For The Girl Who feels like she isn’t strong enough...

Can you remember the last time you sat, alone with yourself, in a time of hardship, and said “I can do this”? Can you remember the last time you knew, without a shadow of a doubt that you were going to be okay? You’ve got this. You can take care of it. You can battle whatever demons are swirling in your mind, whatever storm is brewing outside, whatever is plaguing your heart. Can you remember the last time you sat in those feelings and knew within JUST your own power that you were going to overcome?

I can’t.

It’s not that I’ve never done it; I have. I’ve been thrown to the wolves, covered in blood, and fought my way out. I’ve been chewed up and spit out and left for dead. But never, not one time, have I ever felt like I would be able to survive.

The scenario varies. A breakup. Loss of a loved one. Loss of a job. Financial burden. Parental struggle. Addiction. Abuse. When we’re faced with these situations we feel overwhelmed. Like there’s no way we can possibly come back from this, we’ve met our match. This’ll be the one that kills us.

It never has. At least, not yet.

But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy road and it surely doesn’t mean that we’re going to feel strong and empowered and tough. Most of the time, we feel weak.

We feel like shit.

It’s not until we come out the other side that we realize we can continue to fight, and by that point, the fight’s already over. When we find ourselves stuck in what feels like an endless pit of quicksand, the hopelessness begins to set in. Our fight or flight instinct goes into overdrive and chooses for us how we’ll respond. The interesting thing about this instincts, is that neither of these options feel like they’re going to fucking get us anywhere.

When Fight kicks in, we feel run-down. It’s exhausting. It feels like we’re being dragged out to sea and trying to crawl our way past the riptide to get out. Fight is scary and brutal and hard. It is a big, daunting task that seems as though can only be won by some Amazonian Warrior type. Like if we can’t strangle the problem with our bare hands, we can’t possibly get through it. Some things we have to fight alone, and for some we can enlist an army. No matter what, blood will be shed.

Flight is a different kind of challenge. Flight makes us feel small. Flight makes us start wars we don’t even want a part in. It makes us hurt people and abandon our loved ones because we’ve carefully constructed this Wall of Fear made out of the idea that there’s no possible way anyone is going to be good to us. Flight is lonely. Flight is afraid.

When we experience Fight, we stand in the water, knee-deep, and let the waves crash into us, dragging us under and pulling us out to sea. We resurface hundreds of miles from where we know, and butterfly-stroke our way back to safety. We cry, we bleed, we fear, and we eventually get back to shore, after the battle of our lives.

When we experience Flight, we take off from the beach in a dead sprint in the middle of the night before high tide comes. We self-preserve. We say to our problems that there’s no goddamn way you’ll be able to hurt me because you’ll never get close enough. We run. 

These instincts are meant to save our lives. Please remember that the situations in which we have to Fight or Flight are those which are carefully created in a lab of a mad scientist to hurt us in ways we couldn’t even imagine up to this point. We fight for survival. We fight to learn what it’s like to be alive, to put our life at risk for the reward of saving it. We fight because it feels better to have bloody knuckles and busted lips, than to let our pain kill us. On the contrary, Flight carries us to a new land where we can breathe and not inhale the smoke from the fire burning around us. Flight helps us understand that sometimes walking away from a situation is the best we can do to save ourselves. Sometimes we have to change our pace and try again. Flight is an escape, and that escape will sometimes lead us back to the Fight we were trying so hard to avoid in the first place. What we don’t often realize is that by the time we’ve reached this impasse, the worst part is already over. The blow has been received. The hurt we feel has already occurred. Now it’s time to decide how we’re going to heal.

I’m not here to tell you that either instinct is wrong. Fight is rewarding, yes, but it’s also miserable. Flight may feel like the easy way out, but we all find different means of protecting ourselves.

Neither option feels good. Neither makes you feel like the bad bitch you wish you were in the face of adversity. But at the end of it all, when we’ve got no other options left, they help us survive.

For The Girl Who walked away...

It's okay to stop feeling like you owe everyone an explanation.

Sometimes, the decisions we make are going to impact other people. Sometimes they are going to change someone's life. Sometimes they are going to hurt. That doesn't mean we are making the wrong decision.

