Healthy Mama Magazine Issue 7 - January 2015 | Page 66

breath... Today is yours Inspiration from Happy Mama Amy Taylor-Kabbaz You also encourage mamas to take more self-care. What is that exactly? It’s to do something small for yourself every day. So, whether that’s a cup of tea at two o’clock every afternoon, boil the kettle, sit down and just for five minutes don’t look at your phone, don’t do anything else, just breathe, smile at your children, listen to some music, whatever you can do, or whether it’s putting hand cream on last thing at night and just thinking about the wins of the day before you fall asleep. Just rubbing your cream into your hands and being thankful for your body and saying, “Wow, you did a really good job today”. That’s gorgeous. I love that one. I often ask mothers about a major turning point or challenge. When do you think was your turning point when you experienced a great challenge and initiated change? I went into labour with my third, my baby boy, when I was twenty eight weeks pregnant. That would be the major turning point. I feel like I had snippets and glimpses of what I needed to do before, but this was the big wake up call. As Oprah says, “ If you don’t listen to the w h i s p e r s , the universe will end up yelling ”. That was the yelling point. That was the universe and my body and my beautiful little boy telling me enough is enough. At twenty eight weeks I was working five days a week on breakfast radio. I woke up at 3:30am every day of the week and worked as a producer on Sydney Radio and then would come home at midday and write my blog and rush to yoga because that was on my ‘to do list’ and I thought that was self-care. Then I would rush to pick up my girls and I would rush here and I would rush there. So, your life became about ticking the boxes... I’d been talking about self-care for ages, but self-care was still an achievement for me. It wasn’t about kindness. It wasn’t about listening to my body. It was about ticking things off the list. It was about looking good on Instagram. It was about doing all the things I thought I should do rather than actually slowing down, being in the moment and being happy with where I’m at. We got to the point of contractions coming every three minutes, so it was pretty full on. But they managed to slow it down. I was in hospital for five days and those five days were my awakening. In the middle of the night I was googling meditations and how to change my life. It really was,"okay, I’m going to have to change this", and I wasn’t allowed to move from the couch for the next ten weeks. I couldn’t even sweep my floor. It was excruciating, but I am so grateful for those ten weeks of doing absolutely nothing now, even though I was in tears all the time. “I can’t just sit here. I can’t just sit here”. So, yeah. That changed my life. That’s helped me see what’s important. Helped me realise that I am not my achievements. That I am more than that. Look, I am still an ambitious person. I still want great things and I still work really hard, but I come to it now from a totally different place and I listen to myself first and then approach all of those other things. I don’t yell at my kids like I used to. I just am such a nicer person to be around! MAG 66