 Hey everybody, welcome to the Wallach Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is part three in our four part series all about homeschool mom self-care. In case you missed it, I will link part one and two up here for you. We talked about why self-care was so important to me as a homeschool mom, some of the things that I've done physically and some of the benefits that I've seen in the videos that we've already done. Today's video is going to be how I prioritize my emotional self-care as a homeschool mom. Now, in addition to the things that we've already talked about which would be diet, exercise and rest, which are super important and had huge benefits in my emotional self-care. Once I found that I was eating better, that I was moving more and that I was resting more efficiently for longer periods of time, that went leaps and bounds and did tons for my emotional self-care because, and I'm gonna get really, really personal here, I have endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome. That time of the month has always, always been a train wreck. It has been a wonderful week out of the month when I have been flat on my back in pain, an emotional wreck, hormonal, making all kinds of horrible decisions like I don't know if it's just me or maybe you guys do it too, let me know in the comments. But that time of the month, all of a sudden, nothing in our homeschool is working, everything is wrong and I want Amazon buying all of the workbooks and then throwing them all at Emily and it was on like this endless cycle of hormones and then like the next week, how would be normal again and I'd be like, what in the world was I thinking? I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again but I had been on this hamster wheel for a long time, for a very long time and we actually made a rule that I could not buy any homeschool anything during that week every month which helped but it still didn't help my mental craziness that time of month until I started eating better, moving more and exercising. I found so many benefits from that, that time of month specifically. My days were like lighter, my pain was less, my migraines were less, my emotions were totally in check now don't get me wrong, I still have serious emotions but there was so much more in check, it was no longer this roller coaster of emotions so those three things helped so much but in addition to those, because I was already doing those for my physical health while they did wonders for my emotional health as well in addition to those, some of the things I specifically did for my emotional health was learn to say no. I am a people pleaser, a huge people pleaser so it was Emily which is why this was such an important kind of thing for me to learn so that I could display it better for her and I'm still not great at it but I'm getting there. It was learning to say no and I don't mean like just looking at somebody and be like no, I mean learning to say no to simple things like no we can't go on that field trip because we've already got four things going on this week and it would just be too much even though it's still super fun and we would probably love it, it would just be too much and we would be miserable if we did it or you know, hey no, I know that it would be great for you if I recorded this podcast on such and such date but it doesn't really fit in is there any other date before I would just say yes to everything all the time because again, people pleaser and also a little fear of missing out but I learned that saying no isn't a bad thing. Sometimes it's okay to just say, hey that doesn't fit for the goals or the priorities I have for myself or my family or my home school and is there another time we can do it or hey you know what, I'll catch you next time like it's okay. So that was the number one thing that I did from emotional health because before again, I would just go so much and I would pal so much on my plate and I would say yes to all the things and then I would either be like, oh my gosh why did I say yes to this and be miserable that I had so much on my plate or I would have an emotional breakdown because I was so stressed out by the amount of things that I had on my plate or the amount of things that we had outside of the house it's not even just me, it was the things I was doing for everybody. So learning to say no and putting up some boundaries like this is our time for family time and nothing is gonna change that or this is my time for exercising and nothing's going to change that or this is our home school time and kind of guarding it was huge for me emotionally. Also learning to ask for help. I have always been somebody that's like I can just do it myself, I don't need help because asking for help is a sign of weakness or even just not wanting to burden somebody else. I hate saying hey can you stop what you're doing because I need your help right now. That seems like I just don't like doing it but I did, I learned to ask for help. I learned to say hey I can't do this by myself I need help and that was huge for me emotionally because again it was less and less on my plate which means less in my brain which helps my emotions because I tend to feel cluttered and overwhelmed by physical clutter and mental clutter and to-do lists and then emotionally I break down and so having these things set in place like being able to say no to the clutter on my calendar or even minimalizing some of the things in the clutter around me. I'm having my calendar not have so many things having not so many things on my to-do list having less stuff to have to clean like all of these things did so much for me mentally and emotionally and physically but specifically emotionally like it really helped keep me in check and then having a support system was really really big for me and I don't mean like just having a community which that's fantastic but having a support system like having Kevin who was there rooting me on my mom has been doing this journey with me almost the entire time she's actually been on this journey even longer than I have my sister we would do Fitbit bingoes my sister my mom and myself having Kristen as a coach was huge because I knew that even if I didn't want public accountability which we've talked about I wasn't ready for that. I knew that I was accountable to somebody and I knew that I could go to her and I could say I had a horrible day. I was PMSN I ate all the chocolate I ate over my calories I didn't get my workout in like because we've all been there we all have those days right and instead of getting emotional or crying or ready to break down or even give up she would just be there emotionally to say it's okay we all have those days just get back on the wagon tomorrow or whatever or she would send me a meme or something that would say something like just because you have one flat tire you don't get out and stab the other three and I had another friend who was in this with me too and we would send each other kind of like our workouts every day and we would say like hey this is what I'm doing this week or here's my meal plan we would give each other ideas and support and encouragement and I really think that those just those few things like those few people in my inner circle made a huge difference emotionally especially because Kristen and my friend were both homeschool moms as well and so they really really get it they both also happen to be homeschooling and only so they like really really get it like they are going through so many of the same things as I was going through and having that support in that close net group of people to kind of I guess slightly hold me accountable but really just be there for you emotionally like it's okay to have a bad day you just you know you move on you don't dwell on it you don't sit on it you don't you know stew on it you don't let yourself feel bad about it you just move on and it was just nice to have people in my corner for that that knew what I was going through and understood it and could be there for me and then last was really just trying to limit the amount of negativity that was happening not really happening but that I was exposed to so for example, Kevin has always called me an ostrich because I'm somebody who buries my head in the sand because emotionally I can't handle and I don't want to have to handle the amount of negativity like in the news or in the newspaper or even on social media like it's too much and I can't live a life where I'm constantly worrying about something that may or may not happen or things that don't directly affect me and that maybe that's wrong but I would drive myself crazy and I would be a basket case if I did that luckily he does that he takes care of it and he has all of the things on his mind all of the time and I'm like you do that and when it's like relevant and prevalent to me and I need to worry about it like for real, for real I will but other than that I just seriously, seriously limited like I cleaned my face my personal Facebook page of anybody that I didn't know on a personal level or that negatively affected me like and I don't even just mean like news negative I mean like I would look at their feet and it would like make me have comparison feelings or I would feel negative about my homeschool or my life or my body like I would mute people I would clear as much as that out as I could like no offense but I just don't want to get on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or turn my TV on or read a book or anything that made me feel negative like any of that negativity that I could limit I did because emotionally I just didn't even want it in my life and those things helped me so, so much like clear out some of just like all of the emotional baggage and then move forward with more positivity like it filled it had room it gave me room for more positive things and I found that then I was only seeing you know because I had limited the amount of negativity then I was seeing more of the positive things I wanted to see I was seeing more of the homeschool moms I wanted to see or I was seeing more of you know the good news I wanted to see or the praise reports people had you know on social media that before I wasn't seeing because it was nothing but negativity so those are the things that I did to prioritize myself emotionally as a homeschool mom but I would love it if you would tell me down in the comments some of the things that you have done to prioritize yourself emotionally as a homeschool mom if you have any tips or tricks or if there's something that you've tried that works really well please let us know because I really, really want this to be a place where all homeschool moms can be encouraged and inspired to better ourselves and take better care of ourselves