One Simple Practice That WILL GIVE YOU YOUR TIME & PEACE BACK
“The bad news is time flies, the good news is you’re the pilot” -Michael Althsuler
It feels like time is always going.. Especially as a mom x2 (a working mom at that), a small business owner x2, and fiance, time gets cut short SIGNIFICANTLY.
*signature “I’m gonna lose it” face* It’s ugly… but I also don’t care. 🙂
Thankfully, I learned something in college that I carried into motherhood that not only bought me more time back, it also helped me create more home life harmony. I get that life is filled with various things you can’t control, off days and off weeks, and moments where you feel like all you’re doing is surviving. This practice won’t completely rid you off moments like that, but it will aid in mitigating those moments significantly. You’ll still have days where you fall flat on your face but you’ll begin to get back up a lot quicker than you had before (resilience).
I want you to begin to create more peace and time for yourself despite those moments, how many hats you wear and whatever life tries to throw your way. This practice will be the first of many that I’ll be sharing on my blog so be sure to turn on post notifications on IG and join my email community so you don’t miss out on all of the elevation tips and growth tactics coming!
These practices have helped me to heal, take care of myself, and live a life that I desire and deserve and I pray that they will do the same for you!
Story Time
Although I learned this practice in college, it didn’t click immediately when I became a mother. Why? Two words, “mom brain”.
When I think back to when I became a mom in 2016, I remember looking at my then newborn, Isaac, in my first tinie tiny apartment, thinking… how am I gonna do this.
2016 Ki at her favorite place (Target) with newborn Isaac – Running on fumes
It was just me (Isaacs dad and I were on and off until we were just off lol) and I had never done this before. I wasn’t too sure of how to do it all but I did know that I wasn’t going to be another single mom statistic and I didn’t wanna be a cluster flipping hot mess with it. I’m talking messy home, barely taking care of myself, late for everything, and feeling like my home was in complete chaos.
I saw how functioning like that was becoming the norm for families. It was almost normalized, like no, its okay to live in a sh*t hole house, in total chaos, because everyone is!
Before I go on, I want to clarify that perfection was not and is not my goal. Peace and stability was/is my goal. Peace, harmony, family, fulfillment, joy, and generational wealth – that’s what I wanted. I knew that I wouldn’t achieve that functioning how my family and so many other families were in this chaotic cycle.
What happened here was a personal reflection of patterns that weren’t serving so many others and that wouldn’t serve me. I had a realization and then, I slowly began to create change with hopes of breaking the chaotic cycle.
I started to take care of a part of myself that didn’t exist quite yet. I knew though, that by taking care of this part of myself I would invite more peace, structure, and time back into my life.
I started taking care of future me. FUTURE SELF CARE. (see below what future self care did for me in the long run)
Left: 1 month postpartum, living in first apartment (low income housing), no job, no car, maybe $30 to my name, lost mentally and spiritually, low confidence, still healing from self hate, in an abusive relationship, dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety Right: 27 months postpartum ( with second son), bought my first home by myself, 6 year Army NCO, bought my second vehicle (big mama pick up), many bank accounts that are flourishing, 2 growing small businesses, mentally at a healthy and self accountable space, strong spiritual relationship, healthy and loving relationships, more in love with life than I’ve ever been.
What is future self care(FSC)?
I remember being introduced to this life changing idea by my graphic design college professor, Meena Khalili. I looked up to her so much, and anything she said I was gonna run with. But this, this changed how I went about life. I planned ahead in a way that created more safety and certainty for myself.
Future self care is nothing more than doing something in the present that your future self will thank you for, but in the short term sense.
We practice long term future self care all of the time. That looks like,
Getting an education
Going to college or trade school
Working at a certain performance level for a raise
Investing
Exercising
Eating healthy
Snowballing your debt
These are things that, over time, our future self will thank us for.