Browsing Category

self care

mental health, mindfulness, prayer, reality check, self care

The despair of comparison and letting God in

February 5, 2019

Do you ever take your eyes off your own paper just for a minute, maybe not every day, but every so often? What do you see when you look around?

I don’t necessarily mean on social media, but let’s start there. Maybe you sit down for a few moments of peace in between meetings or mountains of laundry. You tap the screen and lose yourself for a few minutes – maybe more than a few – in those perfect little squares. (Yes, I know I pick on Instagram a lot. No, I’m not sorry.) In the span of a few moments you’ve maybe seen amazing vacation pictures, a victory shot of a new number on the scale or a new pair of jeans.

A lucrative new opportunity someone else has been handed, a pregnancy announcement, the money shot to a set of keys to a new home being handed over. A gap-toothed kid smiling with a solid gold report card. A kitchen reno. A mission trip overseas. A road trip over state lines.

Whatever it is that you’re seeing, when it causes your heart to contract, tightening with pain instead of expanding in gratitude and wonder, what is happening there?

Original sin, sure. A touch of envy. A dusting of avarice. A smidge of self righteous resentment. Quite possibly, yes.

But what if the pain is also a sign of something more foundational than plain, boring old sin?

What if God is examining an old hurt, probing an imperfectly-healed wound with His finger, showing where it’s still tender, infected, impacted?

I was on the treadmill last month in a fit of mid-January despair, multitasking between (I kid you not) a motivational podcast with a self-help book pulled up on my Kindle while maintaining a vigorous pace. Of the two entire times I exercised during the month of January, this was by far the more strenuous.

My mind wandered from the podcast as my brain strained to toggle between audio and visual input. Frustrated, I switched off the Kindle and stared into space. What was the use, anyway? I can intake all the self help advice on the planet and still only show up at the gym twice a month during this season of life. I just don’t have the hustle. I just don’t have the grit.

God gently quietly inserted Himself into my negative stream of consciousness and this thought popped up: “But do you spend time with Me?”

Not lately. My conscience was seared on the spot, but with the gentle precision that only the Divine Physician can wield.

During the tumult of the holidays and a very sick month for our family, time with God – along with my amazing diet and great sleep hygiene and New Year’s Resolutions to slay all day – had fallen along the wayside.

I saw myself in that moment on the treadmill in a crowded gym at 10 pm on a January night and I laughed at how perfectly, perfectly I embodied my perpetual desire to save myself.

God constantly has to remind me to stop fighting Him for control of my own life.

Basically from the time when I first gained self awareness right up to present day, I’m in a constant cycle of forgetting Him, forging ahead, enjoying moderate success under my own formidable head of steam, having some kind of stress or effort or circumstance-induced breakdown, crashing and burning, and then calling out to Him in despair. And repeat.

He always picks me up again. Consols me with an intimacy that doesn’t seem possible outside of a retreat setting.

For about a week or two – however long I manage to maintain my newfound enthusiasm for a good prayer routine, however long I can perceive Him metaphorically rubbing my belly – I lap up His closeness like a good-natured dog who is so, so happy the master came home from work again.

Inevitably, life creeps back in and the intimacy fades. As I’ve come to understand in my slightly more mature walk of faith, it is almost always me withdrawing from the Lord, not vice versa.The morning after my little treadmill epiphany I came to God with some pretty specific questions, asking Him why so-and-so had already achieved such and such, wondering what was wrong with me, my work, my commitment, my ability, etc. He was really clear and, again, really gentle: “What I have given to her would not have been good for you.”

Unfortunately that sentence wasn’t followed immediately by “but I’m going to give it to you soon!” Happily, neither did He finish with “And I’m never, ever going to give it to you.”

I guess He’s leaving the more nuanced work of discernment up to me.

It did get me thinking that some of my specific struggles with jealousy are tied to specific wounds or weaknesses of mine: the fear of not being chosen, of not being enough, of bringing my best to the table and still being rejected – this specific fear usually manifests for me as paralysis and procrastination. Because they can’t reject what you’ve never offered in the first place, am I right?

I’m the guy who buries his single talent in the ground and then obsesses about why everyone else is having so much success with their talents, while simultaneously trembling in fear of being called out for it one day.

Where is this going? I guess my point is twofold. First, that God uses specific weaknesses and wounds to speak to us about His vision for our lives and to remind us that we need Him. When something hurts, it’s an invitation to turn towards Him and ask for help.

He wants to heal us, He longs to…but He won’t force His way into our lives. If we turn away and refuse to show Him the cut, He can’t bandage it up. I’m sure it pains Him to watch us dripping blood all over the place like crazed toddlers, clutching at the injury in agony, wondering why He won’t help us but refusing to come near enough to let Him do so.

Second, He will continue to bring our pain to the surface, offering us opportunities to address it with Him. The woman from today’s Gospel who grabbed at Jesus’ robe in the crowd, had she tried everything in her own power already, was she desperate to be healed and finally reaching out to Him as a last resort? Or had she been crying out for years, unable to articulate what it was exactly that she needed until the moment she laid eyes on Him: the source and summit of her healing?

His mercy is new every morning, but so is our freedom to turn away. It’s a constant sacrifice of the will to turn towards Him, confiding our hurts and insecurities, our jealousies big and small. He wants all of them, begging us to lay down our burdens, longing to draw all the poison to the surface and make us well, make us whole.

As for me, I can wash my face and not quit my daydream and hustle like I mean it all day every day, but unless I hand my dreams, my heartbreaks, and all my brokenness over to Him, I’ll never reach the potential that He has in mind for me.

About Me, books, ditching my smartphone, reading, self care, social media, technology

Want to become an awesome reader? Do these 5 things

January 28, 2019

I received a flurry of comments, emails, and DMs after the year-end book list I published in late December. There were plenty of thanks for the recommendations, but there were even more incredulous queries along the lines of how do you read that much? and Do your kids bathe, feed, and clothe themselves? And I haven’t finished a book since college!

Which I totally and completely understand. Reading for pleasure can seem like a tough row to hoe some seasons, especially when career demands are intense and babies are small and plentiful.

I really subscribe to the idea that reading, like any other skill or hobby, is something that waxes and wanes during different seasons in life. I don’t swim much in the winter when it gets dark at 5 pm and my kids have schoolwork, whining, and endless snacking to accomplish before bedtime. When the summer sun rides high until 8pm I can easily slip out to the gym once Dave gets home. Winter nights though, I’m more likely to be dreaming about slipping into bed myself by that point in the evening.

When the kids were younger and my sleep was more disrupted, I definitely did not read as much as I do now. Nursing required at least one hand, sometimes two, and I didn’t have an e-reader yet. It was much easier to prop open a laptop and stream some mindless content or better yet, alternate between staring dreamily into my baby’s eyes or vacantly into space. During my later babies’ early days with smartphones on the scene, I had to make an intentional choice to leave that phone somewhere else sometimes.

Now that everybody is sleeping through the night and still young enough to be abed by 9pm  – ahem, most nights. To hell with this Oregon Trail winter we’re having; thank God nobody is dying in a covered wagon. Instead they’re sucking down steroids in a house with a roof – I usually have at least an hour or two of open time in the evenings. Provided I’ve prayed already, packed the lunches, sent the emails, etc., I almost always choose to spend this time reading. And 10-14 hours of reading a week can add up to some big numbers over the span of a year.

Here are a few things I do in order to maximize my consumption of the written word:

1. Make your smartphone smarter: I know, I know…but my ongoing effort to break up with my smartphone is mired in the annoying reality of life in 2019. Do I need a smartphone to survive? Of course not. But life without one – like the summer before last – is more difficult than it needs to be. Our school communicates via a private email system, my office communicates via a chat app, my sense of direction functions via Google maps…anyway, I still have a phone that is smart. So I’ve hacked it a bit to make it smarter for me. I’ve done this by: removing all social media from my phone, decluttering the front screen to the bare minimum, hiding all communication apps (Voxer, Whatsapp, GroupMe, etc) in a separate folder on the last page, no work email, and refusing to download an app for anything unless it can’t be done in a browser (looking at you Whole Foods/Amazon discount).

When my phone is less interesting and less capable of distracting me, I am more likely to pick up whatever I happen to be reading in those lulls of activity during the day, be it in car line or standing at the counter stirring dinner and sipping a glass of wine.

The one thing I’ll probably do again this summer when my kids are home is delete my internet browser which makes the phone even stupider (and harder to use for mindless scrolling) but which is too tough to manage during the school year. I’ve done this every year for 3 summers now and it’s been really great for keeping me more engaged with my family, at least once I get through the horrifying lack-of-immediate-Google-ability detox of the first week. Shudder. My brain is melting.

