The Brutiful Truth of Motherhood

Rolling into the new school year like 💪💥

I’ve loved this time with them.

AND.

Summer and the always-shifting-routine + togetherness + siblings-in-each-other’s-spaces is HARD.

H-A-R-D.

I spent a good chunk of my time on social over these past few weeks reading (read: sobbing) my way through the posts of mama’s who are deep in the transition of what has to be the hardest level of letting go on this motherhood journey.

Sending their babies off to college. 

I cannot even imagine it. And. I do. I’ve calculated the number of years. The number of summers we have *left.*

The months + weeks + days + minutes until they fly this nest.

And, for a recovering perfectionist, it can be a brutal trap.

To hold myself to the impossible + joy-sucking standard of perfection. Of enjoying EVERY minute, because it flies.

{taking it in the most literal sense}

When I start to feel irritated by the sibling fighting, the pulls of perfection tell me — I’m not allowed. They won’t be here forever.
.
When I need to take space to recharge my soul the pulls of perfection tell me — I’m wasting time. I’m missing out.

The pulls of perfection use the stories + wise words of women who are walking this path ahead of me as weapons + fuel for the inner critic.

A critical voice who tells me all the ways I’m not enough.

This level of hyper-vigilance + always-being-ON. Of soaking in every.single.minute.

It’s not real life.

And when I’m sitting in it - feeling the weight of doing it all ‘right’ - I end up missing out on the very thing I’m seeking.

Joy. And, fulfillment.

Because I become hyper focused on all the ways I’m not enough.

I’m calling bullshit. On the inner critic. And the pulls of perfection.

And, giving myself {and if you need it, YOU} permission to feel all-the-freaking-things I’m feeling WITHOUT judgement.

Riding the waves. Instead of staying stuck at the shore, thrashing about, trying to feel + look + act a certain way.

Because, I know as soon as I release that idealized version of the way I’m supposed to be (says who?!) — I can breathe again.

Because, there is no winning when perfection drives.

When we ride the waves instead of fight them, we quite literally soar.

Samantha Arsenault Livingstone is an Olympic Gold Medalist, high-performance coach, transformational speaker and mother of four girls. She is the founder of Livingstone High Performance, LLC. and the Rise Free Academy. 

Samantha helps female athletes and working women to cultivate the habits, mindset and skill set needed to quiet the noise and unapologetically step into their light, so they can achieve, AND feel fulfilled along the way.

Samantha earned a master’s in education and spent six years teaching science at Norcross High School in Gwinnett County, Georgia. In 2014, after a traumatic and perspective-shifting experience involving her young daughter, she took a leap into the world of entrepreneurship to live her dream.

Samantha candidly shares her battles with her inner critic, depression, perfection, PTSD and parenting as a working mother because she believes in the transformative power of story – and the strength that comes from knowing we are not alone. She is on a mission to pay forward all that she’s learned to help others find joy and live free.
  
A mama of heart warrior and mama of twins, Samantha and her husband, Rob, live in the Berkshires with their four girls. You can learn more about Samantha at www.samanthalivingstone.com.