A Message of Hope Facing the Unknowns of Coronavirus

Definitely a very weird and uncertain time right now, but the sacrifices we make to stay home and away from others will hopefully make a huge (positive) impact in the trajectory of what's going on in the world right now.  I hope this time of home-quarantine for much of our society will have some very positive side effects - like quality time with our kids, the wonderful challenge of learning to homeschool, a renewed sense of frugality and being less-wasteful, and using social media as a beneficial tool to stay connected with family and friends.  And with the world learning to "work remote," hopefully there will be more work-from-home job opportunities going forward which will lessen society's need for commuting, large office buildings, and pollution.  

It definitely will be a very challenging time these next few weeks and months.  But I hope we remember what’s truly important, can support and learn from each other (from a safe distance), and realize that the sacrifices we make are for the greater good.  We will come out on the other side of this more resilient, self-reliant, and stronger than ever.  Stay healthy everyone!  <3

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Why I Purged Who I'm Following on Social Media (And Why You Might Want to Too)

If you’re like me you probably get sucked into your phone too often, falling down the rabbit hole of continuously scrolling Instagram and Facebook. But it’s a New Year, new beginnings right? I recently took a good look at who I’m following on my personal and blog Instagram accounts and did some purging… in fact between my accounts I unfollowed thousands (previous to this I had never really unfollowed anyone!) and in doing so it greatly simplified my social media checking routine, spending less time online.

Who I Unfollowed

First, I know I personally feel a little hurt when I realize someone unfollowed me (why don’t they like me??) - but if you’re reading this and I unfollowed you please realize it’s nothing personal at all. Over the many years I’ve had social media I have followed thousands of accounts, but I’ve never actually reevaluated their relevancy to me as time went on and cleaning house was long, long overdue.

Here are some types of accounts that I unfollowed:

Accounts that are “Dead”: As I went through my lists, I found hundreds of accounts that have been “dead” for years… blogs or business accounts that have gone out of business or people that for one reason or another have just stopped updating a particular account. While these accounts aren’t cluttering up my feed, they aren’t doing anything for me either so I unfollowed them.

Accounts that Don’t Reflect Our Current Stage in Life: And then there’s accounts that used to be relevant to me but aren’t anymore… for example years ago when we were first starting our family I followed lots of baby-centric accounts and businesses. However our kids are all past the baby stage now and I just don’t need to know about the newest bottles or baby carriers these days. It’s definitely bittersweet closing the door on that stage in our lives but the practical reasoning is we just don’t need to be up-to-date on baby trends anymore. So any irrelevant accounts to our current place in life were unfollowed too.

Accounts that I was Following “Because Everyone Else Is”: There were plenty of accounts I was following strictly because they were big-name brands/companies or ultra-popular influencers or bloggers. I was mostly following them because I felt like I should be, even though most of their posts were essentially ads and I didn’t find following them enjoyable myself. I’m personally not a huge fan of impersonal/overly-commercialized posts so I unfollowed a lot of these types of accounts too.

Accounts that I Follow in More than One Place: I have both a personal and blog-related Instagram account and realized there were quite a few accounts that I was following in both places… this was kind of redundant as I was often seeing the same posts twice. I really didn’t want or need to see the same things over and over so I would decide where made the most sense for me to follow an account and would then unfollow it from my other account.

Accounts that Bring Me Down: Do what’s best for your mental health and your self esteem! Are there accounts that you follow that are too pessimistic? Or too perfect and it makes you devalue yourself subconsciously? Get rid of them. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life - only follow accounts that raise you up or inspire you in a positive way.

Accounts that I Don’t Enjoy: As I went through my lists of who I’m following I realized something - I honestly don’t enjoy fashion bloggers (no offense to any fashion bloggers out there!). As much as I love a good outfit inspiration I am not into “fast fashion” and I’m not someone who constantly buys clothes or the latest styles. I actually think it’s really bad for the environment to constantly consume clothing and accessories that will only be worn a few times (and a lot of these influencers will only wear items for a post or two then get rid of them). Fast fashion isn’t something I condone or enjoy so I won’t passively support it by following all those influencers.

Important Note: Don’t Try to Purge in One Day!

I made this mistake myself… when I first decided to clean house I stayed up really late one night and was determined to work my way through my list and clean it out in one go - but then Instagram blocked my account for 24 hours. If you do too much of one action in a short amount of time (like unfollowing other accounts), Instagram will flag your account as spam and lock you out temporarily… and apparently if you keep it up they will keep locking you out for longer each time, potentially banning you permanently (so scary!). Getting locked out for 24 hours was very frustrating, but it made me realize I have to tread lightly moving forward. When you’re purging, make sure to never unfollow more than a few accounts at a time and make sure to continue to use Instagram as you normally would (liking, commenting, engaging with others like usual). Purging your feed will be a work-in-progress for a while and will take time.

