Leah: The Song Inside

Parenthood rocks!  Screaming kids, little sleep, no personal time, hardly any sex.  After having my first (and only) child two and a half years ago, my life went to shit.  Slowly but surely I am regaining a sense of happiness and individuality through carving out little chunks of time for myself. 

The first thing I can remember doing for myself after my daughter was born was starting a twice-a-month ritual of going to Kabuki Spa in San Francisco for the $20 soak-all-you-want hot tubs and steam baths.  It was cheap and easy.  Although it was never enough, it‘s amazing how just two hours, twice a month gave me a sense of rejuvenation amid the chaos.  Ahhhh, how I loved those hot tubs!  I would close my eyes and float away on a cloud, drifting to the shamanic flute music…

The key was that it was a recurring event, in the calendar without fail.  Scheduling anything is a chore, but when it happens on a recurring schedule it becomes easy.  If I was going to go through the pain to schedule something, I may as well do it regularly.

Since the birth of our child, we’ve always been on a tight budget.  Babysitters have been almost non-existent.  Therefore I’ve had to get creative to carve out personal time.  In the early months of parenthood, after my daughter went to bed, I would often find myself on the internet losing countless hours browsing Facebook, email, news, whatever.  I started to get vigilant about curbing my internet use and actually using those precious hours on what I really loved – making art.  Pre-mamahood, I was a musician, painter and craft making fool.  I started to devote just one hour a night to these passions and slowly but surely my creative juices have come back.  My projects are moving slower than they used to, but THEY’RE MOVING – and that feels amazing. 

 

A few months ago, after a particularly hard week, I was venting to one of my other Mama friends about how I just couldn’t “get it together.”  We both agreed we wanted someone to lean on, someone to be accountable to, someone other than our husbands.  So we started a weekly 60 minute check-in call with each other where we would briefly tell the other what we were struggling with and what we were committed to doing during the next week to make our life better.  Those calls became my rock.  They started to really boost my confidence and helped me really take my life back into my own hands.  For 30 minutes we’d talk about her life, then 30 minutes about mine.  Within two weeks, I started to finally do yoga again and also get more serious about making jewelry to sell.  Now, only eight weeks after starting our calls, I’ve established a yoga practice 3 times a week and I’m making jewelry on a level I had only dreamed of just a year ago.  The support of my mama friend helped to push me through those roadblocks I had set up for myself.   The best part is I’ve also been able to help her and we’ve established a deeper friendship through this process.

Honestly, I still wish I had more time to myself, more peace and more sex in my life.  But I’ve found that if I don’t do the little things to carve out time, they will never happen.  My pinnacle achievement thus far in mama hood – I just took a two day process painting Mandala workshop.  I had over 16 hours to paint and enjoy connecting with my soul in a way I had not done – ever!  My painting is called, “The Song Inside”.   What I took away from the workshop is that I MUST CREATE.  And I must allow myself to be seen, and to be heard.  And to do this, I must TAKE the time, because nobody is standing there waiting to give it to me. (www.paintmandalas.com)