it was an opportunity for personal growth, expanding love and improving health! Everything was going great: I started exercising about 6 weeks postpartum to get in shape for a wedding that was 6 weeks after that! My baby girl loved to be moving so I went with it and began an intense strollercize regiment with ankle weights and jogging. Yeh, I really gave the neighbors a show! But seriously, SIDE NOTE/PSA: do not do strenuous exercise postpartum without strengthen your core first, as everything is unstable in the pelvis. (More on that later).
Simultaneously with this extreme (or extremely stupid 🙄) postpartum workout routine, my baby girl had Colic. She cried ALL the time unless she was being bounced — This went on for 3 months! So you get the idea: I was not sleeping, I was jogging, or bouncing or wearing a baby for 3 months straight, right after giving birth. So, the wedding that I was training for came, and I started having the most intense pain in my lower back and entire pelvis.
That pain lasted 12 months. I was inundated with doctors’ appointments, physical therapy, tons of “experts” not helping, and lots of laying around wishing things were different. This was not my plan! This experience has been a major game-changer in every aspect of life and WELLness! Recovery and the demanding role of wife/mother seemed to be more difficult and exhausting when every minute is painful. I didn’t have a terminal disease, but still I had no idea what the next day was to bring. I couldn’t make solid plans. I couldn’t pickup my baby without extreme pain, go to a store or restaurant, drive in a car or sit/stand. I couldn’t sleep well, dress easily, walk, bend, forget about working and pain was only relieved mildly by laying down and with medicine (yeh – because a mother of 2 can do that all the time!). I could barely care for myself, let alone my children, so I had to hire a sitter to hold my baby for a few months.
A baby and a debilitating injury will force one to concentrate only on priorities and force a household into “survival mode”. Wellness is a luxury when so many more demanding tasks and important roles are needed to be filled. Forget about organic gardening, hitting the gym, extracurricular enriching activities or writing an advice blog! As they say “before you can help others, you need to help yourself”. So, I have been putting off blogging because I wasn’t feeling very “well”. And you’re supposed to be well when writing a blog like this, right?!?!?
Of course, this is all a long story short and will be elaborated in future posts. I will also explain how I Finally found relief from pain through a family friend and Neurokinetic Therapy. He found that years of compounding injuries led to many core instabilities, which caused tons of muscles to overcompensate, hence the pain. Through a simple movement routine, I made a complete turnaround, and I am now almost back to normal and feeling good! I have even been exercising again –Boy did I miss the gym and my active lifestyle!
Now, I find that each day I feel “normal”, is an absolute gift – and God has been very generous! In fact, life and all its lemons are a gift too. This experience showed me that sometimes God works in mysterious ways to allow one to realize how much is taken for granted in life. As they say “hindsight is 20-20” and now I can look back and understand God’s plan. However, I can honestly say that in the moment, I felt lost and sometimes hopeless. Now, I share my stories and their morals. If my blog can inspire one reader with hope and deliverance, then I met my mark.
This experience also revealed the importance of taking some TIME away from being online. Sometimes keeping up with Everything happening, whether news or social media is taxing, time-consuming, and in today’s world, can cause much unnecessary anxiety. Behavioral health experts YourSunshine.org explains the effects of overstimulation.
TIP: check email and social networks only once a day if possible, or at least only check at certain times (every #hours). Turn off notifications. This allows you to focus on the present and pay attention to current tasks. When you break after a task is completed, then stop and check. If you want to be even more daring, try not answering your phone for blocks of time when you are really delving into a project. Now, I did take a lot of time away from Facebook but now I just limit my use. Now I “binge” upload Facebook pictures from a week+ at a time. This way, it’s after the fact so I’m not busy checking in or posting while I am out. That way, I am not distracted from tasks or miss the important moments in life. In blogs to come… how I avoid nasty politics and negative news.
I absolutely recommend going off the grid a bit when you need to do some soul searching. Also, when recovering from any injury, whether physical or even emotional, the outside stimulation is distracting, draining and not even reality. I choose to live in the real world as much as possible. But I hope to share the journey — hills and valleys — with you along the way.
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DISCLAIMER: I’m so excited to be blogging again, but I think I need to advise that this blog will not always be grammatically correct and will not be my most polished work. My priorities are my family, God, friends, clients and the blog is just a hobby. So please excuse my blogging by Iphone, short posts, quick sharing, and imperfect formatting. This blog is a place for me to share ideas and not worry about perfecting pieces like I do with my clients. However, I promise to include valuable lessons learned, interesting anecdotes and life’s little discoveries!
Plants Power Purpose 