Without the tempting glow of a tiny screen beckoning you to disappear for a little scrolling, you are now ready to:

2. Get an e-reader. I’ve been a loyal Kindle reader for about 7 years now, I think. It was an actual lifeline when we lived in Rome in 2013, still tethered to my library in the States and able to provide me with instantaneous digital content in my native tongue. I like Kindle because we already use Amazon for so much (thus hastening the decline of civilization as we know it) and because almost every book is available in Kindle format. It also has cross pollination with other Kindles in your family and other devices, so you can share titles with your spouse or kids and if you do find yourself in a pinch when you’re out and about but left your Kindle at home, you can download the Kindle app to your phone and pick up wherever you left off in your book. But don’t do this unless it’s an emergency, because reading on a phone is terrible for you.

I like the Kindle Paperwhite because of its eyeball-friendly display and its husband-friendly backlighting which makes it perfect for snuggling with under the covers without disturbing your bed partner’s sleep. It vaguely thrills me in the same way hiding with a flashlight and a paperback used to do at age 10.

An e-reader is also the ultimate budget-friendly way to read; other than the original cost of purchase, you can basically read everything you could ever want for free, minus your annual Amazon membership. I’m not sure how other e-readers stack up price-wise, but like I said, Jeff Bezos helps the wheels of our domestic economy turn, so we’re already paying for it. Also, don’t pay a crazy amount for one! I think Dave and I got both ours on Prime day or black Friday a few years ago for less than $60 apiece.

But don’t you spend money on books, Jenny? 90-something titles is a lot!

Au contraire, my friends. I spent possibly $50 on books this past year. Possibly. If there is an obscure title that pops up for book club unavailable in digital format, a title I just have to have in hardcover the moment it comes out (cough cough Michael O’Brien), or a friend publishing a new title, I’ll buy it. Otherwise? I’ll…

3. Use the library like a boss. Our library system is amazing. We have convenient locations, attractive and updated (if not beautiful) new buildings, and massive collections of titles. But I almost never check out books irl. If we go to the library, it’s either 100 degrees outside and the kids are home or I’m meeting a girlfriend for a government-sponsored playdate. I don’t go there to check out books, period.

I mean fine, sometimes I let the kids each grab a stack. Which I then spend the next several weeks repenting, finding titles sodden in the backyard, shredded in the baby’s mouth, stuffed under car seats and behind couches, etc. That is when we find all the titles. Books, like puzzles, live at the library for our family. At least for now.

But digital books? Oh, my friends, digital books are what I use to placate myself if ever I think too long and about bloated, wasteful government expenditure of my tax dollars. Digital books are my smug little secret, new release titles by the dozens filling up my hold request que, recommendations from friends or some erie algorithm hastily copy and pasted, waiting their turn in a notes app I continually update. Some months I might be reading $150 worth of brand spanking new releases, all without opening my wallet.

Some library districts might not be so generous or so response to digital title recommendations – almost every book I’ve ever suggested my library acquire, they have, save for a handful of older or explicitly Catholic titles – but did you know there are some library districts that grant non-resident library cards? Mind blown.

Of course, you don’t have to be an e-book apologist like me to work the library system. Turning your to-be-read wishlist into a physical hold request is almost as easy, if a little less convenient. If you don’t mind picking up and returning books irl, this is the option for you. Bonus: less time wandering the stacks and rolling the dice on a title that ends up being a dud, or trashy. Downside: less time wandering the stacks. And less likelihood of you picking up a title you might otherwise never lay eyes on.

4. Be intentional with your leisure time. Don’t let downtime just “happen” to you. If you want to become an enthusiastic reader, you have to be at least a little bit intentional about it in 2019. There will always be something to stream, a newsfeed to scroll, screens to watch, and noise to attend to. Gone are the days where you might pick up a book out of boredom or lack of options. You have limitless options, and boredom can be banished with a simple keystroke. If you’re going to read, you have to make time to do it and resist the siren song of passive consumption of entertainment.

Getting your oil changed? There’ll be a show playing in the waiting room, and possibly music, too. And unless you brought your current read or your Kindle along for the ride, you’re going to find yourself spending 35 minutes of your life learning all about high stakes extreme crab fishing. Ask me how I know.

Similarly, at night, if you don’t set parameters around your screen time and your plan for how you’ll unwind once your duties for the day are done, it’s all too easy to find yourself hopping on instagram for “just a minute” only to look up an hour later, bleary eyed and hunchbacked at the kitchen counter. Don’t ask me how I know.

Decide you want to use your fringe hours to read, and then prepare to be shocked when you can easily cruise through a book a week. No, you’re not necessarily a genius, you just got 10 hours of your time back by refusing to cede the precious resource of your attention span to an algorithm designed to be irresistibly captivating. So actually, maybe you are a genius.

Try it even for a month and see what happens. Cal Newport (author of Deep Work) has a forthcoming title called Digital Minimalism that is all about having agency in this area of our lives, evaluating each new piece of technology and each practice and asking if it truly serves us, and if so, assigning it designated space in our lives. Down with passive consumption and automated upgrades. Up with the thoughtful, intentional application of new trends and technologies in our lives.

5. Find a reading buddy. It could be a whole book club full of many buddies. It could just be the other users on Goodreads whose titles and reviews you peruse when looking for new reads. It could be your long lost bff from college who you commit to rekindling the flame with. Try this: pick a title, both of you get the book, download Voxer or some other voice messaging app, and spend a month reading and virtually discussing your pick, no set meetings or irl encounters necessary.

Reading is really fun. And you can do it on a train, you do it in the rain…you get the idea. And unlike many other hobbies and pursuits that may find themselves sidelined during different seasons of life, it’s something you can pursue whether you’re 5 or 95, provided you have the right glasses, I guess. So while I may not be able to get out and run a 4 miler right now (I want to say because snow, but really it’s because mombod. #cantdoitall), once my kids are down for the count tonight, I’ll be happily indulging in the luxury of opening to the current location in a good book.

ditching my smartphone, mental health, mindfulness, self care, social media, technology

Body image, self acceptance, and the price of Instagram

January 10, 2019

I’ve come to realize something about myself this year, and it might sound a little ridiculous, or it might sound just right to you. It’s this: the more time I spend away from social media, the better I feel. The better my prayer life is. The more I appreciate my own body, my children’s bodies, my husband’s body.

It’s not just bodies, either; the fewer pictures I see of other people’s houses – not shiny design pictures, because somehow I know those aren’t the stuff of comparisons, but real pictures of real people’s homes, styled or not – the better I seem feel in my own space.

Here’s the difference for me, I think. I love reading and admiring content that is designed in a way that is obviously design-y. When a piece is written for House, Beautiful or as a featured home tour or a DIY project on a design blog, my brain automatically categorizes that as “professionally cleaned, styled and shot, obviously a curated product, and DON’T FEEL BAD ABOUT THIS. This has nothing to do with your lived reality.” When I spend time pouring over real life images though? Something happens in my head that tends to trip my discontentment wire.

Does that make even a morsel of sense?

All I know is the way I feel after 40 minutes on Instagram is … not great. “But I’m just catching up with my friends!” I can rationalize to myself, “I know this is just a snapshot of their lives, a sliver of their reality, a scroll of mostly silver linings.”

But my brain does something else with all those images. My brain misses the “curated reality, do not apply to real life” memo for whatever reason, and refuses to behave as if THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE, DON’T JUDGE YOURSELF/HER/HIM BY WHAT YOU SEE HERE. And my stubborn brain can get pretty down after ingesting a couple hundred beautiful images of how everyone else is killing it/slaying their dreams/nailing their goals and I’m over here just trying to get another iteration of chili on the table for dinner and spraying dry shampoo on 6-day old hair.

And honestly? I like using dry shampoo. My shower in a can, I call it. I’ve always resented the imposition showers make on my busy life, and having a can of degreasing spray powder is actually just what the doctor ordered. Plus it makes my fine, limp, slippery soft hair infinitely more amenable to styling.

Also, my family loves chili.

So my baseline level of happiness, even in this busy, demanding, frequently exhausting season of early parenthood is basically set at “contentment.” Maybe not breathless joy, but still, a pretty great life.

But I find that when I take my eyes off my own paper, peering over someone’s shoulder into their selfie game, more often than not, that calm contentment is rocked. Maybe I should get a blunt chin-length bob, I muse almost unconsciously, clicking on a stream of dreamy images of a lovely woman with 6-month old twins who looks like a Russian supermodel. And just like that, at a single tap, I find myself immersed in the curated world of someone else’s life. But I don’t just “find myself” there…I put myself there. I go there, willingly, to sneak a peek into a another person’s existence through the lens of their camera phone, looking for, what, exactly? Inspiration? Leisure? A moment’s rest while I sit and scroll?

