Welcome back to Urban Goddess Revealed. So many things have changed in my personal and professional goals over the summer. From the beginning, my goal for this blog was to empower women, moms in particular, but really all females in general. The world is a hard place and though woman have come a long way, there is still so much more work to do in regards to equality, balance, and creating.
The world we are living in today is not the same as our mother's or grandmother's. Roles are constantly changing for both men and women. Society demands keep growing. The modern mother should be able to keep a home, raise her children, succeed in her career, and be the gracious doting wife, mother, and supportive member of the community. I say bull shit. Living to those kind of expectations is ridiculous. I tried once (twice, okay many times) and crashed hard. It's just not sustainable. Yes, we women are powerful, strong, and amazing creatures, but we still have our limits. Those limits change from day to day and we need to be aware of them. And like Elizabeth Gilbert said in one of her interviews, women today don't have roll models to look up to as did our mothers and grandmothers, so we keep peeking into each other's lives to see what is working and not. That's why I started this blog, so you could have a peek into my life and see if there is something I'm doing that might help you in yours. Heavens know, I'm not saint or have it all figured out. Far from it. We are all treading new ground. We are in this story together.
This summer as I took time off for my family and myself, I learned many things about myself.
- I'm a people-pleaser. Half of my problems stem from this. Life is too short to waste time on people who don't want to rise above their situation and live a better life. Going through a heart-breaking situation this summer has lead me to care less about what people's opinions of me are. I do my best to be kind to everyone around me, if that's not enough for you, well too bad.
- I crave financial freedom. Last winter I discovered Kate Northrup's Money: a Love Story and it has changed my life. While on our 10 year anniversary vacation at the beach, sitting on the porch, looking out over the ocean, with a glass of wine in my hand, I realized that I wanted more of this. In order to have more of this, I needed to make a few sacrifices in the next couple of years to get myself in a position to have what I desire. Being able to enjoy more time with my family in my favorite setting requires financial freedom. The first step for me, enroll in school to finish my bachelor's degree, which I did while on vacation. Second, start a business that will grow bringing in residual income. I've already started this step as I am now a published author of 2 books with more on the way.
- I need to take better care of myself. Two years ago when I started my battle with postpartum depression, I learned the importance of self-care which lead me to starting this blog. I walked my talk until about 8 months ago when I fell off the bandwagon flat on my face in the mud pit. This summer dealing with family issues, job stress, and yet another bout of depression really put things in perspective again. And since I started the bachelor's completion program last week, self-care has now become a very strong component if I'm going to succeed in my higher education endeavors.
- I want to add value to this world. Therefore in the next few months to a year, I will focus this blog on self-care, because this is a valuable topic all woman, and men too, can use more of. In this day and age of technology and the constant rush to get somewhere, it's easy to forget to take care of the mind, body, and spirit. When we take care of ourselves, we can bring more value in the world around us.
I don't know about you, I'm super excited about arrival of fall. This summer has been very stressful and hot and now I'm ready for some cold weather, rain, cider, pumpkin lattes, and crisp mornings. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed summer. How could I not? My summer was full of concerts, beach trips, and family time. Yes, this summer was good, stressful, but really good.
But that doesn't take away from the fact I'm ready for my favorite season of the year- Fall.
