What is stress doing to moms?

Hi! It has been a long time since I have written here. I have missed it! I have been writing.....just not here. I have been writing a book!

Its been pretty exciting since October. I have always wanted to write a book, but it was so overwhelming, like everything else felt like in my life. So...I wrote....but not like I have been these past few months. It is almost done and ready to go to editing. I am super scared because I have never been this close to success. I am so close!!

But in full confidence, I have only recently been building myself back up from what felt like my rock bottom. I started this blog as a way to help me find myself again, to find happiness in depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia. That is why it is called moms happiness blueprint.

Guess what?! I am happy despite that I still have depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia. I have rough days and weeks but I am not knocked down by them, like I was before. No I get back up brush off the yuck and stuck and I try again. In fact, the last 4 years have been really hard because the list of foods I can eat are just a few. I eat the same thing every day. No variety. No sugar. Yet things stay the same.

 I have not stayed the same though. I have changed... and for the better.

I still struggle with a messy house, my ADD brain and my illness. My 4 little leaders in training give me a run for my money. But, I recuperate faster and nothing keeps me down for long.

 I struggle with technology and how to get out there, not for fame, but to share and prevent moms from burning out. I mean you literally see the light go out of the eyes of a mom who is exhausted and been hanging on for so long. Stress happens but burnout is optional. That downward spiral in our mind, body and spirit is optional. We do not need to loose ourselves in motherhood. I see it all the time. Mothers who because of their health or difficult behaviors in their children are not enjoying motherhood and think they are doing something wrong. It breaks my heart and.......its PREVENTABLE!

Basically I have been putting off really helping moms navigate chronic stress like I do everyday. I am still figuring things out. That list of figuring it out is long. So is the list of tools and coping skills I have now. I have been able to take back my time and energy and break the tie to what I get done. Some days I just can't unless I want to crash and put myself into a flare. Illness had made me look at my priorities and do things differently. I like myself a lot more and the little people in my life. I love being an entrepreneur. It stretches me in ways I never thought possible. It is hard.

So why do I do it when I am sick and dealing with really stressful things?

Why not? I would be selfish if I didn't share what I know and help as many woman as I can. I can do this even if I am still struggling with stressful things. If we are strong and resilient moms then our kids will be too. There are a lot of things in a culture that are not good and busy, is one of them. We can stop it with our kids. They will do what we do they are watching us run around being stressed and busy. They feel less connected and less listened to so they are acting out more and turning to screens. But us moms, we can be the change.


I am talking about a movement from stress to time and energy freedom. I want to create a community and resources for busy moms like you to do this without all the guilt and being affected by stress.

There is no forward movement when we are stressed. For a year all I did was dig into my past, my thought patterns and learn what my triggers were. I really got to know myself and how hard I had been on myself since I was a child. No wonder I am sick. My body, mind and spirit are exhausted with me. Seriously! I put my OWN self through it. I didn't know that though. I do now and that is another reason why I want to share my story and light the way for others too, especially my children.

Eventually my website will be ready and I will move there. But I promise to not be so neglectful. I promise to be honest. I think writing on here will help me stay accountable and keep me focused, because hello....squirrel! Does anyone else need that? This year is my year to conquer the clutter and the fear of getting out there when I am still trying to figure things out.

Where are you starting from? Share. I would love to know. We can take this journey together. Start where you are. Its okay. Things can change. You can change. You can be the change.

3 reasons you should give affiramtions a try and how to make them powerful

Here is a little heavenly download I received this morning. You see it has been a tough month with routine changes, visitors, 2 dog surgeries and all the emotions that go with it. So as I was writing in my journal and thinking about the current challenges I am facing, these words were impressed on my mind. I like to imagine I am talking to my Heavenly Father and that he writes me back. I hope by sharing this it lifts you up and speaks to your heart. What was said was this:

You don't think you have been strong enough all this time but you have. You have done all you could and risen to the challenge and want to help others rise. All of this has built character and determination. Determination is defined as a firmness of purpose, resoluteness, strength of character, single mindedness, perseverance and grit. This is what you were building when it seemed you were knocked down and broken. When in reality their is a force, the devil, that wants to keep you down but you have the power to overcome it. This evil doesn't want you to know that. He wants to keep you from affirming your divine identity,calling him out and keep you down.

We can affirm who we are and declare it. That is powerful. That is why everyone is talking about affirmations. I tried affirmations years ago and they didn't work for me. I didn't think they were for me. I tried later and have since found a powerful combination to the negative! How many of you have tried affirmations and they didn't work?

