The Wellness Poet
Parenting is a full-time job and on top of that you may have an actual full-time JOB. Before I had children, I was very busy, then somehow my capacity miraculously expanded to fit in 2 children, a house, a career and so on! The bit that didn’t seem to fit into my new expanded capacity was my health and well-being. I see it all the time in the faces of parents I meet, exhausted, over-worked, over-committed. So how do parents take stock, regroup and regain health and vitality?
Here are my top 5 tips to help Parents prioritise their Health and Well-being.
- Remember what is most important to you and your family – YOU! You are the most important thing to your family and to yourself. Choose to look after yourself.
Create space in your life to;
- exercise
- stretch
- eat well
- unwind
- recharge
- Consider your work commitments and family commitments and proactively manage your life so you can get off the hamster wheel and choose a pace of life that is right for you, based on where you are at this given moment. You may have to accept that some things have to stop. You may also have to do more of other things you had let go of, in order to be healthy and happy.
- Make time for you and your partner to enjoy their hobbies and alone time. Too often parents give up all their hobbies for their children’s activities and sacrifice what is nourishing for them as individuals. Recognising this and being mindful of both yours and your partners needs is important for maintaining well-being.
- Don’t wait till your annual family holiday to relax and unwind. Try to create holiday moments each week. A family picnic, trip to the beach, exploring some place new, visiting a local tourist attraction, taking a bike ride etc. Create holiday moments as part of your normal life as often as you can.
- Maintain friendships and social connections for yourself. It’s easy to try and make our social life around our children but usually we just end up talking about our children. Maintaining friendships and creating new ones just for ourselves is also important. Yes, it takes a village to raise a healthy child and it also takes a village to nourish and sustain a healthy adult. Find your coffee buddy, walking buddy, lunch buddy or movie buddy that you can socialise with on your own terms, with your own talking topics. Just be yourself for a while; not mum, dad, wife, partner etc. Just be You!
Practising these 5 steps will enable you to regain your sense of self, remember what is most important in life and help you maintain your well-being. But the key word here is “practise”, you must practise well-being, practise looking after yourself and practise not over-loading yourself and becoming over-committed and over-worked. Mums and Dads are the most important people in the world – treat yourself as such!
Here’s some questions to ask yourself on a weekly basis that will ensure your start to prioritise your well-being.
Krissy Regan is The Wellness Poet and Founder of Mindful Mums Queensland. She is author of 2 new books; Broken to Unbreakable, 12 Steps to an Unbreakable Mind, Body & Spirit and The Koala who Lost his Heart. Krissy wrote both books whilst working part-time at home, raising 2 small children and juggling the demands of her household.
Krissy offer’s workshops, retreats and 1-1 coaching and launched her global online wellness school at the start of 2021. You can register right here; https://krissy-regans-wellness-movement-mindful-mums-3.teachable.com/
You can contact Krissy Regan at mindfulmumsqld@gmail.com or follow Mindful Mums Qld on Facebook and Instagram @mindfulmumsqld and view Krissy’s work here: https://www.thewellnesspoet.com/
