Motherhood is one of life’s most precious gifts: something as simple as seeing your child laugh or receiving a hug somehow makes hours of sleepless nights and stressful mishaps worth it.
That said, there has to be balance. As much as looking after your children should comprise a large portion of your life, the feeling of having lost your old self is a common phenomenon; it’s easy to put so much effort into caring for other people that you start to forget about your own needs.
If the above sounds like you, this article is here to help: here are five ways to regain your sense of self as a new mother.
1. Staying Connected with Loved Ones
One of the most important first steps you should take to rediscover yourself is to reconnect with your loved ones. Oftentimes, new mothers can become isolated as all their focus is placed on looking after the baby, and it can feel like reaching out for help is somehow ‘cheating.’
This certainly isn’t the case, however: your loved ones – whether they be your friends, family, or partner – are one of your most important support mechanisms when the going gets tough. Isolation is a major factor when it comes to losing your sense of self, so talk to the people who are important in your life about the struggles you face. You’ll be surprised at the difference it can make.
2. Prioritizing Self-Care
When you have so much going on with dealing with a new baby or a young toddler, self-care practices are often the thing that goes out the window first. You may consider the efforts you made before you had children to not really matter if you’re spending a lot of time inside, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Brushing your hair, wearing nice clothes, and going for massages and facials are not simply vein pursuits – they signify a willingness to look after your body and are deeply tied to your identity. You don’t have to go all out, necessarily: simply try to incorporate some things back into your routine that make you feel good about yourself one at a time.
3. Coming to Terms with Your Changing Body
There are no two ways about it – your body can change considerably after having a baby, so much so that you’ll often hear young mothers say that they feel like they’re in an entirely different body. As you can imagine, this goes a long way in creating a lost sense of self for many.
Of course, these changes aren’t necessarily bad, and you can celebrate them as part of the beautiful process of motherhood; they were necessary to bring your child into the world, after all.
You’ll also find that much of what you’re experiencing now goes back to normal over time, and if you’re particularly uncomfortable with the way a certain part of your body looks, you could consider a mommy makeover. This is a surgical approach to lift and tuck the elements of a woman’s body that are most commonly affected by childbirth, and the procedure can be a huge help in making you feel more confident.
4. Setting Yourself Some Achievable Goals
In many cases, the feeling of a lost self comes from simply being overwhelmed. Most mothers simply don’t feel they have the time to add the balance into their lives they sorely need: they’re very much aware of why they feel how they do, but they don’t know how to fix things.
It can help here to set some small, achievable goals each day. This could be something like working out for just twenty minutes or making sure you always get ten minutes of fresh air every couple of hours. You can gradually add to this list week on week, and you’ll find that over time, these small successes add up to a big win.
5. Give Yourself Some Slack
And finally, remember to give yourself some slack! You have achieved, and continue to achieve, incredible things as you walk the road of motherhood. Everyone else is rooting for you, and you should be proud of yourself.
That real self is still in there; it’s just that you have to find the best way to embrace it. Hopefully, this short article has given you some ideas for achieving the balance you both need and deserve. Be kind to yourself, and know that you’ll get to where you need to be in due time.