Single Moms: Bloom Where You Are Planted!

Today, I was inspired by a young, 20-something single-mom who happens to be a close family friend.  She shared with me some of her recent struggles and her story was so reminiscent of my 20-year old single mother days that I had to put my thoughts down for all the single mothers out there who are struggling everyday; those who are also gifted with life experiences that today seem hard, but will one day be looked at as just one part of an amazing journey.

My advice is simple ladies:  Bloom where you are planted!

I spent essentially 15 years being a single mother in between the birth of my 3 children, a marriage and then being widowed.  During that time there were struggles, challenges and difficult conditions.  After lots of stress and struggle, I came to the realization that I could choose to still live an abundant life. It became empowering to know that I could put my energies toward the things and people who are most important to me instead focusing on or giving my power away to those struggles.  I wasn’t going to let them get the best of me.  And, single moms, trust me, I went through some stuff that could have easily wiped me out as a young woman and as a parent.

After a while, it took acceptance in order to appreciate that I could be just as successful in my personal and private life as a single mother as any married woman with children could.  The first lesson I had to learn was that of balance.  Life’s demands can make a person go crazy, add in single parenthood and you could, at times, feel like you have molotov cocktail on your hands.  Let’s be real.  Your day starts by getting up at the crack of dawn to get the kids fed and ready for daycare or school; you go to work all day and deal with crap there, only to come home and work another 8 hours handling everything on your own.  Add in attending school functions, the stress of being the sole provider, spending quality time with your children and all else that comes with running a household, which often times means robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Yes, married mothers go through some of these same struggles, but it is when you know that you do not have anyone else to fall back on that those mole hills feel like they are turning into huge mountains for you to climb.

However, with maturity comes acceptance and with acceptance comes growth.  Single mothers, the most important thing you can do to maintain your growth is to nurture yourself.  What do I mean above when I say, “Bloom Where Your Planted?”  I mean, find your strengths, accept your weaknesses and then grow.  The first step is to figure out what makes you happy in your own personal life.  Not in the life you lead with your children, but what makes you personally happy as an individual.  An example can be going back to school, indulging yourself in a specific hobby, focusing on your spiritual side.  Second, don’t be so hard on yourself.   Any decisions you have made that may not have totally been in your best interest at the time, you can use as learning tools.  We only learn to grow through making mistakes.  Third, be open for development.  Find a way to work in that extra class (i.e., online training, etc.) to advance yourself.  I worked for 2 years on my paralegal degree through correspondence training.  With all that was on my plate, it was the only option at the time.  When my boys went to bed, I went to school in my little apartment.  Read self-help books (they worked wonders for me).  Get involved in your church.  Find ways, outside of the stresses of work and home life to feel good about yourself.  Fourth, if you need help, don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for it.  We all need help once in a while.  Another point I would like to stress is this:  DO NOT get stuck in dead-end relationships.  Always keep your power in your own control.  Never give your power to another person and then rely on them for your happiness.  Form your personal relationships on your own terms, not someone else’s.  It is not until you are in a good, stable and secure place with yourself that you are able to accept a good man into your life.  When we are insecure and unstable, we tend to settle for less.  Never settle for less.

Being able to bloom where you are planted means when you get weak, think about where you are today versus where you were 6 months or a year ago.  Being able to love ourselves and accept our situations for what they are right now allows us to succeed where we are.  It creates the path for our futures which in turn directs our steps toward moving on from the typical stereotypes that come along with single motherhood.  Taking time to reflect on the positive attributes of your life once in a while will do you good.  At the same time, reflecting, but not dwelling, on the negative will allow you to basically compare yourself to the only person you should compare yourself to and that is YOU.   Most importantly, loving and accepting yourself for who you are to yourself and your children and being proud of where you have come is very important.  There are no limits for your future as long as you are open and willing to grasp opportunities.

Lastly ladies, if you don’t take anything from this article, remember that you are not defined by what others think of you.  We find definition in our compassion and unconditional love for our children and our own self-acceptance, self-worth, compassion and love for ourselves.  So, surround yourself with uplifting people who truly care about you and your children’s well-being.

KUDOS to all you single moms out there doing what others think is impossible! Keep on blooming!

Peace & Blessings,
Di

Live Happy iPhone App

Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at UC Riverside and author of the book “The How of Happiness,” has teamed up with Signal Patterns, developers of psychology-based Web and mobile applications, to create the new “Live Happy” iPhone application.

