The Motherhood Center

Dear Reader,

The other day I woke up with a pinched nerve in my back–oh and I have so much to do! The pain was shooting into my neck and head, and my shoulders kept getting stiffer. Great! I have so much to do! …didn’t buy any Christmas presents yet; I guess no Christmas this year?

…why am I having this pain? I try to exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and eat well, although sometimes skipping breakfast (and/or lunch), what else do I need to do? Oh yeah! Breathe!!!

Why are holidays so stressful? I consider myself a pretty calm, laidback person, but the holiday season always gets to me. And of course my New Years resolution starts with… “I will take care of myself, find time every day to meditate, and breathe”. I even have in my blackberry reminders set (appointments) for myself — “take time for yourself”. So why am I not doing it? I usually click “dismiss.” I truly believe there is some chain reaction with stress during the holidays. Everyone casually talks about stress during holidays–what happened to us!?

Wouldn’t it be better to simply enter the holiday season with smiles on our faces, breath deeply enjoying all the great smells of trees, hot wassails and chocolate, and move through the day and evening without all the feeling of tension, hurry, and running out of time?

I can’t tell you how many emails I received about how to avoid holiday stress, how to meditate, but ironically I don’t have time to read them all! Well, let me stop here, because I’m getting even more stressed just writing about all this holiday stress. So I guess before my body crashes, my back gets any stiffer and my breathing gets any shallower … why don’t I start my New Year resolution right now… Ok…. I’m taking a few deep breathes, turning off the TV, not answering email/text/phone calls, lighting a candle, making myself a hot cup of tea and giving myself 10 min of quietness, stillness, and try not to think about anything — just be still for 10 minutes. I deserve that. We all deserve that … it’s not that much to ask of ourselves-is it? Just 10 minutes out of 1440 minutes in a day?

Happy Holidays and give yourself the “gift of giving to yourself.”

Sincerely,
Gabriela Gerhart

By Gabriela Gerhart

Dear Reader, I must confess that this blog was due to start a few months ago, but due to my confusion on what to write about I’ve been very hesitant to start. I didn’t know where to begin — relationship, friendship, grandparents, recreating “the village”, new addition to family, motherhood, etc.

I feel like there’s so much to blog about! I’m extremely fortunate to have a very exciting life, great husband, and a big loving family, although half of them live in the Czech Republic where I’m from.

I decided to start with this fun story about one of my passions — snowboarding. Gary (my husband) & I went to Big Bear, California for Thanksgiving to spend the holidays in the mountains with my two stepsons. Big Bear is a semi-desert mountain area of California, about two hours from LA.

We had a great time cooking. All three of them are very good chefs, so they fight over who is cooking, which I’m very happy about because all I needed to do was “clean”; and let me tell you, when you have three creative minds in the kitchen it can really be a lot of work…the clean up I mean.

On Saturday morning we had a great surprise; about six inches of snow! So we went sledding. I haven’t done that for years! I would like to encourage anyone who has a chance to do something from their childhood to do it – you must … it’s very uplifting.

The next day we woke up and had an additional six inches of snow. How fun! So we went snowboarding. I love snowboarding! Growing up in the mountains of the Czech Republic, we were skiing every chance we got – not so much in Houston, Texas! To be honest, I was a bit … (scratch that) …quite nervous… it’s been a few years and I did have thoughts that I might not bounce as well. But we went. The boys had plenty of snowboarding gear for me. The snow was fluffy, the temperature great — so there was really no excuse… well I’m sure I could come up with something, but I didn’t. I was scared that I forgot how to do it. I was nervous about getting on the lift and didn’t want to embarrass myself…well let me tell you, I had so much fun!!! I felt like I was 16 again; I hadn’t forgotten; it was just like “riding a bike again” (and all those clichés). The views from the ski slopes were incredible. There were not too many people so we were really able to enjoy ourselves. I must say that from the hundreds of snowboarders (97% male), I was the 3rd oldest person there, and no, I do not have issues w/ getting older…yet…

The whole time I’d been putting gear on and snowboarding, I was thinking about blogging. So I guess my gab with this story is to live life, have fun with your family, and enjoy this holiday season.

By Gabriela Gerhart