It Took Me 10 Years Of Living In Chaos To Learn THIS! 9 TRUTHS That Will CHANGE Your LIFE

[0:00]I'm currently in my 30s and when I was in my 20s, I really struggled with being a homemaker and just my season of being at home with kids. and I think if I would have known the advice that I'm going to give you today, back then that I really would have enjoyed that season of my life a lot more. So here's everything that I wish I would have known in my 20s that I now know in my 30s. Don't buy into the hot mess mom ideology. There is currently and probably always has been this ideology online that it's okay to be a hot mess mom, that it's okay not to try just because you're overwhelmed. And although I do know and acknowledge that there are seasons, like if you just had a baby or you're going through illness or just different things that come up in life where you really just do the bare minimum, and that's okay. There is this ideology going on specifically online that it's totally okay not to clean up. It's totally okay to let your house become a mess because that's just what it is. It's a hot mess mom era. I'm going to go through it. There are so many videos online of moms just embracing it and just staying in that. And I think that if I would have been shaken awake a little bit earlier, I would have had the motivation and just the urgency to get my life in order a lot sooner. Because that hot mess mom era was not serving me in that season. It wasn't making things any easier for me, actually, it was adding to my overwhelm and it was making me dread being a stay-at-home mom. And I think at that time, I was really confusing the fact that I was overwhelmed with the idea that I couldn't do anything at all, that it was okay that my house was overflowing with stuff, that I didn't have a proper cleaning routine, that I was just letting my home rule me. And I thought that was totally okay because I bought into the hot mess ideology that is being spread everywhere and in my opinion is very dangerous. Not that it breeds laziness. I never considered myself lazy, and I wouldn't say that I was lazy. I was always very busy. I was doing things, but I wasn't doing them efficiently. and because I had this concept of like, oh, it's okay. I'm a mom with a bunch of tiny kids. I'm not getting any sleep. It's fine. And I was telling myself that it's okay. I don't need to get to that stuff because I'm in my hot mess mom era and it's totally okay. And I wish that I did not buy into that. And I know that they say that the mess will wait. Honestly, the mess won't wait. It will accumulate and that's exactly what happened instead of the mess waiting for me because I told myself once I put the kids down to bed, it will wait. I will get to it, it didn't. So then when I would wake up the next morning, not only was yesterday's mess waiting for me, today's mess, and then the mess that's about to happen because kids, life things happen. So, no, I don't believe in the concept of the mess will wait. I believe in systems that address the mess in an appropriate way. The second thing that I know would have made a huge difference in my 20s is to get blood work done. I did not, I know I was naive, I was very young. I didn't even think to get my blood work checked after having kids. And did the medical professionals ever offer it to me? No. They put me through a depression screening before they even put me through a blood panel, which at that time, being in my early 20s, I didn't know anything about that. We didn't have like Instagram or Tik Tok then. Wow, that's not even that long ago, like 10 years ago where moms can just kind of share their experiences and learn a lot. But I wish I would have advocated for my health. I went years, years feeling like a trash can. No energy, just like depressive symptoms, but I knew I wasn't depressed and just these horrible, horrible headaches, lethargic. And not once did a single doctor recommend that I run a blood panel until I came across somebody and I know it was probably the Lord's work, honestly, that I came across a nurse practitioner that heard my symptoms and said, hey, well, maybe we should run a vitamin D panel on you. And when they did, aha, like my vitamin D was 19 and as soon as I started supplementing with vitamin D, my headaches went away. That didn't end there. There were other things that I needed to address and even within my 30s, I discovered something called function testing. I'm not sponsored by them in any way, but I use function labs or function testing to do a huge panel of 100 different markers on my body because I see a huge value in getting your blood work checked. A lot of the times we as women, we're dismissed because it's simply, well, you're raising kids and you have tiny ones and you're not sleeping as much and you're very active and you're very busy. And a lot of times we sweep that under the rug, not realizing that they're very addressable issues that supplementation can help and a lot of it is ignored. And I think that if in my 20s I would have addressed my lack of energy, my underlying just like blood issues and just vitamin D and iron and things like that, I would have had a more enjoyable time being at home, having more energy for my kids with my kids. So I really wish I would have advocated and saw the need for that. Okay, this next one, some people might not agree and it's kind of controversial for me too. But the phone really is the devil. Honestly, I love my phone. Most of my work is done on my phone, but realistically, the phone is the problem. A lot of the times we think we don't have enough time, we're this, we're that, we're distracted, uh we're irritable. Uh, we have these depressive symptoms, we have all this stuff going on, but honestly, if we got rid of this, like 90% of our screen time, I think 90% of our problems would go away. Most of the time we are consuming content instead of putting content out there and so because there is this constant flow of information, information and like stimuli onto the brain, you get so distracted so easily, you get swept away for hours. And a lot of times we think, I'm not enjoying my time at home because I'm so overwhelmed, well, let's be real. There's this little feature that you can open up right now and check the screen time on your phone and it'll tell you exactly how many hours per day you spent on your phone. So if you say, oh, I don't have time to implement a 30-minute zone clean to help me not be overwhelmed in the evenings, or I don't have a time to implement a quick morning loop or an evening loop. I digress. I know that it doesn't take physical energy to scroll like it does to get up and clean or organize, but let me tell you, this thing right here, I genuinely think that if I was more mindful of this thing in my 20s, I would have had a much more enjoyable time being at home. Okay, the next one