Never happens. It’s never restful. Or hardly ever, at least.

For every single arresting and transcendent image I encounter on Instagram, there are probably thousands I’ve scrolled through to get to it that have had a net negative effect on my mental and spiritual health.

(I’m being awfully hard on Instagram here, but that’s because it’s the worst offender for me. Maybe Twitter is your Kryptonite. Facebook is good for almost nothing save for livestreaming far-off events and private groups.)

I’m becoming more convicted by the year that social media has a net negative effect on the human person.

But Jenny, you’re a blogger!

I know! Cue the identity crisis! But blogging has always been different for me. Less like consumable, scrollable, forgettable (I hope!) social media, and more like an ongoing conversation. And hey, maybe some people can Instagram that way – I believe it’s entirely possible. But I can’t.

A historically difficult relationship with my body and with food is kind of a recipe for Insta angst. I find myself moving almost unconsciously into comparison mode when presented with beautiful pictures. My mind races, unbidden, to do the math when I see a trim, smiling woman holding a newborn, calculating the baby’s age and delivering the result to me like a verdict: 5 weeks. She looks like that with a 5-week-old baby in her arms, what is wrong with you that you don’t look half that good a year out?!

Even if I never let myself voice that thought, don’t entertain it aloud, I’ve still thought it. I’ve still introduced yet another piece of evidence into the neverending and unwinnable trial of “Why Jenny Will Never Be Good Enough: the Defendant vs. Herself.”

Saddest part of this all being, honestly, the fact that I don’t know that mom’s story. Maybe her baby is adopted. Maybe she’s thin because she just beat cancer and although the doctors told her she’d never carry a healthy pregnancy to term, here’s her miracle baby. Maybe this is her first baby after a string of devastating miscarriages. Maybe she’s just skinny.

My personal baggage blurs her humanity though, objectifying her through the lens of my discontentment, filtering her appearance through my own wounds.

This is getting awfully self disclosing, even for a blogger, but I feel really convicted to share it with you because I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not alone in these struggles. Amidst a sea of content about New Year’s Resolutions and goals and ways of eating and changes for the better, I want to make a small and sort of ridiculous suggestion that has changed my life during the course of the past few years: look away more.

Maybe you can handle Instagram in smaller chunks and it doesn’t shake you. Maybe you never had an eating disorder and your self-doubt centers on your personality, your intelligence, your sense of competence, your sense of worthiness of God’s love. Maybe there are no doubts and you’re higher up in the mansion of perfection, and I mean this wholeheartedly when I say good for you. (And also, I’d wager you probably don’t spend all that much time on social media to begin with. Please pray for me.)

But if this resonates with you at all, I want to encourage you to sit with it for a bit. Ask God to weigh in on it. Ask Him if there is something you’re doing to feed the vicious cycle of self doubt and self judgement and, frankly, self centeredness.

I haven’t lost all the baby weight yet, not even close. I’m still eating relatively keto because it makes me feel good, but I’ve stopped posting “progress” pictures and following #results hashtags because it’s just too easy for me to get into a bad place with those images. Even with my own images.

I look at photos of third-time postpartum Jenny and hold fifth-time postpartum Jenny up to her in my mind’s eye, critically evaluating where I’m at now, and where I was then. I’m sure it’s no surprise that I wasn’t satisfied with myself back then, either! I didn’t realize how great I looked, how shiny my hair was or how luminous and unlined my skin. Or how little any of that mattered.

Ah, but youth is wasted on the young. Well, I don’t want to waste any more of it! As the past year unfolded I found myself making a surprising peace with the one enemy I never expected to bury the hatchet with: myself.

Not because I reached goal weight.

Not because I found the perfect workout.

Not because I bought beautiful new clothes or tried great new makeup.

Not because I landed the perfect job or grew my platform or won the lottery or slept through the night for a whole month straight.

I just got out of the habit of comparing. I stopped comparing myself to unrealistic images of friends, strangers, celebrities, and even the younger me.

I caught myself critically assessing some photos from a recent family wedding the other day. There were several lovely group shots of me with my four younger sisters, one of whom is a full decade my junior. I mentally shook myself by the shoulders when I realized what I was doing, and I gave myself permission to look like I was the oldest. Because I am the oldest.

It sounds ridiculous! But it’s something I’m having to retrain my brain do to, because for too long I’ve been caught in a negative feedback loop, cycling over and over again, lifting my head only slightly higher than my navel to gaze into the screen of my phone, and then lifting it a few inches higher to look into the mirror.

I got so, so sick of the view, bouncing between my own midsection, a screen, and a mirror. It’s like Narcissus on steroids, and I finally realized it.

I wish I could tell you how, or why. It’s prayer, medication, therapy, quiet time, self discipline, lack of free time, a good partner, good friends, kids who demand a lot of me, maturity, frequent confession, a good Father, grace…it’s all of these things. There is no magic bullet. I still mess up. I still have mornings where I’m less than thrilled with my own reflection. I got on Instagram for the first time in weeks last night, after having gone almost 2 months without it during November and December, and I spent a half hour scrolling, clicking, tapping, feeling more unsettled by the minute.

When I finally dropped my phone into my lap, I forced myself to sit with my feelings of discomfort, contorting almost painfully into a posture of reflection when my dopamine-heavy brain just wanted to rush ahead to the next thing. “This is important,” I told myself silently, “recognize how this made you feel. Feel these feelings.”

Dear readers, they weren’t good feelings. I did not enjoy peace, clarity, and freedom after my half hour of “leisure” on my phone.

Here’s the long-awaited conclusion. If you’ve stuck it out to this point, good on you, mate.

I think that self acceptance comes hand in glove with working to truly see other selves as human beings, not as competition. And I don’t think social media facilitates much of that. If it fosters a little bit, here and there, glory to God.

But if it mostly steals your peace, sucks your time, and keeps you from attending to your own first things? Maybe it’s too expensive.

One of the amazing pictures from my sister’s wedding which led me to ponder: “What a beautiful family we have! Praise God for all these wonderful new members and my dad being here and healthy and…wait, are those crow’s feet? Why are my arms so big…(<— my narcissistic process in a single paragraph)
About Me, keto, large family, Living Humanae Vitae, motherhood, pregnancy, self care

Postpartum recovery: PT, hormones and keto

October 8, 2018

“9 months on, 9 months off” they say. Well, some of them say, anyway. I’ve found with each subsequent bebe those goalposts creep back a month or two, so let’s just say as Zelie rounds the bases to month 9 ex utero, I’m still looking and feeling much of the effort it took to bring Zelie earthside.

However, some vast improvements have been made. I want to record them here for posterity’s sake, and because in many ways I felt like I was charting my own course for recovery and healing, belonging as I do now to a rather exclusive club of moms of many.

Even my doctor, a nice pro-life guy who delivers plenty of babies a year and is comfortable around an NFP chart, was relatively clueless about what I could do to speed the healing process, to correct hormone imbalances, and to restore my body to a state of reasonable functionality.

What I’m about to share with you is my experience alone, and I’m not a doctor or any kind of medical professional, so grain of pink himalayan salt and all, okay?

First things first. I’ve had a contentious relationship with food since forever. If I could turn back the clock, I would have sworn off the Chic-fil-a milkshakes and the bags and bags of white cheddar popcorn I consumed this time around. I think Zelie is at least 30% popcorn cheese on a cellular level. Her pregnancy was a rough ride emotionally. We were living in a friend’s house for the first 6 months of it and commuting an hour each way to school. In my spare time I enjoyed meeting up with our realtor after a 55 mile drive with a carful of kids and looking at dozens and dozens of houses which for various reasons did not work out. 70, to be precise. So yes, I did a bit – a lot – of stress eating.

Having always gained massively with each baby, I figured weight was weight, whether or not I was working out and eating well. This premise proved faulty, as I would discover in the harsh hospital lighting on day one post delivery. I was at my all time highest weight, and had delivered a modest 7 pound peanut to show for it.

I waited the requisite 6 weeks postpartum and then started watching my calories, cutting back on sugar (more on this later), and began a swimming regimen that had me accumulating 400-500 laps a week. I kept this up until about 5 months postpartum at which point I had lost an additional (wait for it) … 3 pounds.

If you do the math you’ll realize that 7 pounds plus 3 pounds is 10, and having racked up something north of 60, I was…not doing great. I brought my concerns to one doctor who suggested that perhaps I was eating more than 1200 calories and just didn’t realize it, because “apps aren’t all that accurate”  and suggested I could up my gym regimen to 7 days a week instead of 5.

Long story short, but I eventually ended up at a women’s health care clinic that specializes in whole woman care. They did some targeted hormone testing and identified a deficiency that was making it almost impossible to lose weight, and which also contributed to anxiety and depression.