This application is the first of its’ kind and will guide users through a set of daily activities to boost short and long-term happiness, including:

• Goal setting/evaluating/tracking
• Expressing gratitude directly
• Keeping a gratitude journal
• Replaying happy days
• Keeping a savoring photo album
• Envisioning your best possible self
• Nurturing relationships
• Remembering acts of kindness

Prompts in the application will also allow users to measure their happiness on a regular basis, and will help identify which happiness strategies are right for them.

The application builds on traditional happiness programs that previously had been only found in books. With the iPhone’s capabilities to e-mail and text message, write notes, and take photos, the “Live Happy” app provides a comprehensive program that engages users on an interactive platform whenever and wherever they go.

I am so excited about this application as many stepfamily members CHOOSE to get stuck by dwelling on their negative pasts instead of moving forward. Lyubomirsky’s research suggests that happiness is a choice and this new app is a perfect way to get people to make a deliberate effort to choose happiness.

The app is available on the Apple App Store for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. A free version, which supports a limited number of activities, is also available for download. The paid version includes unlimited activities and the “Ask Sonja” feature that allows people to send questions to Lyubomirsky.

Sonja Lyubomirsky

Lyubomirsky has extensively studied and written about the psychology of enduring emotions – specifically, happiness and depression. She explores how exceptionally happy people view themselves and their worlds, and how that enables them to stay upbeat and, most important, how less happy individuals can learn such happiness-enhancing habits.

This story was first published here.

Single Parenting Can Be Challenging and Triumphant

“More than half of the children in the US will live, for some time, in a single-parent household.”
Dr. Benjamin Spock

In today’s society, living in a two parent home is like being on the endangered species list.  As Dr. Spock said, more than half of all the children in the United States live or have lived in a single-parent household.  I remember growing up being raised by my single-mother in the late 70′s and early 80′s and I thought I was the “only one” at times.  All of my classmates’ parents were married.  I was also a single mother for years so I have walked in the same shoes some of you readers are walking in right now.  It’s not an easy road to travel.   However, for all the pitfalls that can be experienced during single parenthood, there are many success stories and triumphs as well.  One of the triumphs that I personally experienced as a single mother was that I found out that I am a very strong person.  I found out that I could handle a lot more than I initially thought I could.  I became very self-reliant and less co-dependent on others.  Many times, I discovered that I had more strength than I ever gave myself credit for.  Looking back now, I think, those times were tough, but we made it.  I accepted the challenges and I grew through them.

One of the main struggles single parents deal with is financial stability.  This can be one of the most difficult.  What I found is that during times like these, you have quickly learn to be resourceful.   You have to learn to be the provider for your children, the carpenter, the electrician, the cook, the banker, the auto mechanic, the grocer and mom or dad all at the same time because you can’t afford to pay anyone to do anything extra.  A lot of the times, some single parents do all of these things on one income and don’t get any child support.  Talk about stress.

Through all of the challenges that single parenthood can bring, you can be successful, no matter the stigma of society.  Although, obviously, a two-parent home is divine and was the original plan, life doesn’t always work out the way we plan.  You can have success being a single parent and I have seen many very inspiring children become extremely intelligent, responsible and well rounded adults who were raised by a single mother or father.  Those children learned to be independent.  They learned early on that learning to deal with strife is part of life’s learning process and it’s how you get through those challenges that make the difference.  They learned to take responsibility for their actions and solve their problems through self-reliance.

If you are a new single parent, here are a few tips that you might find helpful:

1.  Take care of yourself.  Talk to other single parents.  When times are tough, it is easy to get caught up in all of the problems.  You become stressed out and my philosophy on this is “when mama or daddy ain’t happy, nobody’s happy!”  Take time to refresh yourself once in a while.  Even if that means you have to enlist your parents or siblings to watch the children and you have a day to yourself in your own apartment.  Give yourself that time.

2.  Be a good example. Make sure your values always exemplify how you want your children to see you and what you want them to grow up to teach their children.

3.  Do not alienate the other parent.  This never works.  It actually has the opposite effect in the long run.  Make sure you keep your personal feelings for your ex or your children’s father or mother out of your decision making regarding your children’s relationship with him/her.

4.  Make a budget and stick to it.  This is the most stressful situation for a single parent.  Make a budget (go online – there are plenty of them for free) and stick to it.  This is imperative and will reduce your stress.

5.  Avoid negative labels.  Keep your head up.  Do not allow the stigma that society places on you change who you are.  You are strong, you will get through this time in life.

None of the above tips are always easy to stick by, but you will be glad you did.  Simply put, being a single-parent is hard but despite problems, you can achieve a closeness with your children that will never be broken.  During the process, you might get a little grayer (hair that is) but you will definitely come out of the situation a wiser and stronger person for it.  I know I did.

Peace and Blessings,
Di