Marriage is forever. That's what we're taught, right? If you've made the decision - you've committed your life to someone - that's your journey. There's no turning back. You can't change your mind. No matter how much your head hurts in the morning because you went to sleep crying. No matter how much your lips bleed from biting them all day long. No matter how much your bones ache from being pushed around. No matter how big the hole in your heart gets because all you want is to be truly, deeply loved. No matter how many lies you've been told; secrets you've been sworn to keep, no matter how many times you hide them away in a time capsule that's set to self destruct on the next entry... you've made this bed. Now lie in it.

I'm here to tell you that it's bullshit. This idea that our generation "gives up on everything" so you'd better stick it out... ~or else~ 

You'll be another statistic!

Fuck. The. Statistics.

There is not a single soul in this world that's allowed to tell you that you should be miserable for the sake of not perpetuating divorce. The cycle is endless. We stay in miserable relationships, have kids in miserable situations, raise them in miserable conditions, and teach them that misery is their only option. That it's better to "see things through" than to make yourself happy. It's wrong. They're wrong.

I wish I could put you inside of my brain for a moment: take you to all the nights I spent crying on my kitchen floor. The nights I spent scrolling through my phone, trying to think of someone that I could call that would skyrocket me to the next right move. Who could wave a magic wand and fix all the ugly things in my life. The desperation. Begging something, anything, to show me what I was supposed to do next. What the right move was to make. 

It's okay to walk away, but it won't be easy. There will be days, months, and maybe even years that you'll spend wondering if you did things the right way. Wondering if you jumped the gun. If you filed for divorce too quickly, if you started dating too soon. If you moved to the right neighborhood. If you gave yourself the time you needed to heal before you had to put on that tough bitch exterior that you've grown into so well. The truth is, there is no "right way" to get divorced. If things had gone the way they were planned, you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. But we adjust. We learn how to breathe when we feel like our lungs are deflated. We learn how to wipe tears in a public bathroom and return to the event we're at without letting anyone know we're hurting. Sometimes we need to reach out, sometimes we need the solitude. Sometimes we need to feel the grief, the pain, the fear. Sometimes we feel those shitty, fucked up feelings even if we were the ones to make the decision to leave, and god damnit, we're allowed to.

We don't owe anyone an explanation for the decisions we make. People are going to wonder, they're going to talk and they're going to gossip. You'll hear stories about yourself you'd never heard before, hear experiences you supposedly had that you never knew about. They'll talk shit. You'll lose friends. People you thought loved you will no longer be there. It won't be easy. But you aren't alone. There's a world of us out there. People who are just as red-eyed and snot-nosed as you are, who can't catch their breath, who wake up with the onset of a panic attack, who cry for no reason at all. 

Taking care of yourself can be ugly. It's not all about bubble baths and yoga and herbal tea. It's not all about lunch dates with your best friends and girls' trips. Sometimes it looks like not showering for a week because your insides feel so dirty, you think the outsides should match. Sometimes it looks like not eating a healthy meal, not talking to anyone, not putting your phone down to meditate, not turning off the video games to take a walk.

But, we carry on. We trudge through the mud and we come out on the other side - emerging like a warrior from battle. A little broken, a little bruised, a little tougher, a little stronger. We put on our war paint, we keep our head up, we don't feed into the bullshit, and we remember, above all else, that we survived.

Sometimes when it gets ugly, we just need to embrace it. Feel it. Sometimes self-care looks like indulging yourself in the things we're told are bad for us. Sometimes it looks like knowing that it's okay to be fucking sad, and not every day is going to be the day we do our best. Not being "okay" isn't anything to feel shameful of. We'll get there. Someday.

I can tell you about the sunshine. I can tell you about how it'll get better and how everything you ever wanted will someday be laid at your feet, and you'll be completely happy and content with life. But the fact is, there's a lot of fucking shipwrecks along the way. Stay the course. Weather the storm. Stop avoiding the pain and letting people tell you that everyday the best day of your life. Pain is how we grow. Don't become stagnant on your quest to better your life with facades of joy. Feel it. 

For The Girl Who wasn't ready for her post-baby body...

