It has been a hot minute since I’ve published a new article to Naturally Made Mom. And that is because I have spent every spare second working on my own personal wellness and self-care.

There’s not a single person alive no doubt that hasn’t felt some negative mental health effects from the 2020 insanity. Personally, I am also dealing with deployment, pregnancy, and solo parenting along with all these bizarre changes happening all around the world.

I have slowed down my publishing pace on purpose, so I wanted to update my readers formally with a post on the things I have been focusing on.

How I am Practicing Wellness and Self Care in 2020

I think the best way to share my personal experiences during this crazy year is to break down the aspects of my life by category. Perhaps if you find yourself struggling in certain areas you can skip to those and my experience might help you in some way.

As a quick disclaimer, I am currently a stay-at-home mom and although my days are very full, I don’t have a job monopolizing my time right now. Just wanted to throw that out there for anyone who takes the time to read this because that is the perspective I am coming from.

1. Food

This past winter, my husband built a couple garden beds for me. It was always in the plan for me to tackle this hobby. I spent the spring and summer growing and preserving my own food.

Funny thing, gardening on a day by day basis made me realize HOW much work it is.

There were many times I thought this year about how great it would be to just opt out of the entire system and be self-reliant. However, even having a small garden was a wake up call that I still have a lot to learn if I was to actually feed my family solely off what I grow.

I had a lot of success with cucumbers this year. So much that we ate them every day for 2 months straight with enough left over to make a few batches of sweet relish and tons of pickles!

I am used to cooking meals from scratch but this year, since so many restaurants have been closed, almost 100% of our meals are homemade from organic, whole foods. Staying away from the inflammatory oils that are used by most restaurants definitely improved my digestion and sleep.

I have also been paying more attention to macros and bumped up the ratio of protein and fat in my diet while minimizing carbs. Because of this, I lost a solid amount of body fat despite being pregnant.

Focusing on diet can be mundane and often gets neglected when my life is really busy. So this has been a positive thing that resulted from the lockdowns of 2020 for me.

2. Fitness

2019 was a year I hustled to the point of being imbalanced. I was working as a nurse, renovating our home and then managing it as an Airbnb rental, all while keeping up a pretty decent publishing rate to this little blog, and being a full-time mom.

I still made time for physical fitness but it was more of light exercises three days a week.

At the beginning of 2020, my husband and I started a workout program together. I bumped up my workouts from 30-45 minutes, 3 days a week to 60-75 minutes, 5 days a week.

Once everything shut down, my husband was at home with me and we were able to work out together almost every day for over a month.

This was such a gift and got my pregnancy off to a great start. I have maintained this pace through the remainder of the year.

I can feel myself getting stronger and more motivated even while being pregnant and this is a major blessing.

I really got caught up in the achievement rat race for a while and forget that being healthy and strong is a really important part to a life well-lived.

3. Homeschooling

Before everything shut down, my son was going to preschool two days a week. This gave me time to focus on my blog, which I love working on so much.

My transition to going from full-time nurse to stay-at-home mom has been a step by step process. This blog is one of the ways I still maintain my identity as a healthcare worker and share my passion for natural healing.

I knew I wanted to homeschool my children way before the world got weird. I used to wonder how I would find the time for everything once I had to add homeschooling to the day.

I thought I had a few years to figure out the time management piece. Suddenly, I found myself faced with the how a lot earlier than expected.

We started out doing a letter craft each day.

It was the first thing I thought to do honestly but it was actually really fun.

We used different crafting supplies together to make the letters. My son helped with the glue and we practiced penmanship by writing each letter. I held his hand and guided him because he was not yet three years old.

We talked about the sound each letter makes and I drew a picture of a word that started with the letter of the day. He seemed to enjoy watching me draw the picture.

About a month ago, I purchased the Pre-K language course from The Good and The Beautiful. I absolutely love this program and highly recommend it for anyone who doesn’t want to come up with their own lesson plan.

Each lesson is short, fun, and makes it really easy to keep my son learning.

We read tons of books, especially on the days I don’t feel like doing a formal lesson. The mornings I am feeling really lazy, I turn on You Tube to the Rock ‘N Learn Spanish for kids lessons. He now knows all the colors and a lot of body parts in Spanish and I get to drink my morning coffee in peace!