I also found an incredible physical therapist who specializes in postpartum recovery and pelvic floor injuries, just from reaching out to my circle of local friends. As frustrating as it was to have to hunt and peck for the right doctors and the right diagnoses, I feel exceptionally blessed to live in a big city with a wide array of healthcare options, and to have good health insurance to be able to defray some of the cost. I do wish some of the less “mainstream” therapies were covered, but I’d be remiss to not acknowledge my privilege. Do I wish postpartum PT and hormone assessments were standard of care for new moms? You betcha. But for now I’m just glad to have found some good help!

The last piece of the puzzle for me has been diet. A lifelong yo-yo dieter, I’ve tried all the things. Atkins. South Beach. Weight Watchers. Whole 30. LightWeigh. Plant based. Low fat. You name it, I’ve done it. I had a pretty good handle on things by my mid 20s. I was exercising regularly, eating moderately, and had, well, the metabolism of a twentysomething who’d never been pregnant. I could kinda eat whatever I wanted, and I did. After spending ages 15-23 deep in the throes of an eating disorder, it was a relief to have a less fractious relationship with food. 

Once we got married and the babies started coming fast and furious, I remember being shocked by how swiftly and with what vengence the eating-disordered thinking returned once the scale started moving north as I grew our babies.

Nobody had warned me how triggering it would be to see my weight skyrocket over those 9 months of pregnancy, and my provider at the time kind of waved my fears aside and encouraged me that eating intuitively and moderately was good for me and good for baby. If I could do things over again, I’d escort my 27 year-old-self straight to therapy as soon as that second pink line appeared, but hindsight is 20/20, and as it turns out, I’ve learned and grown tremendously not in spite of motherhood, but through it.

I can honestly say that today, at age 35, and still significantly heavier than I’d like to be, I am more at peace with my body than I have been since childhood.

I can see the goodness of my childrens’ existence, acknowledging the sacrificial love that motherhood requires (in whatever form it may take for each particular woman), and the devastating unhappiness so many women feel when confronted with the disparity between their actual bodies and the idealized image the culture projects on us.

For some of us, the sacrifice is excess weight we never wanted to gain and struggle mightily to lose. For others it might be a flaring autoimmune disease, an injury, a tragic loss, the burden of infertility. Motherhood is costly, at any rate, and none of us can predict the cost ahead of time.

But it’s so worth it. And as I’m discovering after this magical fifth baby, God heals on His timeline, not ours. As I find myself making peace with my body at long last and in spite of its many imperfections, I marvel at the worldly illogic of it, that having a larger than usual family would result in better body image and deep healing. In God’s economy, the numbers work differently.

But back to the recovery process. If you follow me on Instagram you know that the biggest win for me the past few months has been discovering and implementing the Keto diet. Again with the disclaimers, but I’m not a healthcare professional, so do your own research, etc.

In a nutshell, Keto is almost an inversion of the FDA food pyramid. It’s fat focused with moderate protein and low carbs. Under 20 grams per day is my goal, and most days I end up around there. It’s no grains, no sugar, and no starchy veggies or sugary fruits. It is lots of eggs, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, avocados, bacon, sausage, steak, chicken, fish, shrimp, full fat dairy, and a little bit of nuts. If that sounds restrictive, I suppose it was for the first week, but when I looked at the scale and found 4 pounds missing after months of stubborn inactivity, I was hooked.

The best part for me has been the weight loss (22 pounds in 9 weeks so far) but the surprisingly close second has been a radical reorientation of my relationship with food. I no longer crave specific foods, nor do I struggle much resisting “off limits” foods. For a girl who loves to eat, this feels like a miracle.

And I do still enjoy food! But now I enjoy food that makes me feel good before, during, and after eating it. I have seen a 180 degree turnaround in my energy levels between meals. Hanger is gone. I feel satiated and content for long stretches between eating, and have even been able to incorporate a little bit of intermittent fasting for the last month. For someone who used to be faint and weak from hunger on Ash Wednesdays and Good Fridays, this feels huge.

Do I think everyone should eat this way? I really don’t know. I think it is a healthy and helpful way to eat for people who struggle with hormone issues and blood sugar and certain mental health conditions, but I also know people who feel great on the Whole 30, which is decidedly higher carb.

I have a working theory that perhaps there is no one “right” way to eat, and that there are all kinds of makes and models of human beings out there. Some run on gas and others on diesel. I feel like I’ve found my perfect fuel, and that makes me feel great. I don’t force my kids to eat this way – I’ll often make rice or beans or gf pasta to serve alongside whatever fat + protein + veggie we’re having for dinner, but overall it has tremendously cut sugar from our diets. And we’re seeing some great immune system benefits to that.

If you are interested in anything I’ve shared here today, feel free to message me privately over at IG or drop a comment or an email. I’m an open e-book, as always. And if you’re a mama trying to get your groove back after baby, give yourself plenty of time and grace. You’re doing God’s work, and He will not abandon you in it.

design + style, Fixer Upper, house reno, pregnancy, self care

Painted linoleum floors, postpartum PT, and learning to sit down

July 24, 2018

It has been tough to string more than couple of words together the past few weeks. The days are going by quickly and I’m shocked that we’re edging in on August, but around 3 pm every weekday, time seems to stand still, and there aren’t enough Otter Pops in the universe to hasten the coming of bedtime.

I am looking forward to a new school year, but my inner teenager shudders at store end-caps already filled with college ruled spiral notebooks and crayons. I wish for a carefree end to summer for my children’s sake, and I wish for a return to normalcy in schedule for my sake.

Both older boys have asked me in all earnestness at some point during the summer to homeschool them, and then reneged on the request when I explained that school at home would still, in fact, involve schoolwork.

I did consider the possibility for about 2 hours; I even got so far as to text a couple homeschooling friends, asking what their discernment process had been. Then Dave went out of town for the weekend and all thoughts of teaching my little darlings math and Latin were ejected from my brain by 48 hours of solo parenting.

We’ve had a good summer, and I’m glad we’ve been able to spend so much time together. I’m also glad I am not responsible for their mathematical development.

I’m trying to implement some better time management strategies to help realize some of my perennially-deferred goals. I’ve been waking up earlier than the kids most mornings and forcing myself to produce for 30 minutes or 1,000 words – whichever comes first. I’ve also strapped the trusty old FitBit back on to hit that 10k step count each day. All of the swimming and early morning gym-haunting has yet to result in any visible results to my postpartum return of form, but I do feel better when I move.

Oddly enough, my body seems to be responding better to gentler workouts. I think I am probably so depleted from back to back pregnancies that strenuous workouts were further taxing an already stressed system.

Gentle walking and stretching seem to be what my body craves, so I’m trying to honor that. The physical therapist I’ve been working with has indefinitely ruled out running, which I’m going to be honest, is actually a huge relief! It’s great to just let go of that part of my identity, for now, and embrace what is rather than lamenting for what once was. Not by slipping into depressed inactivity or anything, but by really embracing a period of physical recovery and rebuilding. And by spending a small fortune on vitamin and mineral supplements.

I’ve come to realize that I usually exert a lot of time and energy in the postpartum period beating myself up – mentally and physically – straining to “undo” something that can’t actually be undone. Whether from sheer exhaustion or just experienced maturity, I haven’t been able to cow my body into submission this time around. When I hit the wall, instead of redoubling my efforts and crashing through it, I curled up at the base of it and took a nap.

It has been pretty eye opening to be honest with myself about what my body needs, and about the tremendous personal cost of having a baby. I don’t “bounce back” physically, though when I was younger I could grit my teeth and sort of fake it.

At 35 I don’t seem to have that same resilience. But I do have a little more wisdom and lots more experience, which seems to me to be a fair tradeoff. So when the baby sleeps, I sit on the couch with a toddler and read a book, or stare vacantly into space, or sometimes do some dinner prep.

Mostly though, I’m sitting down a lot (always with intentional and improved posture!).

Stretching. Going for walks around the block with the bigger kids and not gritting my teeth in frustration that I can’t run the laps we’re making. Spending a decent amount of time and money going to therapy, and just generally investing in myself. It feels decadent. It also feels almost disastrously overdue. It feels a bit like I’m backing away from the edge of an abyss, step by faltering step, and reclaiming some ground that was (necessarily) ceded during the chaos of the past two years of home buying and selling and baby growing.

The real sign that I’m recovering and starting to get my head above water? My urge to paint has been restored.

Last weekend when Dave was gone I pulled the trigger on a long-desired flooring update and painted the linoleum in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I’d put the kids to bed and then creep downstairs each evening to tape and paint and after about 4 nights worth of effort (and 4 overnight drying periods) I’m just about finished with the whole project.