 I believe an affirmation should have 3 things

1) address yourself.
 2)address your own thoughts and not others. You can't live on borrowed light or borrowed affirmations.
3) It should be urgent and vital. These statements should help you gather up internal strength and then be further strengthened and buoyed up by prayer and faith in your higher power, for me is my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Affirmations are giving your brain something new and it is normal for you to feel uncomfortable and for it to take time to work. Stick with it! Declare what you want or who you would like to be spark that little bit of determination and hope. With an increase in sticking with it and hope you can practice refocusing your mental and spiritual energy. They are saying now it takes 66 days to change a habit. It takes time as all good things do.

Affirmations don't seem to work when you just start out and may at rock bottom in what seems to the ruins of your life. It may at first take all your strength and energy to refocus and say these affirmations. That is normal. Again it takes time and practice. You are reprograming deep thinking patterns and beliefs.

 Loving and trusting God in the rubble takes time and so does loving yourself again. It takes time to build from the ground up. But as you build from what has been broken, increase that determination and firmness of purpose and faith you are building stronger this time. You can build on that everyday to build up and create anew and those weaknesses will become strengths. Keep trying. Don't give up. Keep building on what you know and are doing well already.

When your feeling anything but love

I wrote this today because I was feeling anything but love.

 

 

I didn't love that I have had a regression in my health. I didn't like that I keep taking the same thought patterns of fight or flight when I am being yelled at or my child is throwing a tantrum. I feel like a bad mom.They are probably feeling like a bad kid and that I am not listening or loving them the way they need.

 

It's so easy to take that path of self pity and helplessness,but so frustrating at the same time. I was triggered by one of my children and fear always creeps in. Then fight or flight stress response. Then the response in my mind and body and more........... Pain....

 

 Emotional, physical, spiritual and mental pain..........Then a Fibro flare. Its the same pattern

 

The mind, body and spirit are all connected and I get so mad when I start this chain reaction.I know it happening but I still can't stop myself.I fail to stop at the imaginary stop sign. Instead I react and crash and bang into everyone and everything in my path. I am at the intersection of brain overload and emotional shutdown.

So this is for you......

 

if you are feeling unloved, unappreciated, invalidated. This is for you if you are discouraged and bearing yourself up with your inner critic and demons. You may be feeling just like me.You and I are better than this. We can make a different choice, a course correction, if you will.Today my pain has been halted with a poem I wrote. It's called Just Love. I hope it allows you to stop,breathe and make a different, better choice the rest of your day,week, month, year and the rest of your life.
 

Just love

 

When the waves come crashing down...Just love

When vision is blurred .........Just love

When it seems like we are drowning.......Just love

Just love.

For yourself.

For your loved ones.

Everyone is heard. You "sea"everyone's perspective and no one is lost for long. When it seems impossible look to the horizon of new possibilities.

New hope.

New chances.

When it seems hard to love your life and even yourself start with a spark, a glimmer of love and hope.You are never beyond hope or love. You are never beyond hope or love. The one you MUST start with first is yourself.

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Motivated Mamas

Depression has been my greatest teacher

Communication with other people has not been my strong suit. Every time I would speak up for myself ,whether it was bullies, my teachers, my peers and even my family I got shot down. I was made to feel like I was too sensitive and emotional. It started an unhealthy addiction to perfection. It made me look at myself like something was wrong with me. I learned that outside forces defined me that what people thought and said were true. I learned that my thoughts we're heavy and scary and that they were true. I felt unsafe unloved. No matter who was there for me or who tried to show they cared and loved me I was completely overwhelmed bye things that happened to me and continue to happen to me and my emotions. I didn't realize what was happening. I didn't realize what damage I was doing to my mind and my body and the beliefs I was forming. I didn't know any other way to live unless I had something to fix something to make it all better. But it never did. It never did get better. The only thing I was able to do was to hide it better.

 

These last few years I have learned so much and change so much. I've experienced such darkness and pain that I didn't think it was humanly possible to experience. All my time and energy was sucked away by worrying and fighting and struggling and being triggered. But I've learned something from all of this. What I have gone through is worth it if it helps somebody else. I pray no one else has to step into that complete dark and hopelessness and fear and struggle. Every now and again it comes back and I feel it and I fear it and I struggle against it. But I've learned that fighting only brings resistance. And if you feel like you have to fight something the trick to fighting is........ patience. Patience with yourself. Patience with the events and circumstances of your life and trying to not bring fear and resistance and negative emotions to it. There is a force that wants you to think these things. That wants you to doubt yourself and doubt that there's any way out or any hope or any direction. Depression anxiety and Fibromyalgia and people in my life that trigger me have all been my greatest teachers of patience. We are like clay in the potters hands. Gods hands. We can allow our struggles to shape us or to crumble under the pressure.

