My Revelation During a Quarantine Mom Life Struggle
When quarantine life started all of my quiet places in the house were officially gone.
We have tile and wood floors all through out our house so noise travels everywhere! It’s very, VERY, hard to get away from it when the house is full of children and adults all day.
So I bought a little table that fits perfectly in my master bathroom (and that can fold up easily and can be easily stored in my closet when I’m not using it!) for when I can sneak away from the duties of mothering for a bit to write in my JOY journal, doodle the word LOVE, create an uplifting word doodle or even DOODLE PAINT!
So far, I’ve been able to only do the first three.
And, yes, it’s been SO awesome to do those when a few minutes open up through out the day.
But the one thing that’s been calling out loudly for me to do is doodle paint! And it’s the one thing I struggle with the most to do even when the kids are at school and now that the kids are at home with me all day.
So this past weekend I decided I WAS GOING TO DOODLE PAINT!!! And I did!
I got everything set up while C was in my bedroom playing her online game with her friends and while L was in his room playing with them as well AND while D was in the living room working on his laptop.
It was PERFECT!!!
I even set up my stand so I could video tape the entire thing so I could share it from start to finish here on the blog (because it’s SO amazing watching the process unfold and it’s even more amazing connecting with what comes through my right brain mind while I’m doing and once I’m done!)
Check out the video below!
But once I started painting over all the white I could NOT continue on!!
All I could hear was ALL the noise in the house.
The noise wasn’t that loud but because we don’t have any carpet in the house it sounded like the noise was right in the bathroom with me.
Like I had headsets on and it was playing all the noise from the house directly into my ears!! And it was driving my mind CRAZY!!
And I was like “NOPE!! I CAN’T DO THIS RIGHT NOW!”
And then I started putting everything away while I felt like I was going to cry because doing this is what my mind and soul NEED so badly right now.
Hence the noise was driving my mind CRAZY!!! So yeah, my mind NEEDED to get its calm on through doodling painting…BIG TIME!
As I was cleaning up and on the verge of tears all I could think about was how hard it is to put myself first when everyone is home all day with me.
I always hear how everyone says you have to put yourself first as a mom and it ALWAYS makes me mad because let me tell you, I WANT TO PUT MYSELF FIRST!!
BELIEVE ME!!
If I could put myself first I WOULD…every single time!!
All-day long I want to put myself first, but right now, my kiddos are young and they need a lot of me, so they get me first right now and I’m 100% OK with that!
I have to be! I’m a mom and I want to be there for them in every way that I can!
They’re only this little once and I’ll never get this time back. Yes it’s exhausting, but this is the ONLY time they will need me this much and want to be around me this much, so I’m OK if I can’t put myself first as much as I’d like to.
Because one day, when they don’t need me so much, I know I’ll be able to put myself first more often. But right now, please don’t tell me that I have to put myself first…because OH MY GOSH!! Like I said, If I could, I SO would!!
But right now, at least for me, it’s just not as easy and not as possible as most think it is. Especially when I’ve never lived anywhere near family and I have been doing everything on my own since I became a mom 10 years ago thanks to military life and moving all the time. It’s just not that easy!
I can do little things for myself here and there but it’s hard to find time for bigger things to do for myself right now,.
And to mention my me time schedule is ALWAYS changing depending on what stage I’m in with parenting…it’s definitely different from my pre-kid days when my schedule was set in stone for years!
And what I need the most for ME is a long period of quiet time to recharge my batteries, which is not easy to get while being a very busy mom.
So yeah, it’s very hard for me to find that time for myself when the kids are home all day with me (but when they’re at school it’s WONDERFUL!! Because that is my time to recharge my batteries and rejuvenate my soul!) and it can make me feel like I’m stuck and that I’ll never get to just BE with ME again and that I’ll never, EVER, get to think straight again AND that my life will ALWAYS BE one BIG interruption!