For around $60 bucks our lower level looks like a different house altogether, and I no longer feel like I’m peering bleakly into the mists of time while mopping spaghetti sauce off of hideous yellow linoleum. Time will tell how sturdy the “porch and floor” paint proves to be in an indoor application, but anything is better than our before pictures.

I’ll try to whip up a full tutorial one of these days for all my curious Instagram friends, but it was really one of the easier DIYs I’ve attempted.

For now, feast your eyes on the improvement:

What is the rest of your summer shaping up to look like? Are you eager for back to school time, or relishing in the last month of summer? My kids go back relatively late, as I understand, not resuming full classes until August 27th. I’ll have a second grader, a first grader, and a three day a week pre-K this year, which means I’ll be backing 13! lunches! a week! Come to think of it, summer can go ahead and stick around for a couple more weeks…

mental health, mindfulness, motherhood, self care

Pulling weeds

May 17, 2018

This morning I sat down on the porch to do a little spiritual reading while the three youngest kids played in the yard (read: laying on her playmat kicking the air silently like an angel; falling repeatedly off the concrete step and injuring every part of his body; hitting her brother, a tree, the mailbox, and, occasionally, a ball, with a tennis racquet #thetemperamentsgodgavethem).

It was nice, and it was unusual, because usually I’m “too busy” for any kind of prayer until nap time rolls around and then, wouldn’t you know it, I’d rather fall into an internet coma or go on a cleaning or painting binge for those 90 precious minutes of silence. Priorities, I got ‘em.

I peeled a yellow sticky note from my Bible and saw a handwritten penance from … some time ago. One of the priests at our parish frequently assigns Scripture reading in the confessional as penances, and I am wont to misplace his little scraps of notations. Which is terrible! But I did finally read the assigned verses today, so, better late than never?

The thing is, it was exactly what I needed to read today, and it went hand in glove with the reflection I’d read from the random Evangelical devotional I picked up on my last pass through the thrift shop. The moral of this story is that God rewards laziness and the Holy Spirit can speak through second hand retail. But I digress!

Here was the crux of the message: Stop with the negative thoughts. Stop with the interior – and inevitably bleeding into the exterior – negativity.

This was the assigned reading  from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24:

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.  Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.  May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it.

And from Philippians 4:4-8:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!  Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (emphasis mine)

My takeaway? God has this. And also, that. The biggest worry on your heart and the heaviest burden on your back and the situation you are the most despondently hopeless over. Not only does He see it, but according to Saint Paul, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, as Christians, we are actually resting in the center of His will.

I have been mightily resisting this season of life because it looks different than I envisioned it would. I have this slightly hysterical version of reality worked up in my mind about what postpartum “should” look  like, even though I’ve done it 5 blessed times and know full well (emphasis on full) what it actually entails. I do not “bounce back,” unless we’re talking bouncing wadded up balls of laundry down the unfinished basement stairs. And while we’re on the subject of laundry, ohhhhhhh how the mighty hath fallen. Remember my genius “constant laundry” lifehack that had me humming along as a beacon of efficiency and clean gym shorts? Well, let’s just say standards have slipped in the second quarter and the outlook for summer is grim unless we institute a mandatory swimsuits-only policy for daily wear.

I was still pondering these verses as I leaned down to pull fistfulls of dandelions out of the flower bed that lines our front porch. Thanks to the selfless perennial planting of the former owners, I have tulips and gladiolus and roses and irises and columbines and all manner of flora popping up unbidden from the finally-warm earth. I winced as I tore away handfuls of pansies and columbine leaves in my efforts to uproot the dandelions.

Frankly, I was surprised there were so many weeds mingled in there to begin with. The bed looks pretty nice from the street and even from a few feet away. Up close though? Weeds everywhere, seemingly all of a sudden, all mixed in with the flowers and dropping their weedy seeds all over the place.

Kinda like your mind, I thought to myself, having not had quite enough coffee this morning.

My self proclaimed stance as a follower of Christ is beautiful from a distance, and probably looks pretty good even to the casual observer, but my mind is often full of garbage (negative thoughts, criticism, sarcasm, envy) that must make the Gardener wince.

It’s true. There are a lot of weeds. They are especially pernicious in the self image department.

In fact, when it comes to my inner monologue, you could almost invert that section from Thessalonians to read: “whatever is false, whatever is embarrassing, whatever is unfair, whatever is tattered, whatever is ugly, whatever is rude, if there is any failure and if there is anything worthy of complaining about, think about these things.”

Doesn’t flow quite the same, does it? And the worst thing about weeds is the effect they have on the beauty around them, vying for space and consuming what rightfully belongs to the flowers.

So all this negativity and this darkness not only gobbles up my resources, but it limits my capacity for kindness and generosity towards everyone around me. It’s awfully hard to be nice to your kids when you’re telling yourself a lie (consciously or unconsciously) about how they’ve “wrecked” your body.

It’s easy to slip into a vicious spiral of envy over a friend’s seemingly outward “togetherness” that makes you blind to her hidden interior struggles.

So I’ve got some gardening to do. And I have a pretty black thumb. I used a pen to write “true, honorable, just, lovely, pure, gracious…” on the palm of my hand this morning to remind myself to flip off that negative track when it starts playing, and it is hard. I can’t believe how much energy I must expend each day criticizing myself. And it really does pollute everything else. It’s impossible to be a cheerful, engaged mom and friend when I’m constantly berating myself for how much weight I haven’t lost or how few clothing options I have heading into summer.

I really want to keep this foremost in my mind as I continue to navigate the challenges that come with the postpartum territory. And to believe that what the Lord says is true. That he wants all of me, body and soul, and that He has a plan He is bringing to fulfillment.

“…may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it.

 

Catholic Spirituality, large family, Marriage, motherhood, pregnancy, self care, Theology of the Body

“His body, your body”

April 17, 2018

About a month ago I was talking with a priest friend on the phone, sharing some difficulties about this present season of life with a whole lotta babies and a really wrecked body. Wrecked not only in the sense of “I don’t like the way I look” (though, sure, there is that) but in the sense of “everything hurts when I walk down the stairs, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to run comfortably across a parking lot again, let alone a mile.”

Getting old is hell. But it sure beats the alternative! And I’m not really that old yet, at 35. I remind myself of this when I see a haggard specter of my former self peering back at me in the mirror pre coffee most mornings, startling at the stranger with the same colored eyes. It’s more the mileage, not the manufacturing date, at least in my case.

One baby was hard work. Two babies was nuts! (Hardest transition by far, from one to two. If you can push past that point you’ll be golden; you’re never in the position of doubling your workload again. Unless, I guess, twins?) Three was like, nbd we got this down. Four gave me a little pause for the first couple months. And five? Wrecked. Beleaguered. Losing my keys in the car door, putting my phone in the fridge, and still carrying around a good 40 extra pounds at almost 4 months postpartum.

Worth it, though. Worth it, worth it, worth it.

And yet still really, really hard.

It’s hard to lose yourself for the sake someone(s) you love, no matter what that looks like for you. For some people it will take the form of caring for a sick or dying parent or spouse. For others it could be a more literal application, like sharing a kidney or physically shielding someone from a deadly blow. For parents it often looks like death by a thousand night wakings. A slow trickle of self denial and stress that can carve away at solid rock as surely – albeit more slowly – as a raging river.

I was telling my friend, Fr. J, that the most difficult time for me by far in terms of how I’m feeling about myself is the 30 minutes before Sunday Mass once I’ve gotten the kids dressed (with lots of help from Dave) and I’m frantically trying on option after too-tight option, the discard pile rising on my closet floor along with my blood pressure. One Sunday, probably 7 weeks or so after little Z was born, this phenomenon came to a vicious head as I stared bleakly into the bathroom mirror, rejected outfit combos strewn about my feet.

I hate you. I seethed silently at my reflection. And then I jumped, physically startled by the vitriol of my self talk. Out loud I had the wherewithal (grace is real, y’all) to say out loud, “Jesus, that wasn’t from you. Help me. Show me how you see me.” and immediately the image of His battered body hanging on the cross sprang to mind.

This is how I see your body, dear one. A sacrifice of love.

I was floored. And, I wish I could add, also completely and irrevocably healed of my subpar self image. But … work in progress.

But it sure did help to reframe things that morning.

I shared this little experience with Fr. and he was quiet for a moment. A longish moment, actually, during which time I suspected – correctly – that he was praying. When he did speak again, it was to share the following beautiful image with me.

