Removing The Pressure

Let me start by saying Happy International Women's Day! 

Source

It is a complete honor to have so many strong, fierce, courageous women in my life. Thank you to all of you who build me up, dare me to be my best, come alongside of me to tackle life as part of my tribe and love me despite my flaws. My life has been enriched, challenged and spurred on by each and every one of you - and I am forever grateful!

Source

With that said, I wanted to speak to the women (maybe this'll speak to men too, but I think it's directed more towards lady hearts). Hopefully you can follow along, but a word of warning - this post may jump all over the place. I feel like I've had a few things running through my brain that I need to get out (and maybe one or two of you might need to hear it).

In our small group, we are going through the book "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. All of the couples have found great nuggets of wisdom (whether it is learning about ourselves or our spouses) and are finding it overall beneficial. Towards the end of group we split into guys and girls (the thought is we are more likely to bear our soul to our ladies than in front of the entire group). Last night we started talking about what we thought of the study thus far.

Source

I went first and mentioned that although this book has been eye opening and has given Ryan and I a few tips and tricks on how to love each other better, it has also added a lot of extra pressure. It's like, now that I know how he "hears" love, I need to should be doing my best to "speak" it in that way. Don't get me wrong, I love the hubby with all my heart and WANT TO show him love, but for some reason this brings with it the feel of responsibility and pressure.

It got me thinking about other areas of our lives that we put undo pressure on ourselves (maybe this is just me or women in general, but a few of the wives felt this way when I mentioned it so I thought it at least important to mention).

I feel as though women put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect... and social media does NOT help this. It's like the standards of what a "good" woman or wife should look like are so much higher than they were a few years ago. We see pictures of moms with all of their happy kids getting along and we get down on ourselves because our families are far from "perfect". We read a post about how a friend juggles a full time career, family and triathlon training all while having her make-up perfect and we wonder why it is difficult for us to get the laundry done. We take a minute (or twenty) to open Facebook or Pinterest and walk away feeling defeated, as if we aren't doing enough.

Source

Call it Satan whispering lies into our ears, consumerism and marketing ploys telling us that we need the next best thing to make us happy, or popular culture driving in the idea of what "success" or the American dream should be, but whatever it is WE DON'T NEED TO LISTEN! Believe me, I am not saying that it is going to be easy or that it isn't going to take work, but we can be proud of ourselves (while still working towards other goals), we can celebrate our accomplishments (even if they aren't the same as someone else's), and we can love ourselves (flaws and all).

Source

Let's lift off the burdens that are burying us, strip off the pressures that we are adding on our shoulders and let go of the loads that are weighing us down. I think we will find that once we can release some of the weight that we will be able to breath easier. And with a calmer and happier self we can go out and tackle the world (not because we need to be perfect but because the world deserves us to be the our best versions of ourselves)!

Source

What pressures do you put on yourself?