Day 9: 30 Days of Me

I have actually been really proud of myself lately. I feel like I'm in a really good place in my personal life. As some of you know, I struggled with postpartum depression after pretty Abbey was born. I am pretty much passed it all now, but I do still have days that are harder than others. One thing I have learned is that if I can just get out of bed and get dressed, do my hair, and put make-up on I will have a much better day. So, I'm proud of myself because I have done that every school day since the beginning of this semester. Sometimes (actually, a lot of the time) I throw my hair up in a messy bun but I don't count off points for that because I still wear make up and it kind of works. Because I try to start my days off well, I am more productive during the day. I am caught up completely in all of my classes but 1 and everyday I do something productive to get myself on track. It was in my nature in the past to get overwhelmed and shut-down when I got behind and I don't do that anymore. I'm proud of myself for that. I cleaned the house today. That makes me proud. I have stopped telling myself "you're a bad person because you didn't get ____done." It really doesn't help anything and when I keep from being mean to myself I actually get a lot more done. This is in part because my husband is very encouraging and doesn't feed into or tolerate my beating myself up about things. I am proud of myself for being realistic and for accepting when I'm really just not cut-out for something. I proud that I can kind of lose gracefully and not dwell on trying to turn myself into something I'm not. Again, my husband plays a huge role in this because he never tries to turn me into any ideal or belittle me if I'm not Miss Perfect. My uncle recently kind of categorized me in the company of my Momma. That was the biggest compliment. If people are seeing me as a wonderful Mom, a supportive wife, a hard-working, committed, achieving, caring, poised, "kicking booty and taking names", room-brightening, beautiful woman of God then that makes me so proud.

I'm just really proud that I'm learning to really love myself. I'm proud that I'm accepting parts of me that are less-than-perfect and forgiving myself for not living up to these ridiculous standards that I've set for myself for some strange reason. And the best part is, in learning to let go and just be Me, I am actually getting closer to those standards than ever before.

Ahh...the power of self-love.