I would like to make a confession

I have been suffering from an extreme case of overwhelm since I exhibited at the Sunshine Coast Women’s Lifestyle Expo. I was a sponsor, I spent weeks and months planning out the perfect stand, the perfect pitch, the perfect me, that when it was all over, I was perfectly frazzled!

Ever felt like this?

I really don’t know any mum who hasn’t gone through this sort of overwhelm before. I have had it come in many forms, but this time it hit me like a truck and there was nothing I could do about it.

I wanted to be so much to so many people (typical people pleaser). I wanted to be perfect, superhuman really, and it kind of all left me feeling totally overwhelmed and a little bit stuck.

I hit the function button and have just kind of gotten through the last couple of months, still creating, still doing what I love, but a little stuck in my head kind of going over what I should be better at, should change, you know the drill.

I spend so much time going on and on to my gorgeous clients about self care and self love and totally forgot to turn it back on myself.

But it is so easy to get over run with the workings of life as a woman in todays world. We feel we need to be good at everything, putting ourselves up to the standards of others, and feeling like failures when a small section of ourselves does not stack up to that of another.

It is way too easy to get crushed under the pressure that in order to be valuable you SHOULD behave a certain way or SHOULD look a certain way.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Pretty much every woman I have photographed over the last 16 years has come to me and run herself down in one way or another.

Just as I did for the last couple of months, for not doing and being all that I had hoped in the aftermath of the Expo.

The truth is that I am a single mother, I run two businesses in two different states, I have flown to Sydney 8 out of the last 9 weekends since the Expo to photograph huge weddings (we are talking 12-16 hour days) and then come home to beat myself up for not sending out regular emails and always keeping on top of the washing at the same time.

What would happen if instead of spending all this needless energy and headspace running ourselves into the ground we just decided to love ourselves, DECIDED to have compassion for ourselves?

So what got me out of my funk?

There is a pretty special little girl who helps me to see clearly everyday what is most important in my life, and that is my little miss…

She really helped me to see that all my focussing on all the things that I was not doing perfect was totally clouding my focus to be able to see all the great things I have been doing.

For one, I still think in all the overwhelm I have still been a pretty good mum. OK, so she has gone to school with yesterdays school top on more than one occasion, has had 2 min noodles more than once in a week and yet she still loves me unconditionally and brings me more joy than anything else in this world.

And two theres all these lovely people

I  am sharing all this, because when you are stuck in overwhelm, sometimes you can’t look forwards, or backwards, or sideways for that matter.

For me personally, looking down at that smiling face always keeps me looking forward, looking back at what I have created for people makes me look up and looking around at all the love and support I have from great family and friends, keeps me totally grounded.

So if you are feeling stuck in your mind, look outside of yourself and see all of the beautiful things you have created and brought into your life.

The time of accepting this rubbish of beating ourselves up for not being enough is in the past.

Now is the time for lifting each other up, so that we can raise a generation of ladies who put their precious minds and beautiful gifts to creating magic lives and futures.