I've been super mean to myself lately. Like Mean Girls mean to myself. Like I could have probably filled a burn book about just myself and then evil laughed at myself being mean to myself.
I'm not writing this to get sympathy or to get anyone to say anything nice to me. Seriously. Heck! Write something mean in the comments if you want! Plz don't. What's the virtual equivalent of branding my hair and petting my head? Can you do that? Wink. I'm writing this so I can properly tell the story of how a regular catch-up phone call with my mom fixed everything.
Spoiler alert: The moral of this post 100% will be to call your mother.
But let's start at the beginning. Pre-catch-up phone call with my mom. Life has been really busy lately. I know I mentioned that here, and I also mentioned that I'm not quite sure why it's been so busy. I'm still stumped about that one. I feel like I'm being encompassed by a tidal wave, and I can't crawl out. But it's all in slow-mo. The slow-mo tidal wave of stress and anxiety is trying to grab me! Let me out! I just want to sit down and read, but feel like I never have the time to sit down and read. I want to plan all of my Pilates classes and sessions way in advance and rock them, but I feel like I don't teach the absolute, frickin' best I can some of the times. I want to re-do some stuff around the apartment. I want to write. I want to curl my hair some random day and just sit around with curled hair. I want to get dressed in real, non-lycra clothes. I want to workout. I want to punch insurance companies in the face for making me jump through hoops. I want not to have stress zits all over my face for the third month in a row. I want, I want, I want.
I found myself lying in bed two nights ago telling myself that I was the worst. I told myself I was living a lie. Here I am spending 75% of my day each day telling women and men to love their bodies, and that by loving their bodies they should just get out and move. Doesn't matter what you do, just do something. Love your body and move your body. But then I was coming home, hating my body, hating my zitty pizza face and doing anything BUT moving and loving my body. Unless moving from lying on the right side of the couch to lying of the left side of the couch counts? No?
You might be thinking, Hi Emily, there is medication and therapy to help with that! To that I say, enter my mom and this blog. Huzzah! I also say I realize 99% of everyone else in the world goes through the same thing so let's all huzzah! together.
A few days ago, when I was armpit deep in my woe-is-me-pit-of-despair, a client mentioned that her college age son randomly called her over the weekend and it was such a nice surprise. They ended up talking for over an hour, and she looked so filled with joy just telling me about it. I was kind of embarrassed thinking about the last time I had called my mom. Sure, we text almost daily, but when did I call her and hear her voice last? So guess what I did?!
Nope, I did not call my mom. I went home and completely forgot about it. #bestdaughterever However yesterday morning I had already taught two sessions, and it was only 8am. I grabbed my ear buds and took the dog out for his morning walk. I opened up my Skimm email to read, but after reading the first two sentences about the big debate I rolled my eyes, closed it, and called my mom instead.
Best decision ever. I didn't whine and complain about life (too much...). I didn't tell her all about my fake burn book about myself and how I thought I hated myself right now. We just talked. Talked about everything. I talked. She talked. We laughed. We caught up. By focusing on good things, by listening all about my mom being a badbleep with her job, by focusing on literally anything other than my ridiculous self pity I suddenly started to feel better. The slow-mo tidal wave of stress and anxiety was starting to go in reverse and leave me alone. We hung up, and I couldn't help but smile.
So you know what? Sometimes when life feels really, really big and stressful, and that tidal wave is coming for ya, just call your mom. Call her! Or your dad. Or your best friend. Or your sibling. Or you dog sitter's mother's aunt. Call someone, hear someone's voice, listen to them, talk to them. Focus on that, and suddenly the little, good, happy things in life feel a whole heck of a lot more important than that ridiculous pit of self hate.
In the words of J Biebs, Love Yourself. And he even talks about his momma in that song, so I think he wants you to call your mom, too. Over and out.
Love you, Mom!
6 comments:
Ooh, girl. I'm feeling you so hard.
You're amazing and creative and so so talented.
My mom lives only an hour drive from us and we see her at least once a month most times, and yet when I do call her, we always talk for at least 40 minutes! I love those chats. Great reminder!!!
huzzah! hugs and pettings of the head to you.
but seriously, whenever i feel like crap i call my mum. it costs a bit of money but always makes me feel better. we email every day but just hearing her voice and her no-nonsense way of talking makes me feel loved and happy. so i feel you.
i'm sorry you've been feeling this way though. i know all the things that help me feel better, but wallowing is so easy sometimes. normally i just have to force myself through all of those things for like a week, and then they start to work (like exercising and not eating like crap).
I 100% agree! I text with my mom daily, but there really is something special that happens when you actually talk to somebody and hear their voice. When we were in Europe I had to call my mom one night when we were connected to WiFi because I just missed hearing her voice and it was fun to talk about everything that was happening. I'm pretty sure she freaked out because she thought that something bad had happened, but I just really wanted to talk. I'm glad that your mom was able to lift your spirits up!
GIRL. That whole first long paragraph after the photo is ME! Right there with you. Life can be so overwhelming. It's SO easy (especially as a woman, I think) to be so amazing and encouraging to everyone else but ourselves. Why is that?! Girl, I'm here to tell you YOU ARE AMAZING. You are beautiful, smart, talented, friendly, and so so encouraging! I love all of those things about you! :) I always feel great after a good phone call with a loved one!
I love the relationship you have with your Mom. I miss mine everyday.
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