5 HABITS THAT EVERY BRIDE SHOULD DO TO IMPROVE HER EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH BEFORE THE I DO’S
In the last blog, I was sharing with you some ideas that you can start implementing in your life to give a boost to your mental health. A bride-to-be needs to start investing in her mental health because unfortunately, bad things will happen to all of us. Many wives feel out of touch and balance when things start to crumble in the marriage. Husband loses his job, some of them receive a bad medical diagnosis, parents’ disabilities, financial misfortunes, pandemics, and things like that can happen to all of us. Actually, it is 100% statistically proven that all of us will have to face disappointments, bad news, and injustices in life. We should not wait until we are in crisis to start practicing good habits to heal but we can start practicing good habits so that when bad things happen in our marriage, the fall will not be that crushing.
When we have good habits our resilience to face trauma or crisis is greater and the time for recovery is shorter.
This is why I decided to continue sharing with you more good habits that you can start practicing today and that will help you to start building the marriage of your dreams before the I do’s
Try new things
Once you get married, eventually, you will get to the pre-engagement emotional state. I can almost guarantee you that in your marriage, there will be times(very few actually) you will feel lost about your identity and even your meaning in life. This is why it is imperative to make an introspection about yourself in order to know yourself more before the wedding.
Maybe you weren’t born yet but times in the 90s were still quiet. Going to the library to do homework was part of the living; we waited for the ice cream cones truck every afternoon, we played in the streets, we made and flew kites, and we made most of our Christmas ornaments for home at school. I can’t help but thank the Lord because I had a very happy childhood despite the brokenness that surrounded my parents. But then came the 2000s, and suddenly, libraries went almost broke, and everything became so fast as we were learning about DOS, windows, and all that stuff.
Little by little our society became faster and faster to the point that after the pandemic, many people are still wondering who they are.
Brides tend to adopt the “being a bride” label as part of their identity especially when planning takes longer than six months. Suddenly, the wedding is over, they come from the honeymoon and they are still expecting to continue being treated as the start of the show for years and years. This simple act can make a woman depressed for weeks but I have great news for you: Your identity will be upgraded to wife, then to mom, and yes, then to grandma. You will wear many hats and it is going to be normal that once in a while you will feel lost about your identity, especially in the times when new seasons begin. Yes, there will be different seasons in marriage like in life you know.
Trying new things is a way to explore yourself a little further. I refer to those things that your little you always wanted to do but because of money or your parent's permission, you never tried...These things can be learning to sew, learning or improving a new language, learning to cook, soap and candle making, having a small business, being a blogger, and whatever ideas you have in mind.
Since Facebook appeared in our lives we started caring more about others’ lives than ourselves. We are experts to tell others how to live their lives(like life coaches) but we are a mess handling ours. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Matthew 7:3
It is very uncomfortable when people ask us what we like in life because we simply don’t know ourselves. Why don’t start knowing yourself before the I Do? One of the most common conflicts that couples experience in marriage is miscommunication. Many brides-to-be dared to marry expecting the husband will be the genie that will solve all of their desires and emotional needs. “My man will guide my life, he will protect me, and he will tell me who I am and what to do”. They think.
The problem is that you had more than 10 years from puberty to now to work on that answer. But! Don’t worry, if you missed the homework, you can still work on it ;)
Your husband will never solve the problems that you need to solve by yourself because marriage is not to solve your problems but is an act of love and serving. If you have the mentality that I deserve this or that. Please, don’t marry yet. Work on you and ask the Lord to give you the servant's heart. I know it sounds outdated but it is very true. It is your responsibility to look for ways to be happy, grateful, and joyful not your husband’s. Your husband can not tell you who are you and what you need to do in order to feel good every day but Jesus will.
A bride-to-be needs to know herself before the I dos. By trying new things, you can know what are those things that you really enjoy doing.
When you continue doing the things you like to do, you are investing in your mental health, and your brain loves it. When days are bad'; when work is not the same anymore, when you can not handle your husband's behaviors, and when you have to choose between your career or being a stay-at-home mom, those investments will help you enjoy the life season you will be in.
Invest in your bathroom
Oh my, this is one of the best advises I can offer you to keep you sharp. Start practicing having real showers! Prescribe for you a long shower at least once a week.
Once a bride-to-be is married, they quickly forget to take long baths(especially when they become moms); they forget about the bath bombs, salts, night skincare routine, shaving, fragrances, and all those cool things they used to do in the bathroom.
Make of your bathroom a little spa, a place where you can rest. Hang ornaments on the walls, place living plants, and why not books and magazines?
Invest in skincare and body products, candles, and whatever comes to your mind because your bathroom experience will help you to have a sound mind.
You will use your bathroom for sex( actually, some of your children will probably be begotten there, just to say :)or just to have “me” time.
The bathroom will be that friend that will hide you from the kiddos just to eat a snack.
Sometimes, you will cry there, but most of the time, you will use it to pray, especially when things get rough in the marriage.
