22nd April 2025 - Mama Guilt, Behind The Scenes Reflection

Amber Cherelle (00:00):

Hello, beautiful souls and welcome to today's takeaway and contemplation. So this one isn't necessarily wholly business focused, and I guess you could call it more of a behind the scenes, but this is all to do with letting go of guilt around the time that you either spend in your business or time that you spend with your family. So as you know, this past weekend, we had Easter Sunday, and I am not ashamed to say that I did not spend Easter Sunday with my children shock horror. So Easter Sunday, my children actually went and spent the day with my mom and my brothers and my grandmother, and they had a wonderful Sunday roast and lots of fun and play and all of those gorgeous things. And I could have joined them, I could have absolutely joined them for that. But they'd actually been at my mom's house for two nights and I decided to use one of those days for my self-care to relax, to rest, to catch up on sleep, to refuel, to read some things that I wanted to read and just really have a day for me.

(01:07)
And then the following day, which was the Easter Sunday, I decided that I was going to get a headstart on my week for work because the children still have three days off school, or no, two days off school, should I say before they went back on Wednesday. So I wanted to make sure that I could spend those two days in the best way possible with them before they returned to school and we could be prepared for that. So I spent Easter Sunday creating content for the next two weeks to make sure that I had plenty of content to go out. I spent it recording and catching up with clients and making a plan for my next couple of weeks to ensure that my launch went smoothly and I could reach some of my business goals. And there was a part of me that little in a critic that said, but this is Easter.

(01:57)
This is supposed to be the day that families spend together. And there was another part of me, the very values-based part of me that says, Easter isn't something that's always been part of my value system. There are lots of other days in which we gathered together as a family. There are lots of other moments such as birthdays that I value a lot more than I do Easter. We personally aren't religious. I don't have any connections, religious connections with Easter. And for most of my life, Easter's just been about eating lots of chocolate. Eggs resonate. So it wasn't that important. And the kids were really happy to be with their grandmother. And so I took a moment to catch that thought when it came in and just noticed it. I didn't do anything extra special. I just noticed the thought and asked myself, is that actually true?

(02:46)
Is it true that I must spend Easter Sunday with my family? Is it true that they're missing out? If I don't, is it true that I should be holding guilt or shame around this? And the answer to that was ultimately, no, this isn't a truth at all. This is a societal paradigm, a societal conditioning that I've held onto and that I've picked up upon. And that, if I'm not careful, would take me out of my own personal alignment because I was excited to create content and I was excited to spend that time to myself, and I was excited to be prepped for the week ahead. And that's what felt really good for me in my body and soul. And so that's what I did. Catching these thoughts, catching the inner critic, catching the words of conditioning from Pastor authority figures in our lives is so important to helping us to have the life that we desire.

(03:39)
I was going to say balance there, but it's not always about balance in equal measure, it's about balancing quality of the time that we invest into the things that we do. So one of the reasons that I loved having Easter Sunday to record content, it's because there is nobody else in the house. There is no distractions there. It is peaceful, it is quiet. So there's no background noise to the recordings. I was able to focus and concentrate and get things done in a much shorter space of time at a higher quality than I would have if I was rushing during school hours, in between client calls and all of those things. So capitalizing on this time was actually really beneficial, more efficient, more effective, and it was definitely a quality over quantity kind of moment. So balance doesn't always mean equal measure. Balance means that we are able to prioritize the things in our life that we truly value, that we truly care about, that are truly aligned for us at a depth of quality.

(04:38)
That means that we get to fully enjoy it all. And so today, I get to fully enjoy all of the beautiful moments that I have with my family and all of the beautiful moments that I have with the academy students later on today. And I get to be fully immersed in those things knowing that other important tasks in my business have already been taken care of. To me that is worth everything. And I absolutely value that. And my health and wellbeing is intact because of the day that I spent nurturing myself as well. So this is just a behind the scenes moment of how easily and quickly we can change our beliefs, how easily and quickly we could let them take over if we're unaware of them. Notice how you feel. I noticed first was that sense of guilt. That feeling of guilt for me is not conducive to how I want to experience my life. So I had to pay attention to it. What was it trying to tell me? And ultimately, I found that it was showing me that I was holding onto belief systems that no longer serve me, and it was time to let them go. You get to do that for yourself too, and it doesn't have to take you more than a few minutes, but you do have to have your conscious awareness and intentions in the right place.