Rise baby mama rise!

🦋 Ask any woman what kind of parent she wants to be, and she will most likely say– a happy one. She wants to be a present, valid, loving mother and a cheerful wife giving her best. But let's face it: not every baby mama can feel this– day after day or even most days.

🦋 Because not all of us have the luxury to feel rested, let alone be inspired. Not all of us are domestic goddesses dreaming what kind of sophisticated dish we'll throw on a table at night.

🦋 If you ever spent your whole day in a dirty bathrobe, unbrushed hair put up in a bun, and all you have managed to have in a day was a burned toast, you know what I am talking about.

You're now doing it all type of woman. A wonder woman. You're being watched, judged, and often reminded that you're no longer the woman you used to be. Out of a sense of duty and love, you placed your jewels aside and became what the world told you to be– nurturing and patient—swirling things at home and beyond. You kept everyone happy, apart from yourself.

There's pressure to be and perform at all times. Expectations of what a perfect woman and her household are like. Above all, because becoming a mother equals becoming a giver, no longer taker.

And you better do it looking happy. Because the other baby mamas keep it together, so must you.

But this isn't called living, my dear baby mama.

I know this dearly because I remind myself of this daily.

We can't be our best or give our best when we run on empty. We can't show up happy when we are mentally and physically tired to keep up with the standard set up by no one but other women.

We have to stop trying to be so flawless, showing others how easy we do it and how good we look while doing it. We have got to stop pretending we manage it all.

And here's the thing: the more we dissolve our essence in taking care of everyone's needs apart ours, the less we'll give to ourselves. And by doing so, slowly but steadily, we lose our divine, feminine power.

But maybe this isn't a matter of losing one's power; perhaps it's a matter of regaining one's strength.

❤️ Because if you're here to give to others, you're here to give to yourself first. You're here to do whatever it takes to nourish yourself. You're here to provide for your starving self. Better yet, to rise the above, even if you can't rise above anything just yet. Because the longer you resist giving yourself what you crave, the harder it will get.

This does not make you selfish. It then makes you a responsible human able to give out more as a result: more energy, more joy, more self to the family.

❤️ It begins with a grander vision for yourself. It starts with filtering out the noise, social and cultural expectations. It commences with turning the volume on what matters– the tiny dreamy voice inside us. The voice that whispers you've only scratched a surface of what purposeful life is all about.

Because it's okay to have dreams beyond your own home and family, but what's not okay is to lose yourself in the mists of taking care of everyone's needs but yours at the expense of your well-being, mental health, and happiness.

Maybe where you are is where you have to be. Perhaps you were made to bury your dreams for a while, or perhaps you didn't know what they were. But you always had that little voice whispering how you have so much more to offer to the world. Maybe you're on to something bigger, even if it's hard to see just yet. Possibly you weren't born to be the queen of everyone's hearts. More likely, a queen of your own life.

👑 And yes, I am here to say it out loud – within every woman, regardless of where she comes from, there is a queen or a goddess inside. And she isn't domestic. Maybe she's more like Joan of Arc or Lara Croft goddess, or perhaps she isn't. But only from that higher self standpoint can you discover who you are. Only from there, you'll find stubbornness, willpower to find the answers, to knock down the standard that tells you who you should be. Only then you'll find the strength to do what needs to be done to fill your cup of happiness.

Mind you; you're not required to save the world; you are invited to save yourself. Even if you no longer know who you are or you never did. Even if all you've done was to help others to make dreams happen, or maybe you never had a job because you couldn't find that one thing that fulfills you?

It does not matter at all. What matters is what you do from now on onward. What vision are you going to have for yourself and your family at large?

What are you going to do to bring more joy into your life?

Above all, you don't need anyone's permission to be happy. You have to allow yourself to receive joy and light. You have to begin anywhere– ideally today to take a step closer to your ideal self - to the woman that says yes to herself today, tomorrow, and for as long as she lives.

Lastly, when we permit ourselves to rise as women, we instantly become better, healthier, loving mothers and wives that our loved ones will be life-long fans of. We also teach them to, no matter what, never give up on ourselves, our dreams, passions, and contributions to the world.

🔥 And that, my friends, equals gold.

5 Things I Would Have Never Learned Had I Never Became A Parent

Hello there, I became a mom!

💖My precious little angel named Sofia was born on January 19, 2019, and since that day at 4:30 am to be exact, my life changed to the extent I haven't been imagining.

I went into motherhood blindly without any expectations and purposely closed my eyes and ears to stories that I heard from fellow mamas. Because lesson number one: stop forcing your reality on others. Every experience we have is so unique that it's impossible to predict what your baby is going to behave like, what you will be feeling, and how well you will be adjusting to a life-altering role as a mother.

Universally though, the life, as you knew it, gets paused and very possibly transformed because in an instant it's no longer about you anymore. Your needs, wants and dreams have to be put on hold (for a few months at least) until you figure out when in the day there's time to squeeze in "me time."

From what I know, women are great at multitasking, but mothers take it to the whole other level.

🍓 I've mastered to have breakfast at the same time my baby does. I get to eat a bowl of porridge every morning ( tale says it increases your milk supply) while breastfeeding my little bundle. Lunches are harder because it's way harder to hold a fork rather than a spoon trying to twirl spaghetti or scoop up a lettuce leaf. (The life of a mother is endlessly glamorous.)

