Self-Care Mummy Blog Series - Week 8
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This New Year I’m talking all about Self-Care as a mum and how important it is to take that time for us. Every week I’ll be bringing you a new guest blog post with some top tips and hopefully throughout the next few months we’ll have put together an amazing list of different ideas for self-care.
This week is Madelaine Vallin.
Tell us a bit about yourself - who you are, what you do and a bit about your family:
I live in Terrigal in NSW Australia with my Scottish husband, my son boy (7) and my daughter (10). I am originally from Sweden but moved to Australia first time on 1999 (been back and forth a bit but we are now here to stay).
I work as a HypnoCoach with is sometimes described as Coaching on Steroids (I love that explanation). I specialise in supporting Entrepreneurs, Creatives and Professionals to let go of self-doubt, fear of failure and anything else stopping them from becoming successful in life and business.
What do you do for self-care as a mum and how do you make time for self-care?
Self-care is crucial in this fast-paced world. I meditate, move my body and tune into my inner self daily. As I work with people on a mental and subconscious level it's really important I make sure I look after me. If I don't, chances are I'll burnout and won't be able to support people as well.
As a recovering overachiever myself, I know how bad it can get. I have experienced the repercussions of putting yourself last first hand. Not only can we hurt ourselves on a mental level, it can effect us both physically, psychologically and mentally. I suffered lower back pain for a big part of my life until which was directly connected to my inner struggle. I also had depression and anxiety through my teens and 20's which caused havoc to my body and should, something I still have to be aware of.
I find that a lot of women struggle with the inner game. Many of us believe we are not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough etc. This inner mind game is making us perform at a lower level, stops us from reaching our goals and even worse, can cause long-term harm to our bodies and mind.
My job is to help you to let go of these self-made ideals about yourself so that you can become a high performer instead of a struggling over-achiever. Once you have made the shift, your world will change. It did for me and it has done for my clients. We do not have to suffer to put our make on the world and we do not have to sacrifice our health. We just need to know how to change it and when we do, everything will fall into place.
What are your three top tips for self-care for mums?
There are many things you can do but the 3 most important things that have helped me are:
1: Start a meditation practise or at least find a time for yourself daily that you will not be disturbed. Use this time to let go of everything swirling around in your mind. It can be as easy as switching off all communications with the outside world and allowing yourself to sit with eyes closed focusing on the area around your heart. By simply focusing all your attention on this are for 10-15 mins you are allowing your body to go back to balance and let go of some of the stress you might be going through in life. Every time your mind wanders, simply focus back on your heart and let go.
2: Start an appreciation practice.
Studies show that by consciously taking some time out to focus to what is good in your life helps your mind to find more of what makes you feel this way, how cool is that!!
Think of 3 things that you are grateful for and then, pick one of these 3 and really get into the feeling you feel when you are in gratitude. If you can, allow this feeling of gratitude to travel through your whole body expanding as much as you can. The more you allow the feeling of gratitude to grow in your body, the better. If you want to take this practise further, you can journal about what you are grateful for. Some studies find that when we use our hand to write something down we are activating a part in our main that makes us remember deeper.
3: Start your day with a POWER hour:
Most of us start our day with switching on social media, the radio or the news (or all three!). But what we don't realise when we are doing this is that we are giving ourselves outside influence that more than likely will effect our mood for the rest of the day! You see, when we look at the world through media in whatever form we are simply being fed the world view of other people's eyes that we then make our own. It's like we are letting others dictate how we live and feel, scary thought!
Instead, try letting then first hour of the day be free from outside influences. Perhaps this is a good time to do your appreciation practise or meditation? Or it's simply a good time to listen to the birds as you are having a cuppa or be present with your children.
Try it for a week and notice how you feel. Your POWER hour can be life-changing as it will help you take back control of your mood so that you can choose to get into a positive state for the day.
Imagine how differently the world looks when we are in a good mood versus a bad mood. Imagine the difference in how you see your world will effect your future.
Are there any products/businesses/podcasts ect that you would recommend for self-care?
I consume content by people such as Jason Silva, Tom Bileu, Mel Robbins to name a few but the view list keeps changing as I change. There is a lot of great content out there :)
You can see more of Madelaine over at:
Website | Facebook | Instagram
I hope you enjoyed reading this lovely guest blog post by Madelaine all about self-care as a mum! Be sure to check out the blog next week for another guest blog post all about self-care!
Have a lovely day!
Emma x
If you would love to take part in this blog series please head to our website here!