How Date Night Transformed My Life {& Biz}
Abundance, Yogipreneur{Guest Blog I Wrote for Allison Braun, aka The Bedroom Joyologist}
Spoiler Alert! Yes, you CAN have it all!
I know that’s a pretty big claim. A year ago, I would have never truly believed this, even though I desperately wanted to. In August of 2010, I was an exhausted, sleep deprived, leaky boobed new mama of twins who was feeling frustrated in so many areas of my life.
As much as I loved being a new mama and adored my babies, I felt so completely isolated. My husband was driving 90 minutes each way to work every day, so I was on my own with the babies 14 hours at a time. This quickly turned into feeling unappreciated and resentful towards the man who had been my best friend for almost 10 years.
Sweet little family. Notice the jammies? Wearing jammies all day is like having an anti-sexy force field around you. Which may explain why I felt so frump-tastic that first year.Just sayin'.
Needless to say, Sexy Time wasn’t even on my radar.
My business, The Yogipreneur, was put on hold when the twins were born. Thankfully, I had a couple long term clients who gave me the freedom to stay home with my twins their entire first year, but my exhaustion and buildling frustration preventing me from planning how I was going to manage running a business and being a mama when we blew out their first birthday candles in January.
Then the babies started sleeping through the night. {Hooray!}
Fuzzy-brained exhausted mama got some much needed sleep.
We finally found a house only a 20 minute drive from the school where my husband teaches.
By the time we moved into our new home right before Christmas, things were starting to fall into place. Without the long commute, we were able to co-parent, both of us equally taking care of the kids. Those 15 hours a week my husband had been spending in the car were now given back to me to focus on relaunching my business as I came off a year-long maternity leave {but trust, I was WORKIN’}.
The feelings of unappreciation and resentfullness dissapated as we settled into our new routine as a family. Mama time with babies in the morning while Daddy is at work, Daddy time with babies while Mama worked in the afternoon. I was able to use my brain again, be creative again, talk to other adults! It was exhilerating!
But something was still missing.
We were both doing great with work – I was THRILLED to be focused on my business again. And we got plenty of time to play with and cuddle the babies.
What we didn’t have was family time or couple time.
And I certainly wasn’t giving myself any time to just kick back and relax. It was kids or work. That’s it.
It was January when I first talked to Allison. Our coaching session was so incredibly powerful — I think it was probably the first time since my children were born that I talked about my needs and desires.
Actually, it may have been the first time since becoming a mama that it really dawned on me that my needs and desires were important! That if Mama isn’t happy, no one is happy.
Happy Mama = Happy Family!
Her recommendation during that first coaching session was simple: DATE NIGHT {to get the full dish on Date Night click here}.
One night a week that was just for the two of us to spend quality time together. Rekindle our relationship just by opening communication and being there for one another. We didn’t even have to leave the house — we could just make dinner together and talk after the babies bedtime {it helps that our twins go to bed at 7PM!}. The key was that we couldn’t retreat into our offices to work.
Thursday nights have been date nights for almost every week of the last 6 months.
Most Thursdays, we just sit down together for a yummy meal and a bottle of wine and find ourselves talking for hours. Kinda like when we first started dating!
Occasionally, we’ll have a babysitter come so we can go out for dinner and browsing through our favorite bookstores {I know, we’re kinda dorky that way}.
But a funny thing started happening. Something I don’t think either of us expected when we started this date night mission.
A huge contention point, managing our household finances, was solved within a few weeks of starting date night. By simply spending more time together and filling each other’s love tank {quality time for me, words of affirmation for him}, we came together as a team to handle our finances.
Even managing our grocery list and meal preparation for the kids became easier — because we had opened up communication and were showing love to each other, we figured out a system for meals and trips to the store {which was a huge frustration and chore for me before}.
We started finding more ways to spend quality time together through the week. Instead of working every single night, I cut back to only a two nights a week in my office. We each give ourselves a night to do whatever we want {he plays cards with the guys, I usually hit up a yoga class with my bestie} and the other nights we spend time together.
Sexy Time is back!
This summer has been simply incredible. With my husband home from work for summer break, he’s given me a huge gift of being able to focus on creating The Yogipreneur’s Guide to Conscious Business Design. And even though I’ve been producing an incredible amount of content {some weeks logging 20+ hours writing}, am working with more people than ever, and am doing talks and guest blogs every month, we still enjoyed trips to play on the playground, running through the sprinklers, and curling up with the babies to read.
Living consciously is designing your life exactly how you always dreamed it could be — then actually living it!
This small shift has helped not only my marriage, but brought my family closer together, fueled my
creativity and passion, and ensured that this is one happy Mama.
All because of a little thing called Date Night.
**special note from Allison – to find out more about Date Night and how to apply it go to www.allisonbraun.ca/the-dish-on-date-night