“Jesus is showing me His body in the Eucharist, and then pointing to your body. He seems to be saying ‘His body, your body…they are connected. You cannot worship the one while despising the other.”‘

I have never heard that particular connection made between our bodies and His, no matter how much lip service I’ve given to the notion of being a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” I guess I’d always mentally categorized that one into the “do not defile with sin” category, neglecting to acknowledge that it’s not enough to just refrain from defiling the temple…one must also approach the temple itself with a rightly ordered sense of awe and reverence.

I don’t know about you, but I typically do not revere my body in any way, shape, or form; from the negative self talk I engage in to the poor food choices I make to the self deprecating humor I frequently employ to mask the shame of feeling not enough.

I was quiet as I mulled over Fr.’s image, recognizing for the first time that it must not only be displeasing to Jesus to hear my negative self talk, but it actually hurts Him.

Before we hung up, Fr. encouraged me to make it to Mass to receive Holy Communion as frequently as I could manage, kids and all. “The Lord has specific graces He wants to pour out for your healing and wholeness each time you receive the Eucharist. Go as often as you can.”

Guess how many times I’ve made it to daily Mass since that conversation?

Yeah, zero.

Sure, I have a super little baby still and a double shot of preschoolers at home, but helloooooo priorities. Clearly I have work to do in that area.

However, on the Sundays between now and then, I have meditated on Fr.’s words before and after Communion, asking the Lord to really double down on those healing graces in between swipes to keep a toddler off the baby’s carseat and pulling someone’s dress down over her underwear. Again.

I can’t say whether it’s “working” yet in the sense that I’m feeling like high-fiving myself when I look in the mirror now, but it is foremost in my mind now to at least try – for Jesus’ sake – to see myself and the sacrifices of motherhood through new eyes.

I think this is probably a lesson I’m going to be learning for the rest of my life, and while I’m not going to stop begging Him to remove the thorn, neither will I refuse any help He wants to offer in tending the wound.

It’s funny, because it was the obvious beauty and truth of this very concept that so attracted me to JPII’s Theology of the Body – that our bodies are good and holy and that they speak to us of God’s heart, of His plan for our eternal union with Him. And then I entered into my vocation and began the purgative process of actually living out the Theology of the Body and whoa, nelly, is it a little tougher to believe that a fluffy, saggy mom bod speaks a language of truth, goodness, and beauty nearly as well as the body of a single young twenty-something does.

His body, your body. Unbelievably difficult to accept. But if it’s true, it changes everything. Calls to mind this quote from St. Teresa of Avila:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

 

About Me, budgeting, self care, social media

Habits, virtue, and making it easy to be good

April 12, 2018

I almost worked “self discipline” into this title, but to be perfectly frank, habit is getting me much further than self discipline during this particular season of life.

I’m at the point in fluffy not-quite-middle-age where if something is going to happen that is good for me, be it spiritual or physical in nature, I nearly always have to trick myself into doing it.

I could fib and say this is only because my domestic obligations are at an all-time high or that I’m suffering from that familiar fourth-trimester sleep deprivation, but the more accurate explanation is that I’m lazy.

How can a mom with five kids and a job be lazy? Oh, it’s pretty easy, actually. It looks like sending my older kids to fetch diapers while I sit plopped on the couch scrolling through my phone. It looks like falling asleep in bed while reading because I am “too tired” to pray. It looks like making a bad food choice at lunch and then mentally shrugging at 4 p.m. when confronted with leftover chocolate chip granola bars from the carnage of after school snack time and telling myself “I’ll start over with good food choices tomorrow” before popping the detritus in my mouth.

Since I lack sorely in self discipline and rightly-ordered passions, I’ve noticed that if I make the good things I’m trying to accomplish sort of idiot-proof, I’ve a much higher incidence of success.

So, for example, during Lent I got into the habit of putting a cute decorative tote basket in front of my place at the dining room table each night which contained my prayer materials: Bible, copy of the catechism, Blessed is She planner, and the Take Up and Read Lenten journal. Because it was there in my face as soon as I came downstairs to sit with my coffee, I dug in and had a little prayer time most mornings, however sparse it might end up being per my darlings’ demands. On the mornings when I’d forgotten to move the basket from it’s daytime perch in the bay window? Nada. I would sit 5 feet away sipping my morning cappuccino and stare at that sucker and prayer time would.not.happen.

Another example. I’m dehydrated more often than not from a strict regimen of breastfeeding, coffee guzzling, kid wrangling, and a strange aversion to filling simple glasses of water to drink from. Some days I would get to dinner time with a pounding headache and realize that I had maybe – maybe – consumed 12 ounces of water all day in the form of a single can of LaCroix. As POTUS would tweet, SAD! Very Disappointing!

I picked up a $4 glass water bottle with a sippy top at Marshall’s last month and started carrying it around the house with me and, what do you know, I’m drinking close to 100 ounces of H2O these days. Sad, right? But also really effective.

I’ve started to do the same thing with exercise. Feeling a little burnt out on my walking routine without Starbucks dangling at the end of the route like a luxurious carrot (more on that later) I was finding my strolls around the neighborhood a little less enticing. I did the math on what I was saving in burnt cups of coffee in a month and reckoned that I could probably afford a basic gym membership to the club down the street if I were completely coffee-shop abstinent. (My entire “fun” category every month is spent on takeout coffee. Speaking of sad…)

So I dug out an old black speedo from a few summers back, tossed a swim cap and a pair of goggles into my purse, and took the plunge, literally. I logged close to 200 laps last week, all because I’ve arranged the necessary materials and started forcing myself to leave the house precisely at 7 p.m. on the nights when it works for our schedule, promising Dave and myself to be back in 60 minutes. It gives me enough time to get the babies to bed and leaves him with some quality time with the older set at the end of the day.

Habit builds on habit. And I’d venture further, saying that virtue builds on habit. When I’m already being good, it’s easier to continue being good.

When I have that big glass of wine on a school night (biiiiig mistake at age 35) I know that the next morning it’s going to be harder to get up to pray. And that if I don’t get up to pray, I’ll probably yell at my kids at some point during the day. And that we’ll be so burnt out on each other’s company from all that yelling that by 4 p.m. that I’ll succumb to the Netflix sirens and surrender my laptop while I cook dinner, feeling hassled and defeated.

I remember hearing Fr. Michael Scanlan, the spiritual powerhouse behind the revitalization of Franciscan University, tell parents during an orientation video that Steubenville was intended to be a place where it was “easy to be good.” By that he meant not that we would be so constrained by rules and regulations that we would have no choice but to behave, but that there would be so many options for choosing the good – and so much positive peer pressure to do so – that it would become a real hotbed of virtue and excellence simply because the true, good, and beautiful was readily available. 24 hour adoration? Check. Three or four daily Mass options a day? Check. Intramural and community building activities through Households and dozens of ministry opportunities? Check.

So yeah, you could show up there a hardened party girl and stay that way, no problem, (Lee’s Place or Jaggin’ Around, anyone?) but you could also throw yourself headlong into the transformative atmosphere of excellence that permeated the campus, and ease into a routine of virtue that was considerably less challenging than the previous four years I’d spent stumbling drunkenly through the more typical college experience at a major public school.

So I’m trying to create a vice-proof, virtue and habit supportive environment in my own home where I am the boss, after all, making it more foolproof for me to misbehave, and less likely to fall headlong into a bag of Doritos* and a late-night Instagram binge session. (Note: Doritos are on the ever-expanding list of things I’ve come to realize that I just can’t have in the house.)

A couple other hacks I’m employing as training wheels right now as we transition from newborn survival mode to new normal:

  • No alcohol on weeknights (unless it’s a major feast day or a date night)
  • 3 non-negotiable exercise sessions a week. Doesn’t matter how long they take or what I do, just that I do them.
  • Instagram only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. (I uninstall the app from my phone and reinstall it on those days. Sad? You betcha. Effective? Indeed.)
  • No Facebook or Twitter at all. Just posting content there as I create it and then walking away, so to speak.
  • No shopping at Target or Costco, for the moment. (Diapers and wipes from Amazon, because I am not tempted to overspend when I shop online, whereas walking into brick and mortar is like entering the lion’s den for my budget.)
  • Grocery shopping only on Fridays. Y’all, this one has been HARD. But it’s helping our budget so much. I think I probably saved almost $200 last month from cutting out all the “just one quick thing” trips that always, always result in at least $40 of “oh, yeahs!”

I feel like my thirties have seen me get super into self-knowledge and understanding temperament and personality type (INTJ and choleric/melancholic, for what it’s worth) in an attempt to reprogram the direction of my own life. I guess I’ve been waiting for years and years to just magically “change” or grow out of ___, when actually I’m pretty much the same person I was at 18. I haven’t become more naturally disciplined to go to bed earlier, or less interested in french fries, or more eager to make phone calls I’m dreading. So instead of waiting for me to change, I guess I’m focusing more on “acting as if,” hoping that my tired old self will come plodding along down the path of least resistance I’m working to create. Hey, it works with my kids and a 4 p.m. veggie platter deployed against the whining “I’m huuuuungries” that interrupt dinner prep!

