Changing our inner narrative

I’ve got nothing done today.

This is what I say to myself pretty much every single day. When I’ve spent the whole day rushing around, juggling a million balls, not sitting down, forever on call, trying to play twenty different roles all at the same time.

The other day I caught myself thinking this in the middle of the afternoon. The big four were all out, so it was just me and the baby at home. The house was weirdly quiet which neither of us liked. He was a little unimpressed that there was only me to amuse him. Without the extra hands that I’m used to, I was berating myself for not getting anything done… then I stopped and thought about it. I’d still gotten five kids up and sorted for the day. Made breakfast for everyone. Supervised the middle three doing their ‘school’ work before they went out with their Dad. Put away the grocery order. Taken some parcels to the post office. Done two loads of laundry. Sorted out Oren’s wardrobe, switching his stuff for the bigger size. Written two blog posts. Caught up on emails. Changed Baya’s bedsheets. Played with the baby.

And that was all before 3pm….

With a two month old baby.

It made me think. About how many people comment on my Instagram posts, or tell me in real life thay=t they don’t know how I do all I do. And how I brush them off and make a joke about how behind I am, or how disorganised I am.

But in truth, I don’t give myself credit for being a one {wo}man show. For raising five kiddos alone. For keeping us afloat financially. For making this show keep rolling. How I brush off all that I do, and focus on the areas I’m failing in.

I make myself feel worse because of this.

I stress out about the little things that are being neglected. The dust in the corners, the messy state of my house. The unread emails in my inbox.

How many of us do this? Look at our failings instead of our winnings? Beat ourselves up for what we don’t achieve, but don’t pat ourselves on the back for what we do manage to do?

Maybe if we took a little time to give ourselves praise for all we achieve each day, if we took compliments when people say how well we’re doing, if we were proud of ourselves then we’d find that actually, we really are doing well. Even when we feel like nothing is getting done, so many of us our keeping other people alive, keeping whole families going, running houses, and businesses, supporting friends, or partners, or family, yet society tells us it is never enough. We must do more.

I’m making a pact with myself. To slow down. To remember I have a tiny baby. To not be cross at myself when I don’t mannage to tick off everything on my to-do list each day. I’m going to start being proud of myself for keeping this family of mine going day in, day out, all by myself.

Changing the narrative in our head can have a huge impact on our days and how we feel about ourselves. I think it’s time that we all stand up and shout that we are fricking amazing.