Return of #ReasonsImAwesome

If you know me, or stalk me on Facebook (which is perfectly acceptable), you probably know that lately I've been struggling. Between the ongoing broken sleep that comes along with the Jiggley Baby, and doing all of the child wrangling/household crapola on my own, I've also been pretty hard on myself. Ok, that's a lie. I've been downright mean to myself.

• You can't keep the house tidy
• Listen to that baby crying at you, you can't even make him happy
• Look at {Jiggley Boy}, he's bouncing off the walls and getting into trouble because YOU aren't paying enough attention to him
• No one really wants to hang out with you because you're such a downer
• You're not good enough
• You can't do it

Just a little snippet of the lovely self-talk that has been going through my head lately. If anyone talked to someone I cared about like that, it would INFURIATE me. If anyone talked to my kids like that I would throat punch them (ok, probably not - but I'd really want to). But why is it ok, acceptable even, to talk to myself like this? I could blame it on my mother never really having anything nice to say about herself. I could blame it on the media and how they have given me a completely skewed perspective on beauty and motherhood and on just being a woman in general. I could blame it on depression or anxiety or OCD. There are any number of things that I *could* blame it on. But placing the blame doesn't really change the fact that I am a bitch to myself. It doesn't really change the fact that MANY women are mean, and hard, and hateful to themselves.
I don't want my boys to grow up thinking that it's just normal to be overly critical of themselves; to hate themselves; to always feel like they don't measure up to a conceived version of themselves that doesn't exist. So it's time to change. It just takes one person, with one idea to start a revolution... now I'm not saying "Hey, friends, let's start a revolution!", but... Hey, friends, do you want to start something amazing? Awesome, even?


These guys are just a part of what makes me awesome <3
{Photo courtesy of Amber Bourret Photography - check her out!}

I'm bringing back #ReasonsImAwesome. 30 days of LOVING yourself. 30 days of finding something, no matter how big or small, that makes you the incredible, amazing, AWESOME person you are. 30 days of acknowledging that even with our flaws and mistakes and imperfections, we are pretty super. So check out the Facebook page and share your #ReasonsImAwesome. You can even use the #ReasonsImAwesome on Twitter if you want to spread the love. Let's start changing the way we think about ourselves. Let's change the way our kids WILL think about themselves in the future.

Super Powers

You might be surprised to learn this about me, but I have super powers. Yep! Besides being able to talk on the phone, scrub a toilet and corral a three year old all at the same time, I can also read minds. Crazy, I know. This ability came to me at about the age of 15, maybe a little younger. I was suddenly overly aware of how everyone "really saw me" and what they thought of me. I could "hear" all the times people laughed, on the inside, at me. I was privy to all their jokes and accusations and assumptions about me. Weird thing about my ability; I can only 'hear' what people think about me.

Ok, so I don't really hear what people think - and no, I'm not hearing voices. It's called Negative Self Talk and it's bff is Low Self Esteem. To quickly define those terms: Self Esteem is how you feel about yourself and your value (beliefs and emotions); Negative Self Talk is usually an inner dialogue that's a mixture of half-truths, poor logic and distortions of reality - it can happen when someone is stressed or going through a personal transition, but it can also become a daily dialogue as well.

So relating this to me: I can't remember a time when I didn't believe people thought the worst of me. I've always thought people were secretly, sometimes not so secretly, judging me - judging the way I look or act in certain situations, judging the food I eat, or choices in school and career. Now that I'm a mom I feel like I'm being judged by an even harder panel of non-forgiving eyes and assumptions. I constantly question myself, and only because I *think* people may think a certain thing about me. I often won't go to playgroups or night's out, because the other mommy's will think I'm too annoying or too poor, or too old/young. I have been fighting with the concept of running for 2 freaking years now, and why can't I just go and do it? Because I just *know* that people are looking at me and wondering "why the hell is that fat girl trying to run", "she looks like she's going to have a heart attack", "haha! Look, her butt and thighs flap independently of each other bahaha!". I don't usually ask for help, when I'm alone and struggling and truly need a hand, because no one really likes me enough, or enjoys my company enough to want to be there. I'm a burden, I'm annoying, I'm needy, I'm selfish.

The reality of it is I'm not really important enough for everyone to always be thinking about me. Hello, am I a bit narcissistic, or what?! If I just went out and ran, I probably wouldn't even be a blip on any one's radar. If I just went out with other mom's I probably wouldn't be off the wall nervous and make an ass of myself. If I could open my damn eyes when in a crisis, I'd see that there are some people I could probably count on - and there would probably be more if I gave them the opportunity.

Hindsight is 20/20. If you see me sitting in the corner arguing with myself - know that I'm having a little Gollum moment and battling that ugly and mean inner demon.