What habit-building hacks have you employed that have made noticeable improvements in your life? Is there an area you thought you’d never see improvement where you’ve been surprised by growth – and grace?

mental health, motherhood, PPD, pregnancy, self care, Suffering

Motherhood + mental illness

September 13, 2017

This is a tough subject to write on, but it’s probably in my top 5 most-emailed about questions/comments, so I know it’s one people are hungry to read about.

There is a frustrating level of stigma and shame which still surrounds mental illness: the way we talk about it on a cultural level, the image of ourselves we present to the world, the words we choose to use when discussing things like medication and therapy, and a whole host of other factors.

Last month a story surfaced about Pope Francis having seen a psychoanalyst for six months during his early priesthood, and the chatter online was pretty evenly split between “good for him for being so open and modeling good mental health” and “was it okay for him to have admitted that?” (with a dash of “aha, I knew he was nuts!” thrown in just because it wouldn’t be the internet without trolls.)

I’ve been really open online about my own struggle with depression and anxiety – especially the postpartum variety – because I think one of the most important things we can do for people with mental illness is invite them into polite society, so to speak, and jettison the antiquated notion that mental illness is somehow shameful, scandalous, and necessarily furtive.

Having now been on and off (but mostly on) antidepressants for more than half my life, I can honestly say I don’t care whether someone thinks less of me for needing them, or whether they believe that depression and anxiety are even real conditions.

You might have great success using an essential oil before bed to calm your anxious nerves, and that’s fantastic! I also like a drop of lavender on my wrist and pillowcase at night, but it doesn’t stop me from popping an SSRI before bed, and nope, I don’t believe that I could easily handle things “naturally” if I just took the time to read up on it. (Because I’ve tried all the things and dabbled in all the naturopathy. Not opposed! But also not sufficient, at least in my case.)

The truth is, mental illness, much like physical illness, is both unique to the individual and also excruciatingly uniform. How depression feels in my brain might be worlds apart from how it feels in someone else’s, but the outward effects are drearily similar: dark thoughts, exhaustion, flashes of inappropriate anger and bouts of crippling sadness and despair. 

I frequently hear from women with questions about NFP, and about safely combining pregnancy + drugs. The answer to many of the NFP questions is heartbreakingly obvious: “Is avoiding pregnancy because of mental illness a grave reason?”

YES. Yes. I want to shout from the rooftops “YES! And I am so, so sorry if there is nobody in your life who understands that or is willing to validate that for you.”

Nobody blinks an eye if a woman staring down chemo decides to step off the baby train for 18-24 months. But a mom struggling with a crippling mood disorder gets a raised eyebrow for wondering, in the depths of her suffering and with symptoms raging out of control, if maybe she’s actually “done” having children. 

It’s okay to not be okay.

It’s okay to be suffering and searching for answers and not totally sure when – or if – you’re going to  come up for air. 

Now, this is the part of this essay that gets (more) intensely personal, so bear with me. (My virtual living room, my prerogative.)

I am currently 6 months pregnant with baby number 5. I have had crippling postpartum depression and/or anxiety with all but one of my children, and have been on antidepressants for either all or part of each of those pregnancies, including the current internal resident.

I have fielded many, many questions over the years about the safety and wisdom of using medication while pregnant and breastfeeding, and will preface this with the same answer I give to everyone who has ever asked: it is an intensely personal decision, and one that only you can make for yourself, your baby, and your family.

(And before someone @’s me with the “aha, your body your choice!” zinger of a gotcha, let’s be clear that making a decision to treat un underlying medical condition is worlds apart from killing your baby for any reason. For further nuance pls google “intention and moral objective.”)

Now, if your husband, parents, spiritual director, etc, think you should be treating your mental illness with medication and/or professional counseling, take that advice seriously as you make a decision.  And when you decide, consider that the common good of your family is the criteria–if you don’t like being on anti-depressants or hate the thought of being vulnerable with a stranger, but your kids need a mom who is able to make dinner, the just thing to do might be to suck it up for their sake.

Mental illness is at once intensely personal and painfully corporate. And for whatever reason, it can often present a bigger target for speculation and strong opinions than most physical illnesses do. This is helpful to keep in mind when someone is confiding in you about their condition, because it can be more tempting with mental illness to offer advice and recommendations perhaps not rooted in good science and best medical practices, but in internet-derived research and personal anecdotes.

For example “I cut out gluten and now I don’t need Prozac anymore so you probably don’t either” or “Using essential oils completely cleared up my anxiety and you really should try something natural before you put toxic drugs into your body!”

True though those two statements may be for the person making them, that does not grant them a blanket status of efficacy when applied to other people’s conditions.

One person might well be able to get their blood sugar under control through diet alone, and another may need an insulin pump for life.

Every body – and brain – is different, and I personally thank God that we have multiple choice options when it comes to mental health. My life would have been very, very different 100 years ago, and not a day goes by that I am not grateful for the privilege of living in a first world country with access to life-changing medication. 

A large part of that gratitude stems from the fact that because these medications do exist, and because I have found different options that my body responds well to, I am able to continue to be open to life.

I would not have been able to continue having children without SSRIs. I say that without a hint of hyperbole or a smidgeon of exaggeration. The ability of my brain to apply this class of drug to my particular chemical makeup and smooth out the rough edges is nothing short of miraculous, and life on these meds versus life off of them is very, very different.

I’ve found at the tender age of 34 the perfect combination of diet, medication, therapy, prayer, and supplements that makes things pretty darn good. For now.

It’s a tricky thing when hormones are involved (and, increasingly, as science is demonstrating, inflammation) because they’re designed to fluctuate. So what works one month (or maybe even one part of the month) might not work as well 2 weeks later.

Pregnancy is generally a time of smoothed-outness for me, emotionally speaking. I can get by with a low dose of an SSRI (Zoloft is my doctor’s preferred pregnancy prescription and is working well for me this time) a low dose of LDN (low dose naltrexone, addresses inflammation and my autoimmune thyroid disease), a desiccated thyroid medication, progesterone supplementation, and a strictly (and I do mean strictly) gluten free diet.

I’ve also found – not that this is a biggie during pregnancy, but other times, womp womp – that I can no longer tolerate most kinds of alcohol. Single tear. Beer’s off the table for obvious reasons, but sadly, in my advancing middle age, so is wine of every color and variety. Cider is similarly catastrophic. 

Over the years I’ve engaged in a fair amount of cognitive behavioral therapy, healing prayer and deliverance, naturopathic supplementation, regular exercise, and chiropractic care. All of these things have helped tremendously. But for me, at least while I’m in my childbearing years, they haven’t been sufficient.

And that’s okay. 

I’m okay with being “not okay,” and with needing a little extra help to get through these demanding investment years of building a family.

Of course I worry about possible adverse side effects from the medicine, just like I worry about the 5 weeks I was too nauseous to choke down my prenatal vitamins, the hormones and chemicals in my tap water, the other drivers on the road with me, the bacteria in the swimming pool, and any potential unknown genetic time bombs lurking within my DNA. 

But ultimately, this baby’s health and his or her safety – as is also the case for my other children – is beyond my control. When I send them off to school each morning, it’s a trust exercise in best decisions made weighed against possible adverse outcomes.

I could breastfeed each little angel for 2 full years, avoid every vaccine or vaccinate to a full schedule, feed them an exclusively organic diet, avoid all inflammatory food groups, restrict all devices emitting harmful electromagnetic pulses, and still end up with a 4-year-old with a brain tumor one day. 

But the essence of parenting is making the best possible decisions possible for all parties involved, using the information at hand, a well-formed conscience, and a dash of common sense.

And the essence of motherhood is making a sincere gift of self without annihilating one’s self in the process. A shattered, broken down mother is not nearly so beneficial to her children as a sane, whole one. And to the extent that we can take care of ourselves in order to give the most to our families, we should.

I am a better mom when I’m on medication. And I feel no shame over that. What I do feel shame for are the months and months I’ve stubbornly tried to go it alone, gritting my teeth and yelling (so much yelling), refusing to do the thing that could help because it wasn’t natural, it wasn’t ideal, and it wasn’t what I wanted.

But sometimes it’s not about what I want. Most of the time, turns out, according to this motherhood gig.

I hope if you’re reading this and are struggling with mental illness yourself, you find a little respite here. I hope you’ll find that after reading this you feel more able to bring your fears to someone and ask for help shouldering the burden. 

