A&E. Anxiety & Exhaustion.

These two words have been my week! As you may or may not know, I have battled (and won plenty of times) with anxiety for years now, most of the time it’s controlled and locked away so well I barely even face it, but the last week the silly thing decided to try and start a fight. For me, anxiety feels like a panic attack, I get a sick whirlwind feeling in my stomach & the thought of being alone freaks me out, therefore fuelling the anxiety. I get anxious about being anxious which makes me more anxious etc etc. Counselling has taught me to try control the thoughts and rationalise it, that’s worked well before but not last week. This time last week I was in tears asking my husband not to go to work because I couldn’t bear being alone again with the baby. This baby of ours which has been fighting sleep like crazy all week! Which brings me onto the E of exhaustion. 

Usually being a mum is just beyond all words, it gives me the most joy, it isn’t always glamorous or exciting, I’m no Tammy Hembrow that’s for sure, but I take pleasure in raising my daughter, day in, day out. However, I do not take pleasure in the way she has refused to sleep all week! To the point where she’d be crawling with her eyes closed because she was so tired. I do try to nap during the day, because otherwise I turn into a grinch of a wife, but I also have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by the to-do list in my brain, the washing, the cleaning, the cooking & all the other house things which I take pride in. So I struggle to rest during the day. 

A&E. My week. This isn’t a random ramble about my negative feelings but a reminder that we do not have to let them dictate our lives. I know first hand what it’s like to feel consumed by panic but just “get on with things”, it’s similar to having a banging headache but having to just act like it isn’t there. It’s brave and mature. Exhaustion on the other hand, can make you want to run far far away to a land of no babies or husbands or responsibilities and have a super snooze and return when you feel ready, but that’s not real life either. So I’m surviving, despite being super tired. 99% of the time. And I’m striving to do this with a smile on my face, because despite my recent visit to “A&E”, I want to live with joy, unstealable (deffo made that up) joy. 

 

Confession: I only pray for five minutes.

  For as far back as I can remember, I’ve admired prayer. You know the idea of hours of time whizzing by, getting lost and just feeling completely close to God; that’s what I wanted. For years I had this idea that my prayer life needed to be just like that, 5am alarms, an hour minimum, in order for it to be effective, or in order for me to feed my unrealistic desire to be a “prayerful woman”.

I’ve had times, (few times) when I’ve done it; it being, waking up early, praying for hours, and I do love it, but somehow this idea of prayer seemed to put me at a disadvantage. If prayer takes an hour minimum, the thought of that alone seems really daunting if I’m honest. It’s not that I don’t to talk to God, thank Him, reflect and bring things before Him; I really do! It’s just 1. I lack discipline, so the “I don’t have time today” excuse pops up often,  2. I’m chronically sleep deprived at the moment; quiet time can easily become nap time and 3. I have an 8 month old so alone time is rare.

Desperate to get my prayer life into action, I came up with this five minute idea and decided to trial it. Basically, once a day, I set a timer on my phone for five minutes, I go somewhere quiet and I pray. Simple. Short enough to not feel overwhelmed by the thought, but the amount of things you can say in five minutes is CRAZY. It’s like speed dating (not that I’ve ever tried that) or an INTENSE EXTREME PRAYER SESH! Also, one of my favourite things about this is that when the five minute timer goes off, I’m usually like “what?! already!” and either decide to continue or wrap up. It’s not religious or that deep at all! Of course I can chat away with God other times of the day, but knowing I have my five minutes of really bringing things before Him and just being quiet too is a MAJOR step for me! I can pray for my family, my friends, I no longer feel guilty about saying “I’ll pray for you” because I really do! Haha! I won’t say I’ve never missed a day, but at the end of the day if I realise I haven’t (or my husband checks up on me and I haven’t! Accountability is THE BEST!) what’s five minutes difference going to make to bed time?!

So if you’re anything like me, give it a go! Set a 5 minute timer and go tell God how awesome He is! As for me, I’m going to practice what I preach and pray away!

Lots of love you amazing prayer warriors!

Why I’m fed up of baby talk.

I don’t know if anyone could’ve prepared me with the criticism, advice, constant comparisons, questions & suggestions that come with having a baby. It’s insane.

Hands held high, perhaps for the first few months of my Princess’ life, I too, would question fellow mums on their babies sleeping habits & other mumsy topics, partly to know that I’m normal & partly to see if my baby is the worst sleeper in the world or if there’s worse than her! (sorry but it’s true!)

It got to a point where my “dummy-sucking-must-be-rocked-to -sleep- can’t-be-put-down-are-we-actually-co-sleeping?” baby just seemed to be way behind the other amazing babies with their immaculate sleeping habits & it got exhausting.

My struggle with reading the Bible!

As far back as I can remember I have been told that daily Bible reading is so important to a christian. I’ve heard it at home, in church, in sermons, in books, everywhere! And it’s always seemed like this ultimate task that when I achieve the discipline of being “in my Word” every day I will have the status of a Woman of God, Super-Christian, Prov 31 wife etc etc. Surely I’m not alone in this, scrolling through instragram, seeing Bibles next to breakfast and coffee, beautiful journals and a million people who are more spiritual than me.

The idea that you have to argue to have a ‘real’ relationship…

…is a load of nonsense. Of course, no two people on earth are going to agree on everything, but the term ‘argument’ has some clear connotations:

Argument: an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one. Also known as a quarrel, disagreement, squabble, fight, dispute, clash, feud.

I’ve heard it said, a number of times that you can’t tell a relationship’s strength until you’ve “gone through stuff”, “argued”, “had a fight” etc etc, but from the beginning when we met, I really couldn’t see myself arguing with my now husband, Aaron. It wasn’t that I was completely blinded with love walking around with googly eyes (okay it probably was partly that), it’s just that neither of us had the nature to be aggressive and to be honest, neither of us could be bothered! We’ve been married almost 7 months now (wow!) and together for about 2 years (hey Aaron, we just missed our 2 year anniversary of getting together – 2nd March? hahaa!) & yes, unfortunately, we haven’t kept to that ‘we’ll never argue’ ideal, but, and I want to stress this, we have learned that it is possible to have a relationship without arguing and I totally believe that it was never God’s design that we raise our voices, storm out of the room or simply be rude to the person we love, (1 Corinthians 13) yes, maybe you are honest enough to voice your opinion without restraints, but that’s not love.