 

The more I don't want something the more it persists. What if instead I look at what I can learn and what adversity can teach me? What if these frustrating patterns and addictions to negativity and seeing myself as a victim so early on in life can teach me something? Even those people who get under my skin and trigger me or make me think I am a bad person or I can't do it anymore can teach me. They teach me the most about being patient. Patient as I try to not control and fix things. Patient as I try to search for answers that benefit me and benefit them. Patience that God has brought these people into my life for a reason. That God has brought in all of this into my life for a reason. And that storm that seems to be circling around ,confusing me, scaring me and taking my very breath away, seems to dissipate in an instant as fast as it came.

 

 I'm so grateful that I have learned what my triggers are. I'm so grateful that I know when I'm triggered and I'm aware of what's going on. Even though I haven't learned how to stop being triggered, I overcome it faster each time. I am not willing to devote my energy in my time to it any longer than it needs to be. I need to allow God to calm the storm inside so I can see clearly and know that it's okay. I can know that it's Depression or Anxiety or any triggering event or person and that I can't control that outside force. You can know. These perceived weaknesses can't control me.It can't control you. It's only powerful when I fear it and give it into it. When I start down that path of feeling worthless and not liking myself and not liking what's happening to me. I know that path of self loathing and destructive thoughts. I won't stay on that path. I can turn around. I can choose another path. So can you. I can choose another way. So can you. He shows me that way. He shows you.But only if I am listening and only if I allow it and ask for help.

 

 I would encourage you to listen to your messengers and what you can learn. Slow down and listen. It may feel like there is too much and you are overwhelmed. I have been there. Don't let the storms on the outside come inside you. The answers and strength is inside you. Stand strong and build the strong inside you to not be blown about by very wind and withstand the storms of life.

What to do when life seems to be coming up weeds instead of roses

It's springtime and yet again we forgot to spray fertilizer on our lawn. So our yard is covered in yellow dandelions. Weeds seem to grow anywhere and come out of nowhere. This is true of our thoughts as well and the stories we tell ourselves. I've been telling myself stories since I was a little girl. Every time my parents fought or I was bullied at school. I was telling the story of victim. I felt worthless and powerless in my brain continue to look for that evidence. Even now when I tell people my story my body goes into fight or flight as if it is living it all over again. It's really frustrating because I have changed or I'm trying to. I've seen more evidence of hope and my worth as a child of God. I love telling my story because it energizes me. I took my story, something negative, and found a positive in it to empower me and to be able to use it to empower others.

 

I have learned there's power in letting go. Letting go of control to what I could control and that was me. I had to find out where I was giving my power away. I had parasites, sibo(small bacteria overgrowth)my health and the illness identity of so many diagnoses other people's talks its behavior that I'm constantly around, a messy house. Where are you giving your power away? Where are you saying I can't take it anymore? Where are you saying I am sick and tired of this?

We so often give people, achievements what we do power over us.Its who we are the matters not what we do or our past or even our future but what we are doing now. Our worth is from the divine within each of us. How we tell our story matters because our brains look for evidence to support our thoughts which may or may not be true. We can be strong despite our circumstances. We can look at our stories and other way to build us up and those around us rather than tear us down. Even though dandelions pop up all over my yard they aren't ugly to me but a beautiful yellow flower. They do tend to take over so they do need to be dealt with. And so do our thoughts. But not with force and resistance but understanding and love and getting your brain to just start to look for evidence of the positive and find the beauty in the weeds.

How will you take your power back?

Fatigued and failing

I used to wake up on days like this, stormy and dark, feeling like a failure already because I hurt so bad. I knew I would not be able to do what I wanted to do for the day before the day had even started. This is the life of chronic illness. You are forced to choose what you want to do because of how little energy you have. You may not have Fibro but it seems like many woman these days are walking around exhausted, pulled in so many directions and feeling guilty because they got nothing done. Exhausted, out of fuel and running on empty. If a car ran out of fuel it wouldn't be able to keep going yet we do that to ourselves constantly. We push and get things done anyway. It totally zaps the energy and joy out of life and you.

