Meet Beth! She is Lovely Lisa's friend and she also wrote this great list on How to Make Money as a Stay-at-home Mom (Love her ideas) over on Money Hip Mamas. I am honored to feature her great ideas on how to get out of a funk. Remember my pageant question here? She answers it beautifully (Beth, ever thought about being in a pageant? haha.) I know you will love her ideas too!
A DOZEN (EASY, FAST, CHEAP) WAYS TO GET OUT OF A FUNK
Whether it reaches the severity of depression or not, there are days when the mom funk strikes each of us.
This list was inspired by the wonderful post by Judi at Postpartum Struggle:
http://www.postpartumstruggles.com/2014/02/pageants-and-hard-work.html
I totally agree with Judi’s assertion that making yourself get up and do some work will make you feel better (or at least, you will be getting stuff done while you’re feeling miserable). But after I read her post I kept thinking about her question and realized there are a ton of other things I do to get myself out of a funk as well. This is not a list of things like “Date Night/Spa Day/Girls’ Weekend.” If I had the time/ budget/nanny for all of that or if it were a Saturday evening instead of a Wednesday morning I would not be in a funk, would I. This is a list of stuff that YOU can do, FOR yourself, mostly BY yourself, on an ordinary weekday with an ordinary budget and no spouse around to help.
1. Shower! – Once you become a mom it is so easy to put showering at the bottom of your To Do list. “I’ll just hop in the shower as soon as everyone’s fed breakfast,” you say, and then, “as soon as I get the dishwasher loaded,” “right after I throw this load of laundry in,” “a quick vacuum first,” “after the kids are dressed,” “after the kids have had lunch,” “when the baby goes down for the next nap,” and pretty soon it’s 4 pm and you are gross. Some moms have mastered the art of showering at night. This doesn’t work for me because I don’t feel alive until I shower. So that means some days I don’t feel alive until 4 pm. No wonder I’m in a funk on those days. If you’re like me, put showering at the TOP of the list. Once you feel human again, it will be easier to do everything else!
2. Do your hair – After you have kids, your own hair is one of those things that doesn’t even make it on the To Do list anymore. This is true for the stay at home moms who don’t care because “no one is going to see me anyway” and the working moms who will see people but those people are “just going to have to deal” because by the time you’ve packed your tiny army up (at an unholy hour, every single morning) the time left for you is already in the negative. Here’s the thing, though. Even if no one else is around or allowed to care about your wet bun or your sad ponytail, guess who has to look at you? YOU. Every time you go into the bathroom to wash your hands/wash a tiny human/clean up a mess/steal a minute alone. Unless you’ve smashed all the mirrors in your house or place of employment (probably a bad idea). And YOUR OWN opinion of you actually does matter. Here’s what I suggest:
(1) Take 30 minutes ONE DAY A WEEK and do your hair. If it’s easier, do it on a weekend so your husband can watch the kids. It doesn’t have to be on a day when you have anyplace fancy to go or anyone to see, because you are doing it for YOU. One good hair day a week will give you more patience for all the other sad ponytail days, I promise.
(2) Invest a little time and learn a new fast way to do your hair for the mornings when you have no time. Maybe you always do the ponytail and you need to learn how to do a cute bun, or try a braid. This does NOT need to be complex. Braiding my hair takes me approximately 2 minutes longer than putting it up in a ponytail. Doing a fishtail braid takes approximately 4 minutes longer. Just knowing you’ve done something a little different will boost your mood.
3. Exercise – I’m not talking about gung ho, join a gym and find someone to watch the kids while you do 60 minutes of cardio a day exercise. Maybe that’s what you need to do if you are trying to lose a significant amount of weight quickly, but if all you’re looking for is a quick energy and mood boost, you can accomplish that with 5 minutes of good stretching. Or 10 minutes of cardio on a DVD in the comfort of your own home while your children cry in the background.
4. Cuddle with your kids and read to them for 15 minutes – This will banish your funk for two reasons. (1) Cuddling is super comforting. (2) You will feel like you’ve accomplished something. Accomplishing one thing makes it easier to get up and do other things. And you will feel like you’ve done something educational and fun for your kids, so you can check that off your Mom Guilt List for at least the next hour.
5. Put on music – I asked for a Pandora subscription for Christmas this year and I *love* it. I don’t know if it works this way for everyone but when there’s music on it INSTANTLY boosts my mood. It works so fast it’s crazy. I put on something upbeat when I need to get chores done, and it helps me move more quickly and feel more motivated. I put on something relaxing while I’m doing stuff with the kids, like coloring or homeschooling, because it reminds me to chill out and slow down to their speed for a while.
