Revitalize Your Relationship Coaching

Some dub it Mommy Brain, others call hormone reconfiguration or chalk it up to sleep deprivation, but there are more and more studies that show big changes to your brain during pregnancy and after having children. 

When I had my daughter, I noticed that I felt "different".

My personal experience with with both my children was that the pregnancy felt generally rough with brief moments of relief and then something resembling elation after they were born.

I remember both times, moments after giving birth, feeling exhausted and marvelling at the beautiful baby in may arms, thinking that now I would finally start to feel "normal" again.

But the truth is that I was forever changed.

And the gift I have been able to give myself and the one I want to give to you since realizing it is to completely let go of the idea that you or I will ever get back to the pre-pregnancy versions of ourselves. 

To a new mother, at first, that realization can feel very disempowering. 

I love my children with all my heart. They are beautiful little beings and most of the time they are a joy to be around.

But there are some days and some phases of their growth, when I wonder if one or both of them will ever stop crying/screaming/doing the exact opposite of what I am asking them to do.

Those days feel rough and often when Steve comes home, I am just done.

All I want to do is go sit in the bathtub with a few candles and a book alone for a few hours. As much as I try to remember that my kids are doing exactly what learning, growing, healthy children do it takes effort not to feel like I am failing as a parent.

Those days are hard as every parent knows, but while many of us focus and worry about how our relationship is going with our children, it is easy to hit pause on your relationship with your partner.

I get it.

You feel exhausted and after singing the same five songs or answering the same five questions all day, you might want to veg out instead of have a meaningful conversation.

You might lie down with your kids and bedtime and routinely fall asleep for hours.

Or maybe, you feel the seeds of resentment and spend all your time together going back and forth with your spouse complaining about why your day was more difficult than theirs.

How Can You Change This?

For some couples, their bond strengthens and grows with time. But for others the bond becomes thin and they grow apart.

Many of my clients come to me and tell me the main problem in their life is "stress and overwhelm" and as we dig a little deeper through the challenges of navigating things like their career or parenthood many of them tell me that their marriage is struggling too.

A few months ago I completed an incredible training to up-level the work I am able to do with my clients and students. Teaching yoga has been a powerful tool, but for many people it opens the door to a physical and spiritual awakening that we may not have the support to investigate further.

For many people yoga is a way to "tune in" to what they are thinking and feeling and meet a whole different part of themselves.

Not bad for just unrolling your mat right?!

I wanted to be able to meet more of my students in that space through my work as a Life Coach because self-inquiry is another transformational branch on the tree of Yoga.

And since opening up more space in my day to work with people I have noticed that many of my clients are saying the same things.

The new mother who doesn't want to put her health, happiness and big goals on the back-burner for the next 20 years while she raises her kids.

The entrepreneur who is juggling the pursuit of her passion, her relationship and trying to maintain an intensive spiritual/ yoga practice.

The manager who can't seem to figure out how to close his computer and leave his work at work.

Their lives look different, but they all tell me the same thing.

"There just isn't enough time in the day."

With a business of my own, two kids under three, a partner I love spending time with and a daily spiritual practice you might imagine I would be nodding along in agreement with my clients.

But I am not, because an unexpected thing happened when I had kids.

If you have read my blog or listened to the Alive With Purpose Podcast, then you know I am very into self-care.

Since becoming a parent, I think it is twice as important now in my life since the mental load of caring for children can be very overwhelming if you aren't paying attention.

But as valuable self-care time is for me now, I also know I have to be more creative with how I make that space in my life than I did when I was single and didn't have kids.

I recorded an entire podcast for you on my current self-care must haves which you can listen to on iTunes here (Get Episode 22 now). You don't have to be a parent to love these self-care rituals.

I also made you a free cheat sheet where I have put everything together for you in one place.

Head over to my show notes and click the magic pop over to get my favourite cookbooks, food blogs, my new fitness obsession, my daily face care ritual and more.

At the beginning of last month, there was a day I was awake for nearly 24 hours straight. 

You might read that and think,

"Gee, Erin why would you admit that while you are trying to teach me about self-care?"

Well don't stop reading just yet. I wasn't staying up late to meet a deadline, or missing a night of sleep worried about something, I was travelling with my family to Hawaii where we spent a month together.

The way it all worked out, we left our home at 8am and arrived at our hotel about 22 hours later.

The weather, the land and the people are incredible and I feel so lucky that we were able to go back to one of our very favourite places on earth with both of our kids.

As one would expect Hawaii to be, it was magical.

We had beautiful days on the beach all together and I was able to carve out solo time to attend amazing classes and get some much needed mental space to think about how I want to shape the next few years of my life with my beautiful husband and children.

But there is another side to the rosy picture here I need to highlight;

Self-care takes work.

Between home and the beach are about ten thousand practical details. A few times I caught myself joking to friends that,

"After all the planning and travel back and forth I will need a month in Hawaii alone to recover".

An epic trip like this takes careful planning and we spent many hours researching, booking places to stay, packing and unpacking everything a family of four needs into a single suitcase and a few backpacks.

Then there is the reality of traveling with two kids under three years old.