Valentine’s Day – a Single Mum’s Nightmare?
Whether you feel it’s a commercially-motivated, overrated event or a time to express true love, it’s hard to ignore Valentine’s Day. This is especially true when you’re single! So how can you celebrate the day and get something valuable out of it, rather than sitting home alone this evening and bemoaning your date-less existence?
I have two suggestions for your consideration. The first is to sit down with a pen and paper and write out a detailed and comprehensive Perfect Partner list. Now, to begin with this may seem like rubbing salt into the wound but just bear with me… By committing all the desirable attitudes of your perfect partner to paper you are attracting to you that which you yearn for. It may not happen overnight, but when he shows up at least you’ll be able to recognise him from your list! Make sure you are focusing on what you want, however, not what you don’t want – or it may have quite the reverse effect! Then, being brutally honest with yourself, write down the kind of person you need to be to be in order to attract somebody like this into your life. This is to remind you that a great relationship relies on two people showing up and putting in equal effort, attitude and commitment.
My second suggestion is to make a date with yourself, to really show yourself the love and appreciation you deserve. You don’t need to wait for someone else to cherish you – why not get started straight away?Join me live online this coming Wednesday at 8 pm GMT when I interview Sophrology Teacher Florence Parot. We’ll be exploring how to sleep better, boost our energy and alleviate stress. She’ll actually guide us through some easy exercises, too. So make a date and treat yourself – your kids will thank you for it!
Your next free webinar, with special guest Florence Parot – Burnout, Stress and Sleep expert, Sophrology Teacher.
Wed 18th February 2015, 8 pm GMT.
One of the last people to comment on a previous blog was a single mum who talked about how physically and mentally draining it is, being a single mum. There’s a chapter in my book with lots of advice on coping with this.
You owe it to yourself and your children to stay fit and healthy. As you have no doubt discovered by now, looking after kids can be exhausting! Increasing your level of fitness will give you the renewed vitality and energy to keep up with all the daily challenges of parenting. It is worth bearing in mind that choosing to make just small changes in your daily life can dramatically improve your wellbeing. .. Six or seven hours [sleep] a night can help keep your blood sugar balanced. Eating a healthy diet is also essential both to maintain your ideal weight but also to boost energy levels. We all know about the downside of the sugar rush-the sugar low you get afterwards. Eating too many high carbohydrate-rich or processed foods, or consuming too many sugary drinks or foods can leave you feeling sleepy, sluggish and downhearted. Most of us single Mums have succumbed to comfort eating at some point and the occasional treat is perfectly fine but take it from me, it makes you feel so much worse in the long run and you can get onto a slippery slope which is hard to get off. Before you take a bite, ask yourself first: am I actually thirsty, instead of hungry? How will this feel as it slides into my stomach – not just now but for the rest of the day? Will eating it make both my body and mind feel good in the long run? If the answer is no, consider working out which emotion is eating you, step away from the food and spend a little time paying attention to nourishing your soul and spirit instead. For more advice on my eating strategies of naturally slim people, visit my website. Exercise releases endorphins, those wonderful feel-good chemicals, and who doesn’t enjoy some feel good factor floating around their bloodstream? It may be an effort at first if you haven’t got the fitness bug already but hang on in there. You’ll find that it’s an upward spiral – the more you move, the more energy you have and the more enthusiasm to exercise and so on…The key is to fit exercise into your daily routine. If you do this, you are much more likely to stick to those good habits. After a while you will grow to enjoy both the experience and the results so much that if you have a day without exercise you’ll really miss it. Every bit of time and effort counts and you don’t have to carve out an hour or more for a gym workout if that proves too much of a challenge.
This will all help you with energy levels. The mental fatigue may be due to the emotional stress of relationship breakdown, separation or divorce and coping as a single parent. Everyone who buys a copy of my book is entitled to a FREE coaching session with either me or one of my colleagues, so I do encourage you to make use of this free resource. “THE SINGLE MUM’s SURVIVAL GUIDE- How to Pick Up the Pieces and Build a Happy New Life” is available on Amazon as an eBook and will be released as a paperback on 1st July.