But as I was thinking those sad, SAD, thoughts while cleaning up, Luca came in and needed me and then I thought, “even if the noise wasn’t bothering me, I still would have gotten interrupted.”
And then I thought…
“YEP! It’s good that I’m cleaning up right now because, in order for me to do this, I do need a 100% quiet house and 100% alone time…and right now, during the day, while everyone is doing their thing around me and still needing me no matter what I’m doing, it just wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”
“Because for me and doodle painting, it’s when it’s 100% quiet in the house when my mind 100% calms and I 100% connect to my inner guidance and inner positive thoughts from my inner spirit and inner intuition.”
“And right now, there’s NO WAY I’d hear it!”
“So it’s good I’m cleaning up!”
And then wouldn’t you know…the second biggest quarantine reveal about myself came through (my first one was when I realized that I had been stuck!).
And again, it was a revelation that was SO needed!!
I thought…
“Dang!! These past 2 and 1/2 years I’ve been home all by myself in my quiet house for 5 hours and I only painted a few times!”
ONLY A FEW TIMES!!!
For the majority of that time, I sat there STUCK!!!
Even though I heard the little whispers within telling me to paint, but I didn’t do it.
And now that I don’t have any time in my quiet house all by myself ALL I want to do is doodle paint (thanks to getting unstuck while being stuck at home because of quarantine life!) and I CAN’T!!
But before this, I COULD HAVE!!
I could have been painting to calm my mind in a quiet house for 2 and 1/2 years ALL OF THE TIME and I didn’t!!
Instead, I chose to scroll my social media accounts and call my mom to vent about motherhood and then once I was done I made excuses that “there’s only a few hours left…I need to eat lunch and meditate and do my classical stretching…there really isn’t enough time.”
OMG!! What was I thinking!? I WAS SO WRONG!! SO, SO WRONG!!
I will blame all of this on being stuck!! Oh yes! Yes, I will!
I WAS ABSOLUTELY STUCK IN UNMOTIVATED MENTAL THOUGHTS BIG TIME!!!
At that moment I became SO aware of WHY I always doodle paint in a quiet house and now that I can’t do it, I want to do it SO badly!!
And because of that (because of this moment in my bathroom!), I know now that when this quarantine life is over I AM going to make sure that I never, EVER, go back that pre-quarantine-life that I was living where I was allowing all my inner STUCKness and all my crappy excuses to control me!!
I will not come home after dropping the kids off and just numb my mind out with things that make me feel way worse than when I had started ever again!
I WILL COME HOME TO A QUIET HOUSE AND I WILL DOODLE PAINT!!!
I will never, EVER, let that amazing nourishing time when the house is quiet and I have it all to myself go to waste again. Because now that I don’t have it, I see just how nourishing it is for my soul and my inner-most thoughts!
I will never let it go to waste again!!
I do still feel stuck because I’m not sure when I’ll be able to sit down at my little table and paint, but as of now, I’m hoping to do it after the kids go to bed.
This one is hard for me because once they’re in bed for the night I’m SO tired that I just crash right after them.
And ever since I had Luca I told myself that I wouldn’t stay up late anymore…I knew I needed to get much-needed sleep because I’m a way better mom when I’ve slept a good amount of hours…and boy, those GOOD amount of hours are hard to get as a busy mom! SO HARD!
But because I know what doodling painting does for my inner-most thoughts and soul, I have to make it work right now because I know my mind and SOUL is CRAVING it because life is absolutely CRAZY right now…especially mentally!!
So I’m going to choose one night, maybe two, to stay up a bit later to paint, but not any more than that because my sleep can NOT be messed with or we will ALL feel it the next day.
And trust me, it won’t be pretty! Oh gosh!
But even though I didn’t get to paint in my bathroom because of the noise, I did feel an inner urge to grab my super sharpie and sketchpad and head to the living room with my hubs and doodle the word love.