Who I Muted

Did you know you can “mute” accounts too? That way they don’t show up in your feed but you’re still following them. There were some accounts that I was following that I still wanted to follow to show some support, but were totally cluttering up my feed and driving me nuts… for example maybe you have an old school friend who has taken an endeavor into MLM sales. As much as you might love this friend and want to support her, you don’t want to see ten posts a day on essential oils, or fake nails, or eyelash serum or whatever it is that she’s constantly pushing. You’ll still show as a follower to her and it would be good idea to make a note to occasionally hop on over to her account to engage in a post here and there - but it’s not going to constantly fill your feed with stuff you’re not interested in anymore.

Turn Notifications OFF

If you haven’t already, it’s also a great idea to turn off Notifications Off across all your platforms. Seeing those little “dings” constantly come up when friends post, like, or comment can be overwhelming and drag you into checking your phone every few minutes. If you turn these off you’ll be less tempted to constantly check your phone - and make a point to only check it at certain times during the day. I have already had my notifications turned off for years now (it’s something I made a point to do a long time ago), and I will continue to keep them off.

Why My Social Media Experience is Better and More Efficient Now

After you’ve made sufficient progress purging who you’re following, you’ll notice that your feed is full of things that you actually want to see - no more “junk” that you used to waste time scrolling past everyday. Your feed will be full of accounts that you find positive, intentional, and inspiring - not to mention following less accounts will make it quicker and easier to catch up on recent posts every day.

And another positive side effect of my purge? It seems to have reset the algorithm for what I typically see in my feed. There were a lot of accounts I was following that I honestly had totally forgotten about because I hadn’t seen any posts by them in my feed FOR YEARS. But as I made progress purging who I was following I started to see those long-lost-to-me accounts in my feed again and it was so refreshing! I was able to re-discover a lot of accounts that I used to love following and it’s wonderful to finally see their posts again in my feed and reconnect with them. (And if you rediscover an account you want to see in your feed again, make sure to like and engage in their posts so Instagram will learn to continue to show them.)

Going Forward

Going forward this is something I definitely want to keep up with. I had neglected reevaluating who I was following for years and since I had let it get out of hand it took weeks for me to slowly purge since I had so much catching up to do. From now on this is something I’ll plan on revisiting at least once a year (I even put a reminder in my calendar for next January as part of my New Year’s Resolutions). Your social media feed should be enjoyable and inspiring, and it should be more efficient to check - by actively managing it hopefully you will see an improvement in your social media experience too.

So far I’ve really only tackled Instagram but I am planning on working to purge who I’m following on my other social media accounts too (especially Facebook and Pinterest) for the same reasons.

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Pain-Free Childbirth: My Hypnobirthing Experience

When you're a first-time mom, the idea of childbirth can be pretty terrifying.  Of course it doesn't help that everyone is always quick to share their horror stories with you which just adds to the stress and the fear of the unknown.  The bottom line though is that everyone's labor and birth experience is different - and yours doesn't have to be stressful, painful, or scary.  It IS possible to have a pain-free natural labor and delivery.  | This post contains affiliate links | 
Disclaimer:  This post shares my personal experience and is not medical advice - please always consult with your doctors for what's best for you and know that everyone's birth experience is different.

For our first baby, I was induced (she was a week late) and through guided relaxation and trusting my body to do it's job I can honestly say I felt no pain during labor or her birth.  The whole experience was still absolutely exhausting, draining, and overwhelming at times - but I never felt anything I can describe as pain.  In fact, towards the end of my labor I stopped feeling the contractions and even dozed through some of them.  It's incredible what a woman's body is capable of, and how much you can control mind-over-matter.  

Here is how I was able to have a pain-free, natural delivery:  

Do Your Homework

During your pregnancy read up on labor and delivery techniques. Know that anything is possible and learn all your options, but really focus on learning and practicing all of the relaxation techniques. I particularly liked The Pregnancy Book and The Birth Book. Both books had overall very positive messages and covered everything from natural birth to epidurals to c-sections, but The Birth Book especially talked about natural birth coping techniques. Doing this homework really lays the groundwork to mentally prepare yourself for labor and birth, and being mentally prepared is most of the battle.

Tune out Negative, Seek out Positive Stories

When you're pregnant, everyone will give you unsolicited advice - from your friends and family to total strangers in the grocery store - and probably 95% of these stories will be negative.  It's hard not to let all the horror stories get to you after awhile but really try to tune these out because your birth experience doesn't have to be like that.  When someone has a positive story to share, pay attention - viewing the whole process with a more positive mindset will help you see that a wonderful birth story can be possible.  

Take a Hypnobirthing Class

This was something I actually did not do... I lucked out being able to hypnobirth without formal training (being mentally prepared, having wonderful support people, and a little luck allowed me to be successful without training, but I'm probably an exception).  By taking a hypnobirthing class you will learn about all the natural coping techniques and be given time to practice and visualize how you hope your birth to go.  All of this will help you be more mentally and physically prepared for delivery day.  

