I’d like to tell my personal story of exactly how I went from stressed out working mom to fulfilled and happy every day.
I’m still a working mom with a busy life. But I’m not stressed out anymore.
I’d love for you to get to know me a bit more so that you know why and how I got where I am at today.
[BONUS: Don’t miss my interview with my guest Regina starting at 13:13]
You may be in a similar situation now, and this post is for you to maybe take away some lessons learned from my story so that you can get inspired in your life as you move forward.
I have always been an ambitious person. Growing up in a small town in Sweden, I remember myself as a young teenager working hard wasn’t anything I resisted.
I started my first job at a grocery store at 13, and as part of the horse back riding club, I was responsible for writing and distributing a monthly newsletter to about 300 subscribers.
In the little town I grew up in, I could bicycle everywhere, so I simply took my bike all around town to distribute the newsletter every month.
I loved taking responsibility and I loved writing the newsletter, printing it and delivering it.
Back then as a young teenager, I didn’t think of how having qualities like being driven and ambitious could impact me later in life and basically almost burn me out.
One thing that I did get introduced to in my teenage years was meditation. Before kids, I had been to some yoga classes, but at that time I didn’t relate to meditation as something that could be a profound tool for long term well-being.
Fast forward into adulthood, landing increasingly demanding jobs in pharmaceutical research and development, enduring more and more business travel, along with starting a family, everything became more and more complex.
Between responsibilities for work and family demands, multitasking became an everyday puzzle.
With that also came a very scattered mind.
Basically my reality looked like this: I could wake up in the morning at 3.30am and not be able to go back to sleep because my mind was already glued to the thought of my to-do list for the day and what I had to do to keep it together.
I felt like I had mentally done a workday already before I even got out of bed in the morning.
Sometimes my night also got interrupted by a child waking up, and usually (sorry husband!) it was me getting up and taking care of whatever needed to be taken care of in the middle of the night.
If you ask me about how I took care of myself – my own self care? There was none.
Maybe an occasional facial, or massage, but I’m sorry to say that I made the mistake of not prioritizing self care at all, mentally, physically or spiritually there was no daily routine.
Looking back, that was a BIG MISTAKE.
My well-being took a took a hit because of the constant multitasking and taking no time to recharge my mind, body and spirit.
Simply because of my drive for perfection and my natural dedication to work and family, I put myself last on the list of to-dos. I didn’t allow myself to take a break mentally or physically for many years.
I was on an endless high speed train, going only forward with no stops on the way.
So after a number of years at this pace, I came to realize that my emotions were gone.
How I felt about life was neutral in most situations and, if you ask me, I was no fun.
I didn’t know what I liked, I didn’t have any preferences, I just went through the motions. I had no strong opinions, no future plans. Just what needed to be done today. No feelings of happiness, just feeling stressed and blah.
I just existed. And like on autopilot I took care of what needed to be taken care of each day.
That’s when my turning point came to me.
We had just moved to a new town and on a whim I decided to try a new yoga studio in town that had just opened its doors.
I started to go to yoga class weekly and soon I found myself signing up for a yoga teacher training there.
I didn’t think I was going to end up teaching yoga, but I signed up because I was curious to learn more, and something drew me to sign up for this training.
And so I did.
Through the yoga teachers training over the next year, I connected back with ME again. Even though I had a busy life I found in myself a growing a passion for yoga.
Who would have thought I would sit here many years later and tell my story of how yoga made such a difference in my life.
Yoga is a wonderful way to connect back with your body, go inside, gain self awareness and release energy blocks, both emotionally and physically.
Through yoga I did start to loosen up some emotional energy knots and stress that I had pushed down for so long, that had kept me stuck and in the rat race with the blinders on.
I started to feel a passion for self development, spiritual growth and the connection between mind and body, and I started to become curious about why I lived my life the way I did.
I started to feel that I could dream again, I started to feel joy.
Soon I picked up meditation again now with a whole new meaning of what meditation can do for ones well-being and self awareness and I started to journal daily.
I wanted to learn more and more about myself, because I knew there has to be another way…
My pen just flowed when I was journaling and I found it very liberating to free-write after meditation.
My mind could rest on the page. I could dream on the page. I could get emotional on the page.
And it all stayed there so that I could revisit and connect back to it whenever I wanted and expand on it.
I got in touch with my spiritual side as well through yoga, meditation and journaling. I started to trust my life more. There is a calmness about trusting your life.
The feeling of inner calmness and trusting that I was right where I needed to be.
I developed a passion for exploring how universal principles can support us, in taking the expectations and must-haves off our shoulders, so that we can allow ourselves to flow with the present moment and flow with ease through our day.
In the beginning, I noticed that everything went so much smoother at work. Less pushing for outcomes, more allowing things to happen naturally.
I got hooked on setting intentions and expanding a vision of what I wanted and dreaming big, instead of the usual focus on have-to’s and complaints. What a difference!
The feeling of being stressed started to change slowly, from the feeling of contraction to a feeling of expansion.
I started to incorporate visualization in my journaling after meditation to amplify my vision of my ideal dream day.
It was very powerful and I could feel my days were starting to shift. It was like a weight came off.
I felt lighter.
Even if I had a busy life, the same responsibilities with work and family, I didn’t feel as stressed out.
What a Big Difference!
The practice of daily meditation and journaling became something that I didn’t want to miss in the morning.
I started to look forward to my early mornings with my true self, and feeling calm and centered through meditation.
My intuition stepped forward for me more and more as I grew trust for myself and my ability to tune into myself.
Picking up those inner signals, signs and intuitive hits that occur when you are tuned into your true self and guides.
It was easy to notice that my days went SO much smoother. I even got MORE productive at work!
I got more DONE than ever.
And I got more patient with my kids. More present with them and my husband. Happier and more playful, creative and spontaneous.
So this is my story about how I went from a reality of being stressed out every day to feeling fulfilled and happy.
In summary, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to allow yourself to get curious about why you live your life the way you do.
Self awareness is the platform for change.
I am passionate about helping busy working women to find their calm and well-being.
I’m especially passionate about helping busy women trust their intuition and mindfully create a balance between work and self care.
If you’re stressed out every day, is that the way you’d want to live tomorrow?
You have a choice. Always. And you can chose today.
If you don’t know where to start. Start noticing and writing down your patterns, your habits. And look them in the eye.
Is your reality now making you a better person, a happier person today? If not, you have the choice to change it now.
Your life is now.
Maybe you can relate and see your own life in my story in some way.
I hope you got a few nuggets from my experience going from stressed out to fulfilled and happy that inspire you to make a choice and get curious.
What will be your turning point?