THANK GOODNESS because it definitely helped me FEEL a whole lot calmer than I did before then. WOOHOO!!
There are some creative activities I can do even if there’s noise around me and this is one of them! Thank You, God! :)
So even though I can’t get to my doodle painting that my mind and SOUL is CRAVING, I’m SO glad I do have other mindless-creative activities that hit my mind-calming spot when I can’t!
And if I only have time to only do my love doodles, my uplifting word doodles and write all my JOYs from the day in my JOY journal, then that’s totally fine, because at least I’m doing SOMETHING (creatively!) to soothe the overwhelmed and stressful thoughts that consume my mind all day long.
But when my house gets quiet again OOOOOOHHHHH am I gonna kick my butt into gear and doodle paint (the force is strong in me now! ha!) and I’m going to ENJOY and SAVOR every second of it!!!
I CAN’T WAIT!!!
I AM SO GRATEFUL for this revelation!!
I AM ONE POSITIVELY CHANGED MAMA and I AM LOVING IT!!
If I didn’t have this struggle while trying to doodle paint in my bathroom I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have connected even more with WHY it’s SO important for me to doodle paint in a quiet house and WHY it’s SO important for me to choose mindless-doodle-painting over mindless-phone-scrolling.
Because obviously I was NOT listening before quarantine life and the Universe was tired of it so it did this to me so I could finally WAKE THE F#%! UP from my stuck slumber!!
THANK YOU, UNIVERSE!!! YOU knew I needed this…BIG TIME!!
And if quarantine life never happened I don’t think I would have had all of these revelations about myself and how I was living in a very STUCK way before it happened.
I’d still be living my normal STUCK life!
Oh gosh! I promise you, Universe, God, that I will NEVER, EVER, go back to the life I was living before this once this is all over. It’s been absolutely AMAZING to see all my inner shifts and inner revelations come through during this time of quarantine living.
I love this NEW life that’s been emerging through me and I can’t wait to continue to live it even more once this quarantine life is over!!
WOW!! It’s been absolutely SOUL awakening and SOUL moving!!
THANK YOU!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I AM SOUL GRATEFUL that I’M WAKING THE F*&@ UP!!!!
And honestly, I never realized how asleep I was before this!
I AM SOUL GRATEFUL!!
Oh, and by the way, I LOVE my little table! It really was the best investment!! Who would have thought that a little table in my bathroom would be a JOYous slice of HEAVEN for this busy mom.
Well, I guess it makes sense since that’s where I go anyway when I need a minute to breathe for a second and to just get a break from my mom life for a bit….or really a second or two…because man those kids find me FAST!! Can you relate?! OMG! and LOL! :)
But seriously, when I sat down I couldn’t stop smiling BIG and I could just FEEL JOY rising UP deep within me because I could FEEL that this little space was going to BE so nourishing for my busy mama SOUL!!!
I AM SO HAPPY…even if I can’t use it fully just yet, but I know I will! YAY! :):)
OH!! And if you’re on Instagram, and you’d like to see all my daily word (love!) doodles that I do AND you’d like to see my all my JOY journal entries…be sure to check me out @reneesworddoodles AND @reneesjoyjournal.
And if you’d like follow along at my main account where I share my blog posts and behind the scenes stories, you can find me @the.creativitycalms.mom, too!
I hope you’ll say hello so I can check out your amazing-ness and I can follow you, too!
Until next time…
I hope that I’ll be able to doodle paint soon! ;)
Why do I doodle paint? Because it easily calms my mind and soothes my soul so I can connect more to what my heart and soul truly wants and needs no matter how busy and stressful motherhood may be (something that's hard to do when my mind is running five miles ahead or behind the present moment).
Tools used: liquitex basics acrylic paints | canson mixed media sketchbook | michaels $5 pack of paintbrush set
Creativity CALMs my mind, ignites my JOY and slows me down so I can SAVOR everything I LOVE in my life.
Who I am is what I love...SAVOR it!
