Self-Care for Stepmoms
Have you ever felt the weight of being a step mom bear down on you like an 800lb gorilla? Have you ever felt as if the drama of your blended family is crashing in all around and you feel helpless and hopeless? Have you ever felt like running away from home so that you would never have to deal with your step kids or your husband’s ex-wife ever again?
What does the sound of your voice inside your head say?I wish I never married a man with children,This life is breaking me,I dread my step children’s visit,I cringe every time my husband mentions his kids,I didn’t know it would be this hard.
Stop. Pause. Take a deep (deeper!) breath. It’s time for Self-care.
Three Key Areas of Self-Care
Physical Self-Care
Your body bears the brunt of stressful situations. Blending two families together, even under ideal conditions, can be and is stressful. Adrenaline and cortisol rushing through your system eventually takes a toll if you don’t counteract the stress with your own feel good endorphins. Physical self-care isn’t just about getting on the treadmill or stationary bike. It’s about finding something you love to do that gets you moving and makes you feel good. For me, it’s Thai Kickboxing. The warrior goddess in me loves martial arts and as a seconddegree brown belt, kickboxing gives me the opportunity to punch and kick my anger, frustration, and stress to the curb. 45 minutes of working the bag, sparring, and doing more push-ups than I care to count leaves me spent, drained and happy.
Emotional Self-Care
How often have you got caught in the crossfire between your husband, his ex-wife, and your step kids? Your feelings get stomped on, trampled on, and often completely disregarded. It’s up to you to own your feelings and not make any one else responsible for how you feel. Step family conflicts bring out your bad feelings of frustration, anger and hostility. Emotional self-care is about you cultivating the ability to process your bad feelings so that you can create more space in your heart for your good feelings of love, contentment and balance.
As a certified yoga teacher, my yoga practice is the best emotional self-care I can give myself. And while my asana practice helps with physical self-care, it’s the deep belly breathing, the mediation, and the relaxation I get from my yoga practice that helps me process my feelings of frustration and anger that often arise from being a full time step mom to a teenage boy.
Mental Self-Care
Your thinking brain often attaches to false beliefs, which can cause you to react rather than respond to uncomfortable or volatile situations. Since becoming a step mom, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that I am the only variable in my blended family. I can’t change or fix my husband, my stepson, my husband’s ex-wife, or anyone else for that matter. The only person I can change is me. The mental self-care I give myself is the everyday practice of detaching from thoughts that are false.
As a mom I can honestly say that being a step mom is the hardest job in the world. Self-care is vital to the very soul of every step mom who’s said,I’ll do itI’ll take on this challenge.
If you are feeling beaten down by the weight of being a step mom, press pause. Take a time-out for self-care. Your mind, your attitude can change everything.
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