How to Stop Stressing and Start Thriving as a Single Mom

Regardless of how or why you've become a single parent, it's an incredible blessing to have a child you can love and raise. Married for 26 years, I never expected to become a mom flying solo with eight kids, but life happens. I learned many valuable lessons when I went from married-with-children to single-working-mom juggling an entirely new lifestyle. Here are five life-changing ways to embrace your role as a single parent and tips for achieving them.

Accept your single-parent circumstances

After 26 years of marriage, I found myself facing the terrifying prospect of being a single mom. I'd been a stay-at-home mom for the majority of that time, so not only was I facing a new lifestyle without a partner living under the same roof, but I was also physically caring for my eight kids mostly by myself. Not the turn I thought my parenting journey would take!

I had two choices—sink or swim. Thankfully, I love the water.

I chose to accept where I was in my life and parent from a place of love, not fear. Though it wasn't what I had envisioned when I started my parenting journey, caring for my family in a new realm was my greatest priority. After all, my kids didn't choose this, so it was up to me to make their new circumstances as comfortable as I could. And that started with acknowledging and accepting those circumstances, myself.

How to achieve it

Feel the emotion of your pain and loss and let it strengthen you. Our past pain is a part of our journey. 

The most important part of pain is rejecting the victimhood status. Don't focus on what has already happened, and don't be tempted to ask 'why me,' instead focus on the power you have at this very moment and where it could take you tomorrow.

Mohadesa Najumi, Three Surprising Reasons Why Emotional Pain Is Power

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