Written by Anonymous

You look at it every day. Your eyes fixated on every stretch mark, every roll, and god forbid there’s loose skin. That post baby body you just were NOT ready for. The body that makes you question why someone finds you attractive, prevents you from wearing tight clothes, and may even make you terrified of having more kids and doing further “damage”. I struggle to look upon my body positively every day. Sometimes suffering anxiety attacks thinking about what I’m going to wear in public that will help me look less fat. Often followed with depression because nothing I tried on hid the rolls or smoothed the curves enough to meet my expectations.

I’ve read the mom blogs, watched the inspirational videos, and those women leave me in awe of their strength and their want to help other moms not feel alone in the changes their body went through. But at the end of it I’m still left with the same question: How can I love my post baby body the way they love theirs? It’s taken me 4 years and a simple comment from my four-year-old to find an answer. I don’t have to love all of my post baby body yet. I can work on loving it one step at a time.

I know some people will tell you, “diet and exercise could fix most of the issues you see.” Yes, exercise and dieting are great, and I try to implement them in my life when I can, but what about the issues they can’t fix? Exercise won’t fix the amount of extra skin or the separation of the muscles some women are blessed with. For most women, thousands of dollars for surgery is not an option either. You work yourself to exhaustion at the gym and get headaches counting calories just to be discouraged when you find out there’s only so much of “the body you knew” that you can get back. This is when it’s important to remember you don’t have to love all of your post baby body yet.

I gave birth to a healthy 9 pound 10-ounce baby boy (Holy sh*t!). Naturally my body changed to be the best and safest place it could be for my son to grow. I will forever be impressed with the way my body knew what it needed to do. Without hesitation I would endure every stretchmark, extra pound, and cesarean scar all over again to ensure he came out as healthy as cold be. But there I was, almost 4 years later, still not in love with the body I see in the mirror. * insert long, exasperated sigh here*

While organizing some cabinets in my kitchen earlier this week my son sat down next to me and said “Mom, I like your stripes.” Puzzled I looked down to see him pointing at the stretch marks on my left hip. Sarcastically I replied to him “You gave those to mommy when you grew in my tummy.” He giggled. My son giggled with Joy because in his mind my “stripes” were a gift from him. That moment made me realize just how negatively I view myself and how easy it would be to compliment myself more if only I changed my perspective. 

Don’t get me wrong, I will probably never be fully in love with my body. But when I look at it with the perspective my son has, I’m able to appreciate it more and resent it less. He doesn’t compare my body to the way it looked 5 years ago (and honestly neither does anyone else in my life). To him, my body is just my body. Instead of focusing on the fact that my boobs are covered in stretch marks I can now be impressed with what the girls went through and that, even though it’s not much, they kept some of the volume from when I was pregnant. My thighs are bigger but they’re better at catching my phone if I drop it while I’m sitting on the toilet.  I can appreciate the increased volume my already big butt was given (I know my boyfriend does) and know that even if my stomach sags now it’s already broken in for the next baby. I can look at my body with an increased sense of humor and positivity, making jokes but lifting myself up at the same time.

All joking aside I know there will be days when it’s easier to hate on our bodies than to point out the things we love about them. Our Bodies have gone through hell and back to produce the miracles that are our children, yet we’ll judge ourselves. We’ll put on the sweat pants and baggy shirt in an effort to hide from the world. Those are the days I will try. Try to remember how much my son likes my stripes, how many times my boyfriend has called me beautiful, and how many times I’ve felt sexy all by myself and dared to shake my ass to a catchy song. The world already judges us harshly and compares us to others (the same way it would have compared and judged us in our pre-baby bodies). I think that’s earned us some self-love and acknowledgement that, like all things, we’re a work in progress. We are working on appreciating the incredible things our bodies are capable of and loving them even if they’re not as toned as they once were. 

I wasn’t ready for my post baby body but ready or not this is what my body became. It will be an uphill battle that we won’t win every day. Today I’m able to say my body is beautiful; loose skin, extra weight and all. Tomorrow I’ll work on finding one more thing to love about it even if I find ten things I don’t. It’s one of those day by day, step by step, easier said than done kind of things. And I hope by reading this you’re one step closer to loving your body too, even if it’s only a stretchmark at a time.