Every time I ask anyone how they are doing . . . “Busy!”

Sound familiar?

I might have even said this myself a few times. (Wink. Wink.)

I have ALWAYS thought I was too busy for practically everything. I was too busy for my friends, I was too busy to add anything else to my job at work, I was too busy to meal plan, food prep, get to they gym . . . you name it, I was too busy to do it. And there was both truth and BULLSHIT to these stories I was telling myself. (By the way, the story you tell yourself is pretty much the only one that matters so be careful with it.)

When I was in college, I was too busy going to classes, studying for classes and working 15 hours a week.

After each of my children were born, I was too busy. I would say to myself, “If only I had known how much time I had before ____ was born.” Like I would have accomplished great things, now I’m just stuck here being a super busy mom. BS, right?

People have 10 + kids, so do any of us have the right to say that we are too busy?

Of course we do. But is it true? All that really matters here is whether it feels true to you – not how it looks to other people on the outside.

My kids have helped show me what I am capable of. If I told my earlier self the number of things I would one day accomplish in a day – her jaw would have hit the deck in disbelief. There would have been no convincing 20 year old Lauren that I would plan, prepare, serve and clean eleventy-one meals per day and what that ACTUALLY looks like and feels like and does to my day.

And yet here I am, raising 4 kids mostly successfully, still loving my husband, having the best relationships ever with my friends and ya’ll, I’m so crazy that I added a job into the mix and you know what: I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and also the busiest.

So, let me invite you, friends, to truly consider what you are busy doing. Maybe your life is full of a bunch of “busy” that drains your energy and makes you feel busier than you actually are. Maybe you are chasing time rather than scheduling your time. Maybe you are making choices that aren’t serving you. Maybe you take care of everyone except for yourself. This is it folks. This is your life, right this minute. Stop being too busy to play with your kids, look for a better job, start a side hustle (have a passion project?), get a drink with your girlfriends. And while you are at it, let go of toxic relationships and toxic activities. Get a counselor. Go to yoga. Get to bed earlier, or stay up later, whatever serves you. Do more of the right stuff and I promise, you won’t feel “too busy” anymore.

Listen, don’t stop feeding your kids and quit your job, just stop using them as an excuse to not do the things that LIGHT YOU UP.

There is no guilt in cultivating you in motherhood ever. -unknown

Here’s a new podcast I am loving

Rachel Hollis: RISE

She also has one with her husband called Rise Together.