I am gonna be honest with you. Things have been crazy…wait stop and go pour a glass of wine or tea or something cause this might take a while.

Its ok I will wait…

Ok so it is February and it’s been about 5 months since I through my hands up in the air and said…I can’t do this! What couldn’t I do? Everything! I felt like I was juggling so many balls for so long that I gave up and dropped them all. Since having a baby I have felt like I am always at a crossroads between loving what I do and being a mother.

I started Freckles and Blush 6 years ago and I love my little business. I love being a part of a brides special day and I love blogging. So when I had my son I kept doing it all. I did my first wedding back when he was 4 weeks old. I don’t know how I have managed to keep breastfeeding all these months with all my weddings but I have (too much info?) To be perfectly honest it was a hard season but I wouldn’t have changed it. I actually found the newborn stage pretty good. I was more tired than ever before but it was a fun season getting to learn how to be a mom. However since my little man has become more of a boy and needs more and more energy from me it has certainly changed everything. Add in having a studio with clients every night, blogging, social media, and the never ending emails that come with my business. Oh yeah and there was the normal things like food shopping, still giving into my relationships, and house work ( I am a really tidy person so mess kinda stresses me out…like a lot) and last on my list in very tiny print was exercise or eating well.

So I hit this place end of last year where I stopped and took a moment to look around. That “moment’ lasted till the start of this year. What made me really stop was having bad flu mixed with a teething baby (baaaad combo). I pulled back in my blogging and posting and just tried to keep up with my emails. I needed to pull back to really look at my life.

When I stopped and looked around I didn’t like what I saw.

I saw a woman trying to do it all but doing it all really badly (or so I felt) I felt like I was letting everyone down and spreading myself too thin. I was exhausted, emotional and snappy. I felt guilty in all areas. I felt like I wasn’t being attentive enough to my son or husband. I felt like I was letting brands down that wanted to work with me and I just overall felt overwhelmed.

When I had a look at each thing in my life it wasn’t that each thing was bad but rather that it was all of those things combined without every thinking about myself once.

This got me thinking and doing a lot of soul searching. Can I really do it all? What is “all”? What was I missing. I will take you through my thought process and how I got to where I am now. When I broke everything down each individual thing was a good thing and not something that I wanted to give up. Baby…yup I will keep him haha being a mother is my top priority along with my husband. Ok work? I loooove my job. I love working for myself and I love blogging. I cant give up on house work because like I mentioned I love a tidy home otherwise I feel I cant think properly and I would jus end up on that show Hoarders. Food is life so I have to do food shops and cook everyday.

I had written this all down and looked at the paper. It didn’t make sense. I want to be a present happy mother, I want to keep growing my business and I also want a strong marriage, close friends and a clean house. So what am I missing. I looked at the list and it hit me.

Where in any of this do I do anything for myself? No where on the list was something for me. I was giving and giving but not giving back to myself. At this stage I hadn’t been to the gym in 6 months because that was first in my ‘too hard basket’ and forget about eating healthy. The thought of chocolate and wine at the end of the night got me through the exhausting bed time routine (I will be posting on that soon) Exercise and eating well were the last things on my mind. However the longer I went eating badly (and I mean really badly) the worst I felt. When I started to think back I couldn’t remember the last time I got my hair done, pampered myself or did something just for me.

So I realized that I didn’t need to take anything off of my list but rather put myself on the list. And to be frank I needed to go towards the top of the list. I am now on this journey of learning to be kind to myself for the first time in my life.

I am on a journey of honestly. I recently posted a real talk Instagram post (below) and above all my other posts this one blew up. I had so many woman private messaging me telling me how it was so good to hear another woman being real and raw with how she was feeling. The thing is if you asked any of my girlfriends they would say I am a pretty open person so its time that I pull that honestly into my blog and business.

So I would like to invite you on this honest journey with me of learning to be kind to yourself. On my blog I am going to be posting on things I am doing in my life to be kinder to myself and those around me. I am going to give you honest conversations, real beauty talk and reviews and tips and tricks. I want to be myself in the truest form so I am going to be posting videos too eeeek scary but it should be fun. So lets do this. In a world that can be very unkind especially to woman lets be kind to ourselves first because you know what….dam you are worth it ♥