I am not trying to discourage you about marriage, it will be awesome, the best thing in life, but as with everything good in life, it will come with its share of bad days, discouragement, anger, and tantrums topped with forgiveness. So, it's worth the investment ;)
Become a book reader
Oh, yeah! I never understood why my mom was always reading in her free time. She was most of the time reading the Bible, but there were other books in between. Now that you are a bride-to-be, try to stop scrolling down on your cell phone just a little bit and buy good real books to read. If you buy ebooks, please, print them and enjoy them on paper with a hot cup of coffee, cocoa, tea, or whatever you like.
Books help us get experience from other people who experienced the same difficulties we are experiencing now. we can learn from their stories and experiences.
Books help us relax, and we can travel around the world through them. Books have the power to heal most of our emotional wounds although it takes time to feel the goodness inside of you. And just between friends, they are cheaper than therapy.
Your Books will be a little inheritance for your future children! So if you think you are wasting your money, my dear, you are already investing in the future of the next generation.
Journaling
Journaling is an art that I learned many years ago when I got married. Through journaling, people can discharge some uncomfortable emotions. It can help to release trauma and stress from the brain, too.
I always recommend flushing out painful emotions and situations in the journal and writing the daily things you are grateful for. You can write the significant milestones you want to remember and the past experiences where you saw God's hand moving in your life. Going to the past is not that bad when you look for the positive, you will always come back happy.
We are prompt to forget those red seas that the Lord has opened for us in the past, and we quickly become very ungrateful for the abundance we are experiencing in the present. Remember, many of the things and moments you are experiencing today are the answer of the prayers in your past.
A pre-wedding journal is an excellent idea for a bride-to-be. A bride can write all the process of getting married, vent all her frustrations, and write all of the positive and vibrant emotions she feels. She can also write those hand of God moments she experienced before the wedding. It's beautiful when a wife opens her bride-to-be's journal later on the first anniversary. It will be a perfect time to remember what God has done for them in the past. This experience will bless your marriage beyond what you can imagine.
Writing a thankfulness journal is an excellent investment to strengthen your mental health!
Go out!
I don't think it is suitable even for introverts to stay disconnected from others, and I don't think it is wise not to be comfortable when alone, too.
If you are extroverted, you will not have so much trouble with this advice, but if you are introverted, you will need to start practicing this. It would help if you learned to take vacations.
When I talk about vacations, I refer to taking one day every week to rest. We live in a society that runs and does not know how to walk. Many women stop this rush in life just when they experience a nervous breakdown or when a bad medical report has been received. In marriage, this issue is one of the major causes that lead to burnt-out, especially in women. It looks like resting is taken as an act of unproductivity or laziness.
When married, don't forget to continue going on a date even when you have kids. Go to new restaurants, malls, and cities and get to know new people and cultures. Stay a couple of days in a hotel or just one afternoon in the park to think, relax, and see nature. Although there is no lovely place like home, vacationing is essential for you and your husband. Take the rest that The Lord commanded for you: "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest. "Exodus 34:21
What about that?
I was one of those home lovers even before marriage. I had the fortune to have a lovely mother who cooked all my meals for me and continued being in charge of my laundry until I was ready to marry. I did not need vacations because I had a break every time I came home from work. When you are married, things can get into a routine, and taking the time to rest is vital to avoid burning out in the years to come when you don't feel that young.
Please, do not fall into the trap of wanting everything at once when you marry. I know you want to have a beautiful house, you want to continue your master's or Ph.D., and you want to change your old car. So, you will face this temptation to take overtime and start working like crazy because you consider yourself young to do this. The thing is that our energies are limited, and if you are overworking, you will give your spouse what is left of you after coming from working overtime. Please resist the temptation to accept overtime work at night and on the weekends because what it looks like temporal will make a habit in your brain and will take forever for you to escape the trap.
Be wise and do your best at work but spend the night doing whatever pleases you, talk to your husband, have dinner together, watch a movie and take your weekends to go outside to the mountains or the beach.
You will need to make this a habit to continue doing this when the children come. Remember, many marriages divorce in the first seven years after the first baby is born. Most people that choose to divorce do this not because they don't love the person they married but because they are tired and burnt out. They want to breathe, but to this point, the amygdala of the brain has already taken control and lost the capacity to reason. I would always say that if you would take those people on vacation for a couple of weeks and start following a plan where they stop working overtime and take just one day at the week for rest, they would still be together.
Sometimes, neglection in the marriage is the problem. And I am not talking about the partner but ourselves. We neglect ourselves and believe that our energies will never be spent, so we do too much every day.
"But few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:42
Choose the best part, and you will have a rewarding marriage!
Investing in all of the items above will never mean that your life and marriage will be perfect, but it means that you will be very sound-minded when trouble comes, and you will have the capacity to recover in a fewer time. We must take care of our mental health every day and not wait until a crisis starts to look for help.
What do you do to take care of your mental health? What is that you enjoy doing every day? Have you learned the art of resting?
