Project MotherHOOD with Angela Williams
I've been married to my Special Perfect One for 26 years and I'm a mom of 3 teenagers. I like to say I'm a full time working mom caught in a creatives body. So I use blogging as my outlet to let the creative juices flow. My blog, quinkenzo.com is named after my kids and is a platform for Fly busy moms who live their lives with purpose, style and functionality.
How do you define Motherhood?
I define Motherhood as a journey to discovering my best, my truest, my most authentic self by pouring out every inch of me to be the very best mom I can be. Motherhood is a catalyst to accepting the mistakes, the triumphs, and the milestones with a forgiving heart. Motherhood has been sort of an awakening of my soul, a way for me to honor and accept my highest self while doing my very best to honor and nurture my babies’ spirits. That’s so important to me. My children have been my greatest accomplishment by far and mothering them has made me a better person…by far! It’s been trial and error but I’m humbled and thankful for all the lessons. What are a few things that help you recharge your batteries?
A few things that help me recharge are spending time with my girlfriends. I don’t have a big family so my friends have become family and I need and depend on them. The sisterhood bond is like no other for me because they truly soothe my soul. My sisterfriends have been with me for yeeeeears. Some since the playground and some of us started this motherhood journey together. So we get it and we get it each other. We support each other. We validate each other. We laugh. We cry. We recharge. Together. Another important means for me to recharge are my self care days. Once I realized how vital self-care was for my spirit to thrive and for me to recharge after stressful days, I was all in! So a quiet day gardening with a glass of wine, or secluded in my bathroom diffusing my essential oils, giving myself a facial or deep conditioning my hair or simply taking time to hit the mat and do some yoga and mediation. Yoga and meditation came into my life when I desperately needed a gentleness and an ease to work through me in order for me to be a better mom and a better wife. We do our best and can't do it all. Where do you allow yourself to be unapologetic as a Mother?
You know, I really struggled with this for yeeeeeeears because I was raised by a mother who was a perfectionist. But I have allowed myself to be unapologetic about not always keeping my house nice and tidy. I used to get so embarrassed if people (especially my mom or mother in law) came over and my house wasn’t immaculate. But reality set in! I have 3 kids and on any given day we’d often have about 4-5 of their friends spending the night. My house was full of love and laughter and acceptance so I learned to let it go if the dishes stayed in the sink or the laundry didn’t get washed. How has Motherhood inspired you?
Motherhood has inspired me to peel back the layers and to just keep self-reflecting, to keep challenging myself. And it hasn’t been easy. There’s been a lot of things engrained in me that I had to learn to let go so that I could live up to my potential as a mother. In order to deepen my connection with my children, I knew that was necessary. Motherhood has inspired me simply to be better. For them and for me. And it’s also inspired me to really understand and embrace the importance of really loving myself so that I could fill my babies up with the highest of Love. As Alex Elle said… “I can’t be everything to everyone else if I am nothing to myself.” Taking care of myself, physically, mentally and spiritually is way for me to honor myself and this I see inspires my kids to do the same. What's your favorite beauty must do when you are feeling exhausted on the inside? Honestly, when I feel exhausted, depleted or stressed, I typically isolate myself in my bathroom, light candles and diffuse some Bergamot and Frankincense, get in a piping hot shower and just cry. LOL. There's something about immersing myself in running water while crying, thinking, purging, whatever I’m feeling, that brings me such stillness, clarity and a release, that it’s just good for my soul. Another beauty must do is getting my nails and toes done. It's just that simple but makes a world of difference in my mood. A note of compassion you want to offer a Mother reading this. Preferably something that might/could have been comforting to you at one point of time. We all need love and validation and support and a lot of times we moms move through life so focused and busy and consumed that our feelings, our needs, get lost in the shuffle. You find yourself on autopilot simply trying to just make it to Friday. Just so you can breathe. It gets hard and stressful and overwhelming. Yes...It does. Motherhood can strip you down to your core and leave you wondering Who am I,where do I go from here, WTF am I doing? But just allow your heart and soul to be restored with your inner light beautiful mommy. Don’t be afraid to shine. Take time to honor your glow and watch others as they do the same. And know that you have it in you to keep it moving. To be great. To keep it pushing. So keep shining. I know that you are doing so much, sacrificing so much because your family’s happiness is your sole motivator sometimes and fuels your fire when you feel empty… I want you to know I see you and I honor you. Namaste Thank you Angela!
@quinkenzo