6. Get some sunlight - Unless it’s freezing out or raining buckets, going outside for even a few minutes can be a major mood booster. This does not have to be a serious outing (that’s #9, below). Take the kids and play in the backyard. Go for a walk around the neighborhood. If you’re not up to either of those, just go outside and check the mail—leave the kids inside, walk slowly, and enjoy three minutes of peace.
7. Have a friend over - If the only people you’re spending time with are your children and facebook, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every other mother in the world is 100% PinterestWoman 100% of the time and you are the ONLY one who is failing at PinterestLife. The remedy for this is to actually talk to another human mom for 20 minutes. Or, better yet, visit her house. There’s a special kind of kinship that comes from knowing whether someone has not cleaned the same parts of her house that you have not cleaned this week, or whether she has not cleaned different places.
8. Trade babysitting with another mom – I’m not even talking about date night here, although that’s good too. But this is a husband-free, stuff *you* can do for YOU list. Ask a friend to watch the kids for a couple hours so you can nap/clean stuff/pee/go to the store/read a book. Then you do the same for her. Here’s a secret: Once all of the kids involved reach a certain age, it can actually be EASIER to have more kids around because they entertain each other and no one needs you!
9. Get out of the house - Unless one of the kids is on a tricky napping/feeding schedule (hey, it happens to all of us), I feel like it’s usually almost the same amount of work to get the kids out of the house for an hour as it is to get them out for the whole day. If looking at all the unfinished piles of everything around your house is getting seriously overwhelming, you need an outing. The best way to do this is to go with another mom friend. That way one of you can keep an eye on all the kids and luggage whenever the other one needs to run someone to the bathroom or feed the baby. You can do this for very cheap/ free. Go to the library (most do free storytimes and/or other activities). Go to the park. Find out if there are free days at the zoo or the museums in town. Or, if you’re able, buy a membership to one of those places so you can go all the time. If you are out of the house it is easier to give yourself a day to ignore everything that’s stressing you out and just enjoy spending time with your kids.
10. Make “Laundry Day” “Movie Day,” or vice versa – If you hate doing laundry, or if you love sitting on the couch all day watching TV but hate how you feel at the end of a day like that when you’ve accomplished nothing, this is the answer for you. I saw a blog post recently by a woman who claimed to get all her laundry done in 10 minutes a week. “Nuh-uh,” I thought, “you are SO doing that wrong.”
Here’s what I do. I turn on a movie or a TV show that I’ve been dying to get a minute to watch, and then I sit on the couch and sort and pre-treat everything. If you let your laundry pile up for a week or two, you will totally have enough to do to make this step stretch out for at least half a movie. I only get up to put a load in the wash and switch the next load to the dryer or hang it up to dry. As each load finishes drying, I sit on the couch again to fold it all. I only get up to put it away (sometimes if the movie is good I skip that step and leave it all folded in a laundry basket for the next week, and then my husband can’t find any of his clothes. Oops.).
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Beth, spending an entire afternoon watching Caillou while doing a horrible chore sounds like TORTURE.” But this isn’t “have the TV on while you do stuff” day. This is “WATCH WHAT YOU WANT TO WATCH” day. I have two tricks to get my kids to let me watch my stuff. (1) Popcorn. My kids can be bribed to watch almost anything (British period dramas would be the exception) with enough popcorn. If this means Laundry/Movie Day has to be Vacuum Day too, it’s worth it. (2) Put their own show on for them on a laptop. This is not bad parenting. This is Getting The Laundry Done.
Other moms often tell me that they hate laundry. I cannot nod sympathetically when I hear this. Laundry is my favorite chore.
11. Give yourself a “weekend” – One of the hardest things to adjust to about motherhood is that you NEVER get time off. What I mean by a “weekend” is not an actual weekend away from the family (although that is sometimes nice too) but rather a state of mind—a day/afternoon/hour that you take a break from absolutely everything you *need* to do, and do something relaxing—something you *want* to do—something just for YOU. Maybe this means spending one naptime a week reading a book instead of frantically cramming in chores. Or putting on a movie for the kids while you give yourself a pedicure. You can even do this with the kids—as long as you are doing something you enjoy and allowing yourself to ignore the chores for a while. If you consider this your “time off” it is easier to do it without feeling guilty or like you are wasting time.
12. Pray – This probably should have been the first thing on the list. Pray for p
atience. Pray for guidance. Pray for energy and motivation. Or spend a few minutes doing whatever else works for you to bring the spiritual into your life and make you feel at peace—read the scriptures, reading an inspiring book, meditate, etc. If you don’t currently have a way to make yourself feel spiritually centered and at peace, then you need to find one. It is as true of spiritual needs as it is of physical needs that you can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.
What a great list! Thanks!
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