I have found an immense amount of joy taking such an active part of my son’s early education.

I know it won’t always be easy going forward with homeschooling, but I am also trying to not put tons of pressure on us.

I go with the flow each day and am amazed how you can turn everyday experiences into a learning opportunity as long as you simply show up as a parent for your kids.

I personally don’t feel like learning and school should be so rigid. I want to teach my kids to enjoy the journey of learning new things and I honestly don’t care if we cover less material during their schooling years than public school.

The cool part about homeschooling is it starts off very simple and grows with you as your children grow.

5. Rest and Relaxation

This year has been really weird. There are days where I feel like I am going stir crazy and want to go on an adventure around the world (obviously not possible).

Rest and relaxation for me has been more of a mindset than anything else. There are times I find myself on social media getting so angry with what is happening around the world and the way the people are being manipulated into fear and germaphobia.

In light of everything that has happened this year, I have given myself permission to stop hustling so hard and enjoy the small things in life.

More often than ever before I find myself sitting down to count my blessings out loud.

I have read more books, watched more movies, and just enjoyed time with my family and friends without the guilt to be productive every single second.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t been publishing much to my blog. I know this website will be with me for the long haul. I don’t see any reason that it cannot thrive despite the season I am in.

I definitely haven’t been able to produce as much content as I would like. It is very difficult to be an entrepreneur and a mother. I put a lot of time into each article I publish, reading research articles, editing, and taking pictures.

Sometimes I feel myself being pulled in so many directions, so I decided that the best things for me to do in 2020, while the world seems to be losing their minds, is to put a lot more effort into my life at home. I know it won’t always be this way, but mothering is something I absolutely refuse to fail at.

6. Relationships

I am going to be completely transparent. 2020 has been hard on some of my relationships. What I see happening right now bothers me to the core and I have not stayed silent about it.

I have shared as much as I can on social media about the immune system, how it works, and how everything the government is suggesting goes completely against all logic and real health science.

I’ve called this a “scamdemic” from the very beginning.

As a 33 year old women, I have found my voice. I have finally gotten past the fear of what others will think of me by saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I try my very best to have tact, but sugarcoating the truth is nauseating to me and I refuse to do it.

In many ways, 2020 has been a year that has shown me who my true friends are. But also this year I have seen more people come out and stand up for what they believe in, start researching health topics that they wouldn’t have otherwise, and speak out for truth.

It’s incredible to bond with like-minded people. It is what humanity needs so we can get back to the health and vitality that we are capable of.

7. Goals for the future

There is so much negative information that has come out this year it’s overwhelming. There have been times when I wonder, do any of my dreams matter anymore or should I just save every dime I have for land and learn as much as possible about becoming self-reliant?

I go back and forth between kicking myself for not traveling more before all the restrictions and reminding myself that God is bigger than this. If He created a world this beautiful and diverse, then He intended for me and my family to see it when the time is right.

A few weeks ago my husband and I made the decision to purchase a mini school bus to convert it into a camper. This was honestly a long time coming and it is honestly a symbol of hope for my family.

It will likely take us six months to a year to get our little bus road ready and comfortable for our soon-to-be family of four. I hope that this is enough time for things to settle out and domestic travel to be easy once again.

Funny how at the beginning of 2020 I publicly announced my plan to worldschool my kids. I am not going to give up on this goal.

I think now more than ever, it is important to define personal goals for the future. A huge part of happiness is having something to dream about and work hard for. We all need that in 2020!

Final Thoughts

For the most part, I try not to share too many unrelatable personal experiences because my goal with this blog is to take a hard problem share an easy natural solution or two.

I am sharing this today because it is what is on my heart. I personally need more heart right now and less of people telling me what to do.

I have a whole que of half-written articles that aren’t ready for anyone to read and honestly, probably won’t be for a little longer.

I am having another baby soon and anxiously waiting the return of my beloved husband from deployment. Some days feel like all I can do is take every hour as it comes.

I wish you peace, good health, and to continue the pursuit of happiness. Take care of yourself and those you love.

Cheers.