If I try to push and keep going there is a terrible price to pay. It comes in the form of being exhausted in mind body and spirit. I wake up with my skin feeling like it is on fire and completely wiped like I had run a marathon or something. I have been struggling with fatigue for a while now and just when I think I have figured out my pace something shifts or changes. It can be frustrating but the little scientist sees a challenge and an experiment.

If I can only do one thing what would it be?

I have so much to do but no gas in the tank. My choice is practically made for me. Days like today are a warning that I better park myself and not force anything or I will be sorry.

I am learning to focus my mind, heart and body and God. That when I put him first everything else falls into place. That means choosing that one thing I want to do today and reassessing if I can do more. Everything else I can do after that is like icing on the cake. I take my big bowl of leftover icing with a spoon and I sit there and lick what is left, totally in the moment and sweet victory.

 These are the days when my priorities become so clear because I don't want to be too tired for my family.That means letting A LOT of tasks go so I can focus on just the important ones. Those priorities are my relationships. I like to think of it like this.

Imagine you had to leave your home and you could only take what you could carry.

 These are your priorities.

My God,my family and myself and food and water.

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing "Steven R Covey

"When you put God first everything falls into place or drops out of our lives" Ezra Taft Benson

What is your main thing?

How you can get the suport you need as a mom to succeed in your home and life

Lately I have been telling my story wherever I go. There is power in our stories. Not only our stories but from where we were to where we are now. I can't believe how far I have come from being a walking stress ball and time bomb ready to go off. Really, it was no kind of life or at least at the time I didn't know how to love my life the way it was because I was completely in the dark. I was so much in my head and the stories I was telling myself since I was a kid and then adding to it as I went along.

So what has changed?

I hope you can see the change. I feel the light back in my life even though I am still sick with Fibromyalgia and always having to stop or change my thoughts instead of just running with them. It is as easy to play the victim card, self pity and self loathing as it is to be the victor, humble and self loving when things come into the light. The trick is to trick your brain. Lead your brain along a new path you want it to go. I started doing that 2 years ago and already I can notice when I am triggered and course correct quicker. I can fill my mind with light instead of negative and dark. When I say its easy I mean the choice is. Once you have the knowledge it is up to you to get help and act on it. Getting help and support can look different in so many ways. It may mean therapy, it may mean medicine. It may mean finding routines to keep you out of the dark in the first place. I love what Elder Uchtdorf said in a talk Bearers of Heavenly Light

"Darkness is not an indication that there is no light. Most often, it simply means we’re not in the right place to receive the light."

 I was in the wrong place it wasn't me. I wasn't a horrible person after all. I just needed to stand for what and who I was, a daughter of God. I needed to get in a better place to be more open to the support my Heavenly Father was trying to give me. I want you to find support and receive what you need and please be kind and watch that inner critic.

I needed therapy. I am not ashamed. The hardest part was after the sessions I was left with big emotions and not sure what to do next. The darkness and hopelessness were still there. That gave me an idea. It was the feelings of what to do next, where to start to pick up the pieces of your life or how to keep going broken and confused that was the problem. My heart started to reach out more for opportunities to find woman in distress or in stress mode. Most of us are stressed but what if it becomes chronic? I saw how woman were trying so hard to get everything done and feeling unaccomplished at night. A light bulb went off. These woman, you, may be in stress mode and not even know it. I know because that was me.

To make things more interesting, we are all different in our beliefs and thoughts, our challenges and demands on our time. The long lists, the trying to get more done and to be a better mom weighed heavily on me and so many woman I met. We all try so hard but feel like we got nothing done or nothing fun is on our list. We are doing and busy but maybe a little lost because we have become just a mom. Lost and in survival mode and wanting more but not sure how.

I haven't been blogging as much because I started my own group, Motivated mamas. I wanted to create a safe space for moms to go and find the help and support so needed. Motivation comes down to wanting to jump out of bed and start your day to pulling the covers back over your head. My hope is that this community will grow and that we as moms can be our best selves and help our children do the same. The difference for me to being excited for my day and pulling back the covers is YOU. To be there for you when the fears, I don't know what to do next or where to start...... creeps in. You know you want a change but it all feels so overwhelming. We cannot act from a place of stuck and overwhelm. Whether you have followed my journey or just found me today. I hope you come and find what you are looking for. Kiss the stress away and your babies more!

Check it out and share with others moms.https://www.facebook.com/groups/motivatedmamaswithKristianneRushton/