Hire a Doula

When you go to the hospital to deliver, you have no choice on which nurse you will get.. and for all you know you might get the one that will just rub you the wrong way.  The L&D nurses also tend to come and go throughout your labor.. they will check on you and stay with you if necessary, but otherwise you'll labor a lot on your own especially in the beginning.  A Doula is your own personal labor support person - someone who has experience and training attending births and helping the laboring mother.  A Doula is not a doctor or a nurse, and will not make medical decisions, give medical advice, or deliver the baby.  She is strictly there to be your personal cheerleader and coach you on ways to make your labor more comfortable.  By choosing your doula, you decide who will be there to support you and can pick someone you feel comfortable with and enjoy.  

Our Doula came armed with a bag of "labor tricks" - which included aromatherapy, relaxing music, spiky rubber handles for you to squeeze (the discomfort of squeezing them with your hands is supposed to help distract you from the discomfort of your contractions), tennis balls to massage your back, and LED candles to give the room a relaxing atmosphere.  She also was a certified lactation consultant and had a certificate in hypnobirthing so she knew all the relaxation techniques.  

Create a "Birth Wishes" List

I say Birth Wishes instead of Birth Plan here because nothing about your labor and delivery may go "to plan."  If you have a "plan" that tends to fall in the mindset of expecting your birth to go exactly a certain way and that's almost never the case... but by having "wishes" you set yourself up to be more flexible with the whole situation.  When you write your Birth Wishes list make sure to phrase it all as wishes too, in order to keep that flexible mindset (for example, don't write "I will not have an epidural" or "I will do skin-to-skin", but instead say "I would like to labor all naturally for as long as possible, hopefully the entire time.  I hope to have a natural birth" or "I would like to do skin-to-skin immediately after the birth").  

Definitely write out a "Birth Wishes" list as it will help you visualize how you'd like things to go, and will give your medical team an idea of what things you do/do not want to do - but keep in mind it can all change at any time, some things are just beyond your control.  

Start Relaxing from the First Contraction

In the beginning of labor your contractions can start out slow and not bothersome.  You may be able to move and talk through them at first or at least stop and easily let them pass over you.  Even if they're easy to deal with in the beginning it's important to set yourself up for success for the remainder of your labor and start relaxing now.  Relaxing when something hurts seems counterintuitive (after all, if you stub your toe you tend to tense up, right?), but by totally relaxing during contractions they will actually hurt less because you're not fighting it and you're letting your body do it's job.  The best way I can describe this total relaxation is letting yourself "melt."  When you're having a contraction just let yourself become a puddle on the bed or in your chair, etc.  And if you're standing, have your husband support you and just let yourself melt.. let your knees go soft and your arms and head drop and have him hold you.  It's so important to not hold any tension anywhere in your body during the contractions, and the more you're able to relax the easier it should be.  Having a Doula really helps here because she can help coach you through the relaxation ("relax your jaw, relax your fingers, let your shoulders drop...").  After a few hours of coached relaxation, my body went on autopilot and I honestly didn't even feel the contractions anymore and was even able to doze through some of them.  

Don't Watch the Clock

Once you're safely laboring in the hospital, put your phone away and pay no attention to the clock.  Time means nothing in labor... some women labor for minutes, some for hours, and yes.. some even labor for days.  The important thing is to take each contraction one at a time - it doesn't matter how many contractions you've had or how many more are to come, all that matters is the moment you're in now.  Taking it one contraction at a time is the easiest way not to feel discouraged or overwhelmed, just take it one step at a time.  

Save the Tub as your Last Resort

If you have access to a labor tub, it's heaven.  The warm water and being able to let yourself float during contractions is just such a huge relief.  However, you don't want to play that card early in your labor since the relaxing effects of the tub tend to wear off the longer you're in it.  Instead save the tub until you just can't take the contractions anymore (like during the Transition Phase of labor), then savor all the warm relaxation the labor tub has to offer - it'll feel like heaven.  

Realize that Sometimes Decisions are Made For You

Above all, go in with a positive mindset and ready to relax yourself through labor but understand that ultimately sometimes decisions will be made for you in the best interest of you and your baby's health.  For us, I was lucky enough to successfully hypnobirth our first baby and have the incredible all-natural birth experience I always wanted.  However, for our second pregnancy baby #2 stayed breech and just would not turn.  For us this time, I did not get the opportunity for an all-natural birth but instead had a planned c-section - and guess what?  It was still incredible!  No matter how your baby is delivered it's an amazing experience - enjoy and savor it.  

Best of luck, Mamas!!  

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Disclaimer:  This post shares my personal experience and is not medical advice - please always consult with your doctors for what's best for you and know that everyone's birth experience is different.