Because you are not alone in your illness, and you needn’t suffer alone. And a psychological cross needn’t also be a death sentence for one’s fertility.

Other women are out there making similarly brave and difficult choices: they’re called mothers. And I want to invite them into the conversation to share their stories.

(I invite you over to the blog’s Facebook page to join the discussion and share your own experience there.)

mental health, motherhood, Parenting, self care

Self care for moms in survival mode

August 30, 2017

A couple weeks ago a dear friend from college came through town on a massive cross country road trip, and I was able to steal her away for a morning of coffee and a massage. Her sister in law, a mutual friend, commented to her as she was heading out of the house to meet up that “Jenny seems really good at self care,” which made me smile when I heard it.

Because I haven’t always been.

In my younger years of mothering, I routinely confused self care with productivity, and was forever transposing peace for performance. If a baby was napping, I was painting a piece of furniture, writing a blog post, loading the dishwasher or reading an academic article. If I had 2 hours till school pickup, we were at the gym where I was simultaneously answering work emails from my phone and speed walking on the treadmill while listening to a talk radio show.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of those things, but I had less self insight then, and couldn’t figure out why even when my house was super clean and my inbox was super well-attended too, I felt super burnt out all the time. I may have killed it in the housekeeping department on a given day, but I’d be snapping at my kids by 4 pm, having nearly killed myself getting there.

Because I was spending all the pockets of “free time” in my day being a good little soldier and attending to the to-do list, I was often coming to the end of a 12 hour shift of parenting feeling frazzled, joyless, and utterly spent.

I’ve come to realize in the past 7+ years of motherhood that as an introvert with a strong personality and intense feelings, I need a lot of silence in my day. Which seems incompatible with a growing brood of 4 under 7. But, as I’ve been learning, not impossible.

Instead of rushing around the kitchen kamikaze cleaning every square inch the moment the toddler drops down for his afternoon nap, I’ve had to teach myself to slowly make lunch, to (even more) slowly eat my lunch, and to spend some time reading, writing, praying, and mentally steeling myself for the afternoon.

I may sit down to a still-dirty lunch table for 30 minutes of catch up time online, ignoring the mess that once drove me to perfectionistic distraction, reminding myself that I am the master of these dishes, and that it’s more important that I be peaceful and present to my kids when we come back together than that the house looks perfect.

Maybe clutter isn’t your trigger, but we all have something that pulls at our attention, tugging at our sleeve to remain forever in Q1, sacrificing the greater good for the demanding present.

The physical clutter and chaos that comes with mothering many needn’t dictate my mood to me, however grumpy it makes me to see the sink piled high with dishes. I can delay that apparent immediate need and instead sit down for 20 minutes with a novel or my rosary, because waiting to do those dishes might mean very well presenting a calmer, saner mother to my kids for the entire afternoon.

Ironically, cleaning the house is actually a major way I practice self care, because I love cleaning. I like doing laundry, vacuuming, organizing and decorating. (And if anyone out there is a fan of cooking, grocery shopping, bathroom scrubbing or dish washing, come apply to be my sister wife.) But it has to be in moderation. I can’t clean all day and keep the house looking as if 6 people don’t inhabit it and expect to feel human by 6 pm. Not that I haven’t tried.

When hard pressed, I think most moms can name what it is that makes them tick, even if it’s not something they’re in the habit of regularly “indulging” in. And that concept is one I want to challenge you on: because self care is not indulgent, but essential. 

Most priests (and I would imagine ministers of other denominations) take Mondays off in order to recover and regroup from the intense activity of Sundays. Nobody begrudges them this; it’s a natural enough action to designate some downtime to rest, recreate, and just plain take care of the mundane business of life.

Mothers don’t get a day off in any official sense, and so it falls to us to carve out the time with intention and resolve. Repeat after me: it is not selfish to take care of yourself. It is not self-indulgent to spend time away from your children in order to recharge and recalibrate. It is not frivolous to do things just because they make you happy.

I’m not sure where this attitude of shame surrounding self love comes from, but I know for one thing: it ain’t biblical. God doesn’t command us to love our neighbor to the inverse and opposite proportion that we despise/disregard/denigrate ourselves.

Nope. He commands us to love them. As we love ourselves.

I think it’s a lingering spirit of puritanical Manichaeism that tends toward the disregard – and even tiptoes up to the edge of disgust for – the physical body, and the female body in particular. Women often come into their mothering years with a misguided concept of gift of self that is conflated with self-anihilation. And not in a sanctifying, “I unite myself totally to You Jesus,” way, but in a sadistic “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” and “real mothers sacrifice everything (and I mean everything) for the sake of their children” kind of way.

Including their own well being, their mental health, and perhaps even their marriages.

Most guys I know are pretty adept at reading themselves and recognizing when they need to sit down with a cold drink and a few moments of silence. They have little difficulty deciding to take a couple hours to watch a game, spend time in nature, or grab a hot shower after a long morning of physical labor. They are refreshingly unapologetic in continuing to “indulge” in things that make their heart beat faster even once marriage and fatherhood have entered into the mix: craft small batch beer brewing, guitar playing, freelance writing, playing rugby, running half marathons, and coaching soccer. And that’s just me naming a handful of things my husband and his friends do for personal fulfillment, off the top of my head.

I want to invite my fellow members of the fairer sex take a page from these guys’ books and be on the lookout for things that make your heart sing. If you’ve always wanted to learn hand-lettering, put it in the budget and sign up for an online course. If you’ve been dying to take on a Holy Hour at your parish’s perpetual adoration chapel, strategize with your better half and come up with an evening once a week where you can slip away at 8 pm for some quality time with Jesus. If you were an amazing swimmer in high school, call up the gym or YMCA down the street and inquire about their rates and open swim hours. Hoping to start a blog of your own? Find a mother’s helper from your local homeschool co-op and spend 4 hours a week alone at a coffee shop with your laptop and a hot beverage.

When I show my kids that I have other interests outside of our life together as a tight little family unit, I am not robbing them of time spent with their mother, I am teaching them that their mother is a valuable, unique, and interesting person in her own right, and that each of us have something unique to offer the world, and something particular to us that brings joy and satisfaction.

God didn’t create us to toil away in unceasing drudgery to become holy through self neglect. He isn’t frowning down on us for applying mascara or booking a massage or painting our nails or applying to an MA program. He gave us gifts to share with the world, but also to bring us joy.

It is not selfish to be happy.

It is not selfish to take a shower while someone sits in front of a show for 30 minutes. It’s not criminal to leave your toddlers for an hour a week to go for a long, satisfying run. It’s not wrong to slip out of the house with a couple girlfriends for a glass of wine or a pint of kombucha a couple evenings a month.

Let’s teach ourselves to practice good stewardship of, well, ourselves. And let’s show our sons and our daughters, in so doing, that it is healthy, natural, and joyful to be a woman who knows what brings her happiness, and who takes pleasure in pursuing it.

Some ideas for self care for moms:

  • Book a 60 minute massage (look for local recommendations for an Asian or Chinese massage place, their prices can be killer compared to a spa or salon. Think $40 instead of $90+)
  • Go for a run
  • Hire a babysitter for 2 hours during the day to run errands/write/read/stare vacantly into space at a coffee shop. Feel zero guilt while doing so. Arrange a kid swap with a friend if the budget doesn’t permit a sitter, and buy a $1 coffee at McDonalds instead of a $4 latte at Starbucks
  • Get up 20 minutes early and take a good, hot shower and blow dry your hair
  • Go grocery shopping at night and tell your husband to plan for 30 or 40 extra minutes. Take a book or your Kindle, grab a kombucha or a fancy sparkling water, and sit in the parking lot and read before or after you hit the store.
  • Try a barre, zumba, or Pilates class at your gym
  • Join a gym. Especially one with reasonable childcare. Some are surprisingly affordable! Go some days just to walk on the treadmill, have a shower in peace, or make a long distance phone call without little peeps peeping in every 5 minutes.
  • Make a Holy Hour
  • Commit to a weekly/monthly Holy Hour
  • Shut yourself in your room and pray a Rosary while your kids play outside/watch Netflix
  • Buy a book you’ve been dying to read instead of waiting the 4 weeks on the library hold list
  • sign up for a night class at your local community college
  • Get to daily Mass once a week, even if you have to stand in the back with a raucous toddler
  • Put on real clothes and makeup for no other reason than it’s Tuesday, and you feel like giving your neglected non-activewear wardrobe some airtime

Etc.

It needn’t be complicated, wildly indulgent, or expensive, but it ought to be on our radars as women, as friends, and as sisters. Let’s encourage each other to take care of ourselves, and let’s help the men who love us understand that we need to practice good self care in order to provide the best possible care for others.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:26-30)

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail (Isaiah 58:11)