I remember around my fourth month as a stay at home mom, my therapist asked me if I had finished my book—a project I was working on prior to giving birth. I was flabbergasted. How could I?! I was a mother now. I had a mouth to feed and nursery rhymes to sing. There was no time for betterment of myself. When you take on the role of mother it means you sacrifice. Besides, what could be better than wandering around town with my baby all day?

Turns out, therapists get paid a lot because they have incredible foresight. It wouldn’t be long before I found myself longing for something more stimulating than my child. At the end of most days I felt washed out and exhausted. I had done everything, yet nothing at all. I had been in constant motion, but never used my mind. By the time my son was born, the story times and play dates had lost all novelty. You couldn’t pay me enough to sing ba ba black sheep again.

This is what happens when women spend an exorbitant amount of time focused on just one thing—a child, a job, a number on a scale. We are obsess-ers. We are also notorious for pouring all of ourselves into another person, namely our children, without asking much in return.

But the truth is, we were women before babies, and we’ll be women after. But we also have to make room to be women DURING the child raising too.

Don’t let yourself slip away.

She’s your most valuable commodity, and the key to true, everlasting contentment.