My new reality gets messy but is the most beautiful reality I've ever known. Because it showed me things I would have never learned had I never became a parent.

1. Time is one of the most valuable currencies there is because every moment we have is non-returnable.

Seeing how quickly Sofia grows made me realize nothing stays still. We should hold on to our moments for a little longer because they too will pass. Time has a tendency to fade away even the most vivid memories we live because it knows no difference between good or bad. Everything we see, feel, or hear goes away, and just like that we wake up 10 years older but not necessarily wiser.

🖤 I realized how much free time I had before I had a child that I wasted on activities, people, and places that weren't right for my inner self nor was aligned with my values or brought me anywhere closer to my dreams. But hey, we all need everybody to have their time and their moment.

2. Love is the most important human experience. Love is what holds the world together.

🖤 Without love, we are lost. It is not something you give or get, instead - you nurture and grow. And I now love like I didn't know was possible.

3. Nobody is going to come and crown you. You have to do that yourself.

I rarely sleep longer than to a 3-4 hour at a stretch. I put a facial cream on my toothbrush another day. But then I look at this generous baby smile and repeat to myself that this is all worth it. We don't always get appreciated and thanked for what we do for our children, but we have to do it anyway. Because being a mother means to be attentive, responsible, available...

4. If I could bring another human into this world, nothing is impossible.

🖤 Every woman that has squeezed another human out of her body is supreme. Because there is nothing as painful as childbirth. It requires to gather all the powers that you think you don't own and use them all. Turns out, you can bring life regardless of the pain you have to go through. If you can do that, what else can you do?

5. It's what you learn about yourself along the way.

🖤And my final discovery is that it's not about the mother that has love to give when she is rested, fulfilled, and cheerful. It's about a mother that is exhausted, sleep-deprived, and isolated that manages to give it all. That's where I learned patience, strength, and resilience. I came to understand that no matter how tired I am, I still got to show up each time and to give my best. And that's what I choose over and over again.

P.S I got rewarded. Sofia sleeps through the night at three months. Thanks baby!🖤

How Positive Pregnancy Test Changed My Destiny

He stood there vulnerable waiting under that bathroom door.

When my anxious suspicion was confirmed, I felt everything a human can experience: the chills up the arms, the nervous stomach, the dizzy thoughts, that feeling of falling into love.

🖤 And there it was, a moment that will forever change us.🖤

It's about the sobering news that God has sent me the most significant gift one can ever give.

💫 I was shaking in my shoes and sweating in my palms because of what this represented for me. 💫

It brought up the most boring instinct we all possess- big, fat fear.

I was terrified of the word “forever” because nothing else in my life had represented that until now. More accurately, the idea of having a baby in my mind was almost equal to getting a tattoo on my face.

I was frightened to have my wings clipped and scared out of my skin to let go of the life I knew. Because that meant moving on which deep down terrified me.

Although the most turbulent years were far behind me, and I felt much more centered, I wasn't ready to be a mom. So I thought.

Because to be a mom meant to be attentive, responsible, available...

For weeks I was in denial. Possibly because I was trying to hold on to the life I knew that was so fast sliding away from the tips of my fingernails. 💫

I couldn't believe what was going on and was wondering if this miracle has accidentally knocked on the wrong door, or was I chosen by higher powers to create a life? 💫

As I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, I saw a 30-year-old woman that has lived a little. A woman who's qualified enough to write a book about the past five lives she has lived.

And although there were still so many more things she wanted to do; a baby would never interfere. Because as a firm believer in the right timing, I couldn't bear to live with the thought that I could be the same person yet for another year. After all, we're meant to evolve.

My defenses started to shrink, and my anxieties eased.

💖 I realized that this miracle is boldly staring in my face wholly choosing me with all my insecurities, doubts, and self-invented emotional frustrations. 💖 

So I chose to fully embrace and accept that the future was about to change for something greater.

Even if that meant going off the radar for a while because the next chapter required me to be a little bit quieter, less accessible, and more private.

Maybe we cling so much to our past all to find out that what the future has for us is much more meaningful.

Because at the end of our days it's not about what titles we collected or what career milestones we reached, or in what countries bank accounts we hold. It's about having a simple human experience while figuring out the rest. It's about the legacy we leave that is by far more significant than fame or money.

Things were good. I was lucky to stand by a man who's ready to take me as I am without changing a cell in me. It takes a while to get here, and if you know anything about my story, you know my path wasn't necessarily covered in rose petals and dancing unicorns high-fiving me along the way.

💖  When I spilled the news to my friends over one of those Sex And The City-like lunches, we all knew it's an end of an era as one of us was moving a giant step forward towards becoming a mother.

And it was me - a girl that would never miss a party.

I didn't want to be a girl who stayed too long at the party. 💖 

The following months were filled with a joy of expectations, scans, and hormonal tears. But I won't trade it all for alluring distractions and social invitations as I allowed myself to begin dreaming of this new world.

Do you know what I learned since that fateful day?

That every kick, every uncomfortable move, and potential stretch mark made me realize I am carrying a warm and pulsating entity inside. A real human with its very own dreams, goals, and ambitions that has nothing to do with me.

So I may not interfere. Most of all, I'm ready... like 39 weeks ready.

With love,

Kristina