Reducing Anxiety as a Homemaker| 5 Tips & Spiritual Armor

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Hello Friends!

I hope you are well and enjoying gorgeous spring weather. The kids and I cleaned out our small garden area at our rental and planted lettuces and radish. It is still a bit early to plant everything here. Even though we are currently in a small rental, we are very much focused on cultivating contentment and joy thus reducing anxiety in daily Homemaking. Here are tips and inspirational verses that help me get through the hard times. I hope they help you too.

We are in the thick of planning and preparing to build a new home. I know many of you are in a similar stressful place. There is so much happening in the world. Change and stress is certainly not unfamiliar territory to any of us.

I have been meditating on a few things this week to keep me PATIENT and reduce my anxiety with all the tasks and decisions to come.

NEWS FLASH: I am not good at patience. Instant gratification is the name of MY game . . . tell me I’m not alone??

When I get to thinking too much about timelines and all the details of life, nagging stress and anxiety creeps in . . . here are some tips to combat that.

5 Tips to Reduce Anxiety as a Homemaker:

1. Live for today (take it ONE day at a time and save tomorrow’s worries and tasks for TOMORROW!)

You can only do so much in one day. Prioritize what needs to happen today and let everything else go. So often I stress myself over EVERYTHING that needs to get done in a week or a month and just sit in overwhelm and get nothing done. . . do you experience this “paralysis by analysis”??

((HAND RAISED))

I find so often if I break things up, do the small thing that needs done today, and just repeat the process the next day. . . . after a week, I am amazed at all that I have accomplished!. . . (I’m a slow learner)

It is likely that tomorrow you will feel better and be able to get even more accomplished. I am amazed at how well this turns out every time I do it.

((AGAIN, slow learner))

2. Plan & Dream but be CAUTIOUS:

I do find that planning, dreaming and designing our homes or futures is really helpful and actually necessary to a point. Creating Pinterest boards and Mood Boards, writing lists and filling in the planners can be a very inspiring and a productive use of time.

Be careful though! Too much of this can lead to feelings of DIS-contentment, disappointment at what you don’t have done yet and *GASP* . . . Envy.

I personally have to limit my dreaming and planning and remember to be grateful for where I am and what I have NOW.

3. Practice Contentment & Be Present:

I have to be very careful to put away social media, my planners, checkoff lists, etc and remember to look my people in the eye, tell them I love them, ask about their day and their needs.

Our families and homes are our jobs. This is WHY we are here on earth after all. I encourage you to consider YOUR WHY and really focus on nurturing it or them . . . whatever it may be.

Be sure to stop, open your eyes, look up from your phone or work and FULLY experience the abundant blessings of a home and family. . . even if your home or family situation isn’t EXACTLY what you had envisioned for yourself.

4. Practice Gratitude:

Daily gratitude can really change our whole outlook. On days when I feel really crabby about the slowness of the process or the cramped living area or needy kids . . .or husband . . .*ahem*. . .

STOP and remember “I AM GRATEFUL”

I am grateful for a safe and secure home. I am grateful to have children who need me. I’m grateful for a Husband who loves me and wants to share in all my crazy adventures.

Be grateful for the dishes to wash, it means you have food to eat. Grateful for kid toys everywhere, it means you have children to love and nurture.
Grateful for piles of laundry to do because that means you have clothes to wear.

Whatever it is, flip your negative mindset to one that’s positive and grateful. It really helps improve your perspective and attitude.

Write it down if you need to: the kids and I have done this on slips of paper and kept them in a jar. I have kept notes in my phone and also in a journal.

I am in the phase of life where I just do mental gratitudes and that is FINE.

5. Exercise

I cannot tell you how helpful this has been for me. I’m not talking marathon running or anything here.

Don’t make excuses . . . I promise most days you will think of a reason or 20 NOT to exercise and why you are too busy. Just get out no matter the weather and get fresh air and MOVE YOUR BODY.

Getting your heart rate up a bit is helpful to release all those good endorphins and “feel good” hormones. Just walking is helpful. . .

I took advantage of nap time or home school breaks or my husband’s offer to hold down the fort and took just 30 minutes to clear my head, move my body and get fresh air.

You will find yourself doing a lot of peaceful and even creative thinking.

Try it. . . commit to doing 3 days of daily OUTSIDE EXERCISE and see if you too don’t feel better with less anxiety. . . believe me the stressors and requirements of life are still there but somehow they just feel more manageable.

Reducing Homemaking Anxiety: 10 of my FAVORITE verses to arm myself for hard times.

Lamentations 3: 22-23
Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 

Matthew 6:28-34
So Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like on of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will HE not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying "What shall we eat?: or "What Shall we drink" or "What shall we wear?" For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about it's own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 

Psalms 139: 14-15
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest pars of the earth. 

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline.

II Corinthians 12:9
And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Colossians 3:2 
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things. 

Philippians 4:6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 

Luke 12: 22-25
Then He said to His disciples, Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have  neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much or value are you than the birds? And which of you by working can add on cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?

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