is that it's not selfish to prioritize yourself. I for the longest time lived under this like false belief that it is selfish for me to desire things if my kids are little and they still need me. And that was such a lie that robbed me of many years of joy, unfortunately. But it is not selfish to prioritize your mental health, your physical health, your self care, if that's what you're into, it is not selfish to have nail appointments, hair appointments, take care of your body, go to the gym. I wish I would have known that in my 20s and prioritized just my body more and I would always think that because my kids are so little, they need me right now and they need every single ounce of me. And not only was that a lie that limited what I was able to do, it also built resentment because I felt like because of the needs of everybody else, I'm unable to provide for the needs of me. And that's just something that I put on myself. The reality is that if I take care of myself and I take those couple of hours a week or whatever it may be, maybe it's a few minutes per day, I'm going to show up as a much better person. I wish I took my 20s and prioritized physical health. I wish I would have gone to the gym more, but again, because I was like, oh, my kids, what are they going to do without me for two hours? You know, someone else is going to watch them for two hours, like I can't do that. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there and I'm scrolling on my phone and I'm resentful because I can't do anything. When in reality is like, who is stopping me? Nobody was stopping me. I was limiting myself. So I wish that I, instead of waiting till my 30s and huffing and puffing now and trying to get myself back into some sort of shape, I would have prioritized that because not only would that have set a great example for my kids, I think it also is a good lesson in not having constant control in the home of like, you have to control every single aspect of your kids' life. I think there has to be a certain level of wisdom in that where it's okay to let go. Obviously, with proper child care and things like that, but I do wish that that was a priority for me and my 20s and I would have benefited greatly. Okay, the next thing I wish I would have known is when people used to ask me in my 20s and I was a young mom, like, what are your hobbies? I would draw blank because my hobby was trying to get eight hours of sleep, trying to um, keep the little ones alive. I had two kids two and under at one point and so that was a challenge. That was, you know, and so when people would ask me what my hobby is, I would get so flustered. And I would almost get irritated because I'm like, ah, how dare you ask what my hobby is, obviously keeping these humans alive. But somewhere in me, I started to lose myself as a person because I'm like, wow, I don't even have a hobby. So I wish I would have known that my home could have been my hobby and it would have been a hobby I would have fully embraced and enjoyed. And I wish the concept of your home is your hobby was around back then. And I'm sure it was, but I just didn't know about it. And it's this concept of I can make my surroundings my hobby. So whatever that might look like for you, for me right now, my home is my hobby is the fact that I take areas and I systemize them and I make them more efficient for my family, for me. I make areas look cozy and pretty and so if that's, you know, maybe art work or making a bathroom cozier or cuter, or organizing things. So basically, my entire hobby right now is my home. It's within my four walls, but it's not because I am trapped in these four walls. It's because I enjoy these four walls and I get to curate every single corner of my home. And that actually brings me on to the next thing I wish I knew, you don't need a lot of money. Um, we did not have a lot of money in our 20s. My husband was in nursing school working a night time shift and full-time ministry and I was at home with the little kiddo. And no, we didn't have a lot of money, but I should have, I wish I would have known that it doesn't take a lot of money to make a house a home. So, it's, it's this concept of you can have a clean home from Dollar Tree supplies. You can have really cute accents in your home from thrifting and Facebook marketplace and all these nice little things and even like making your own things. You don't need a lot of stuff and you don't need a lot of money. Okay, this one is something I am currently learning and walking through. You deserve to enjoy things or your life even in difficult moments. So regardless of the season that you're walking through, if it's the most difficult season of your life, you deserve to enjoy and feel joy and have moments where you are just loving your life. Even if the season is hard, even if it's a difficult financial season, marital season, parenting season, whatever it may be, you still deserve to feel moments of joy, of peace, of happiness. And that the season that you're currently in is not going to define the rest of your life and it's okay to look at it as a very temporary thing, but even in those difficult moments to have that joy. And the last thing that I really wish I would have known in my 20s is, don't feel the need to explain yourself to anyone. Especially if it's someone has absolutely no say in your life or is not doing anything to contribute to the well-being of you, your family or your home. I felt the need to explain myself to a lot of people in my 20s, or if I didn't explain myself, I felt like an internal dialogue constantly of, how would I explain this or how would I explain this action? Even in the starting of a YouTube channel, for me, the biggest reason I didn't start way earlier and go all in and just be myself on camera from the very beginning was this concept of how am I going to explain myself to people? And it was the biggest factor that held me back in my 20s and probably instilled fear in me that I didn't accomplish a lot of the things that I wanted to accomplish because I felt the need to explain myself to people. And I think that if that was completely stripped away from me, I would have been a completely different person at the time. But nothing is ever lost and time is redeemable, but these are the things that I wish I had a friend sit me down and tell me in my 20s and I think I would have just simply enjoyed being at home and embraced the season of homemaking and motherhood because it is so empowering. It is honestly a joy if you look at it from the correct lens. I hope this was somewhat insightful for you and if you are currently in your 20s, maybe a young mom, or maybe you're even older than your 20s and this was helpful. I would love to know which piece of advice was the most helpful to you. As always, thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in my next one.