Do What You Love

My son takes a hip-hop dance class, it’s so fun to watch this group of six to eight-year-old boys flossing and breakdancing. They have attitude and style, I just love it.

Back in January, the studio announced they would offer an adult tap dancing class. As a kid, I tapped for about six years and it was my absolute favorite. During college, I felt such a desire to dance again, so I found a local studio and took a class. That was 17 years ago.

When I heard about the tap class where my son dances, I was excited, but quickly made a whole list of why I shouldn’t do it:

• The monthly tuition.
• I didn’t have tap shoes anymore, so that would be an additional expense.
• The class was on Thursday, our family’s busiest day (with swim lessons for Lila and William’s hip hop class).
• The class was at 9:15 PM, semi-late for this middle-aged mom.

The first week of class I couldn’t be there because of Restore, but the next Thursday rolled around and I was still on the fence. Thankfully, I overheard another hip-hop mom saying she attended and she encouraged me to come. She said not everyone had shoes and I could dance in bare feet.

So I went and danced barefoot and it brought back a spark that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was rusty, not having tapped for the past 17 years, but it was fun! I went out and bought tap shoes and enrolled in the class.

It started out with about a dozen ladies, but in the end, it was just two of us. Several ladies said it was just too late at night for them. A few of them dropped because it was too advanced, our teacher taught at a very high level and a lot of us struggled through it. But I kept going because I realized how happy tapping made me. I made the time for it, even when I was tired, because I loved it.

Taking this tap class reminded me that my fulfillment is important—and to think I almost missed it! Here’s the honest truth, friends: we can make time for the things we love. It’s up to us.

The great Fred Rogers said, “You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully, your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.”

As busy women, we will often put everything and everyone else above ourselves, our needs, wants and passions. We feel like we need permission to spend time on ourselves and even then, we’ll still feel guilty.

But is that really doing anyone any good? Suppressing our true selves in the name of striving and serving other people can make us bitter and resentful. But when we choose time for ourselves, we feel happier and more fulfilled. No one can do this for us, we must choose it for ourselves.

Since this is true, we also choose whether to feel guilty about it, right? I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to play that game anymore. Modeling self-care and soul-care to our families isn’t anything to hide or feel guilty about. It gives our family a better wife and mom! It will teach them to the importance of doing the same in their own lives.

I’d love to help you identify your passions and help you figure out how to make time for them at my upcoming Back to School Breakfast in Chandler on Saturday August 4^th. You can get your ticket here. (Buy before June 30^th and use the coupon code SUBSCRIBER to get $3 off your ticket.)