Anxiety, you suck.

Confession time: I can be an anxious person. Not all the time, but when it hits it really sucks. Especially when it comes to social situations.  All I can think about is what judgmental or unkind thing someone might think or say about me.  I close off  completely and I end up feeling miserable. It is exhausting and I am tired of letting anxiety be in charge. I have decided to take charge of my anxious tendencies. Which is incredibly huge for me. I want to be able to be around people and not spend the whole time internally freaking out about what awful things someone may or may not be thinking about me. I want stop internalizing other's reactions to me. I want to kick the horrible demon that is anxiety out of my life.

Touch Your Nose If You Are Listening!

The title of this post comes from a phrase I used when working with little children. I still feel like shouting this today. Being a stay at home mom can be really great, but it can also be really lonely and isolating.  Whenever I get asked by others what I do for a living I tell them I stay at home with my kids...and that is usually where the conversation ends. Have you ever noticed that? No one asks what all I do or how I feel about my job - yes this is a job. Sometimes I try to talk about something other than my kids or sweatpants and my opinions don't seem to matter or somehow less informed because I am not in the workforce. It sucks to feel like no one is listening to what you have to say or that what you are saying isn't interesting. So please, next time a mom speaks up, listen to her. Ask her about herself, what she thinks about the upcoming election (we're all going to die!), brainstorm ideas about how to help the refugee crisis, or ways to save money (we know so, so many). She'll try to keep the talk about poop to a minimum.