“Love yourself first. Nurture yourself first. The rest will fall into place.” -B.P.

Today I should be wearing a sign that says “Caution: Overexerted Mom”. I am one tired mama! This semester of school is coming to an end, which means more work, and more stress as I prepare for finals. Work has been staying extremely busy, and the doctor’s visits still seem never-ending. Today, my daughter had oral surgery to get a tooth removed. She is 5, and was put under anesthesia this morning, and we had to travel an hour each way for. The appointment in itself was extremely exhausting watching my daughter being medicated, and her reaction to it was not easy to handle as she woke up extremely irritated trying to yank out the IV. The old me would have handled this situation a lot worse. I am part of a facebook community called “Choosing Love” and Sherianna Boyle, author of the book “Choosing Love” made a post today about the use of the words “I Can’t”. She advised us to take these words out of our “internal system”…to no longer use these words since they can “zap [our] abilities and strengths.” The old me would have sat in the office saying to myself “I can’t handle this, this is too much for me,” but today I got through it, I told myself we’d get through it, and we got through it together.

Now onto the the constant reminder that my life is “a series of unfortunate events”… As soon as we got back from the appointment, I rushed off to my Debate class where I had to participate in a Presidential  Debate. I was well prepared, or so I had thought, since I had done plenty of research on the topics I was going to be speaking on. I even had typed up notes, and rehearsed it a few times last week. My confidence was beaming as I stood in front of the class awaiting my question. My turn came and I had to answer the question: “If elected President, how do you plan to combat ISIS?” Man was I excited, for this was the question I had best prepared for! I looked down at my notes, and nothing made sense, it was as if I was reading a foreign language. I thought to myself “quick! do something…say…anything!” So that is exactly what I did, I grabbed a few key words, and I said them…only them. Nothing I said made sense. What did I do? I said to myself “I can’t do this,” and I looked at my Professor and I passed.

An extreme sense of urgency came over me, I became baffled and confused, my fight-or-flight mode had turned back on.This is exactly what I was told not to do. These 2 simple words, “I can’t,” brought my energy so low. My self-esteem, and confidence levels dropped, I doubted myself, I was internally beating myself up. I dwelled on this for an hour or two and tried my hardest to make light of the situation. I felt physically and mentally drained.

This made me realize that no matter what, no matter how hard I try, I’m never going to be perfect and that imperfection is exactly what makes myself “whole.” I am who I am, exactly who I am, and I don’t need to try to be anything other than that. Beating myself up over this situation is not going to erase it. I can, however, learn from it and grow from it. What did I learn from my experience today? That overexerting myself will get me nowhere. If I am unable to do something, I need to learn how to say “no…not today.” What I should have done is taken the day off from class, as I already have all A’s in this class, I shouldn’t have been concerned. Another lesson added to the book. Love yourself first. Nurture yourself first. The rest will fall into place.