Good morning! 

How is everyone’s week going? Is it just me or has January seemed to last 48,972 weeks?

We have been easing into this new year slowly and that’s entirely intentional. After the end of last year, I sat down and talked with Trevor about how we could change our current way of managing things to make life less chaotic and stressful. It wasn’t entirely out of nowhere; my anxiety had gotten really bad and I was having physical symptoms which had never happened before. My heart was racing, I couldn’t sleep, I was feeling shaky all day and night and truly panicked. I was convinced I was having symptoms of MS for weeks and couldn’t let it go or catch my breath. Once I saw my doctor and knew it was my anxiety I realized a change desperately needed to happen. 

I truly couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this non-stop schedule was affecting my health and after a lot of reflection realized that ever since we were robbed in Paris my body had essentially stayed in flight or fight response. I was wound up so tight and every single minute of my day was over scheduled and packed. Between my family, dentistry, and this blog I had taken on way too much and something had to give. Like most businesses, Q4 is the busiest time of year for both my professions so I had really hoped to just push through and then relax but my body had other ideas. Although social media and this blog is truly a dream job and I love that I get to share here, it’s also a job that can be hard to turn off.

I had to make a change and set firmer boundaries.

I truly couldn’t survive like that any longer.

I decided to start therapy, add things back into my life that truly bring me joy, and scale back on deadlines in general. Sometimes, especially as women and for me as a child of immigrants I measure my worth by how much money I make or how ‘successful’ I am. For me personally, this is often tied into how many hours I work and how ‘hard’ I think I’m working.

While I love growing and achieving more each year my goal this year is to have more BALANCE and refocus on what matters to me the most: my family. I originally started this blog so I could have more flexibility and be with my kids when they needed me but somewhere along the way I lost that balance altogether. Work from home days used to offer me flexibility to go to a workout class or see a friend between projects but I had somehow lost that joy and put this pressure on myself that if I wasn’t working every single free minute I had I was somehow failing. 

At the end of each day, was that going to make a difference? No. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love working and providing for my family but I also want to be healthy and present for them. Going into this new year, I’m finding a better balance with work and life which includes saying no to more and making space for things that contribute positively to my mental health. Getting a workout class in with friends, having a therapy session, and just simply doing nothing once in a while is necessary for me.

I realize that there is privilege in this ability and I don’t take it for granted at all but something I’ve learned in therapy is that I need to remove this self imposed guilt from my decisions. Just because something isn’t hard for someone else doesn’t mean it isn’t hard for me. I would always think “oh I shouldn’t get lunch, so and so could never do that” – why does that matter? This is my life and I only have one chance to make it full and enjoyable. 

This may be a lot of rambling but I just wanted to share where my head is at going into this new year. I’m focused on slowing down, being present with my kids and Trevor, bringing more joy into my life, and staying connected with this amazing community. There can be a lot of pressure in this industry to grow but that’s truly never been my focus – I feel like I know you all, laugh with you, and trust you. That’s kind of an amazing thing and I’m so grateful for you all sharing your lives with me and trusting me in this very oversaturated and sometimes toxic space of social media. 

If you connect with this at all, I hope you are able to take a step back and refocus too. Why shouldn’t we? More is not always more and these babies won’t stay little and want to hang out with me much longer 😉 

Thank you for being here and listening and I hope you all have an amazing weekend!