How to Create a Family Life You LOVE

Inside: My brand-new book How to Create a Family Life You LOVE is coming soon! Want a sneak peek? Find out what it’s all about in this post where I’m sharing the Introduction…PLUS, find out how to read Chapter One for free WITHOUT having to wait for launch day!

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Have you ever found yourself wishing that life wasn’t quite so stressful? That things would just slow down? You’re not alone! We all want to live a life we love. A life where we get to spend quality time with friends and family. A life where our homes are organised and easy to manage and we’re able to make our own wellbeing a priority WITHOUT feeling guilty. But sometimes, it can be hard to know how to make that happen.

If this is you, don’t despair. I want you to know that whilst it might not seem like it, I promise that whatever struggles you’re going through, it IS possible to make a change for the better. And with the help of my BRAND-NEW book How to Create a Family Life You LOVE, I can show you how. If you want to make family life LESS stressful and MORE enjoyable this book will help. If you want to reduce the overwhelm, take back control and create a life you LOVE, this is THE book for you!

In it, I share some simple steps you can take to not only identify the areas weighing you down but reduce the mental and physical clutter that’s overwhelming you too so that you can love your family, home and self that little bit more.

Now, it’s not quite ready for launch yet…BUT I want to give you a sneak peek so you can see what it’s all about. And so, in this post, not only am I sharing the Introduction with you, I’m also giving you the opportunity to read Chapter One for FREE! Want to know how to get your hands on it? Keep scrolling!

Ready to read the Introduction? Let’s dive in!

How to create a family life you LOVE – the Introduction

Have you ever felt stuck in a rut, frustrated with the family life you’re leading? You’re not alone!

I know exactly what it’s like to wish that things would just slow down. That life wasn’t quite so stressful. That the responsibility of being the wheel that keeps my family turning wasn’t quite so overwhelming and exhausting.

Trouble is, these days life is just SO busy. We crave time with friends and family and time for ourselves, but there’s so much to do ALL the time. We’re so bogged down by all the things that there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Our schedules are bursting at the seams, our homes are overflowing with ‘stuff’ and our phones never stop ringing. We say yes when we know we should be saying no because we don’t want to disappoint and because we worry we might miss out. Wanting to be and do everything for everyone, we’re constantly judging our ability to parent whilst secretly being disappointed by the thought that we’ll never measure up to the person we think we should be.

Pulled every which way, we muddle through from one day to the next, never quite achieving the things we want to achieve. Constantly chasing our tails, we hope that one of the one hundred plates we’re spinning doesn’t get mislaid, forgotten, left behind, or worse, come crashing down.

It’s hardly surprising therefore that the modern-day mum feels like a tightly coiled spring. Frazzled, exhausted and completely overwhelmed, we feel like a hot mess that’s been pushed to our limit. But we can’t stop. There’s just too much to do. There’s no time to spare, no time to switch off or unwind. We HAVE to keep going.

But do we?

What if we stopped? What if we chose to hit the pause button on life and started saying no to all the things that overwhelm us. The things that make our lives complicated. What if we chose to stop buying things we don’t really need and started living in clutter-free homes? What if we chose to put down our phones and started being fully present with our families? And what if we chose to finally start making time for ourselves too? How different would our lives be?

And what if there wasn’t a choice? What if we HAD to stop? What if we were forced, kicking and screaming to just sit. To be still and do nothing as if our life depended upon it?

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me. Something happened that forced me to do just that. To stop, to sit. To let go of all the things I thought mattered and I thought I had to do. Something that forced me to stop because my life DID depend on it.

“I’m so sorry Sarah, but it does look like it’s cancer.”

April 2016, whilst laying in the bath one Sunday evening, I felt a lump in my left breast. Fearing the worst, it took me a couple of days to muster up the courage to go, but I finally went to my doctor. Referred to the breast unit right away, my fears were confirmed. It was cancer.

Nothing can prepare you for the moment when you’re told you have the ‘C’ word. Never will I ever forget that moment. Sitting on the chair next to the bed where I’d just had my ultrasound and biopsy, numb and in shock, trying to comprehend what I’d just been told, I felt like I’d just been handed a death sentence. Instantly, my world was turned upside down and life as I knew it changed in the blink of an eye.

A wife and a mum and step-mum to two boys, I was thirty-six years old and my youngest, Harrison, having only started school the September before, had just turned five. I had no idea how advanced my cancer was and whether it had spread. To say I was terrified was an understatement.

For eighteen months our lives went on hold. I had a mastectomy and reconstruction. My lymph nodes were removed to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread. I went through six rounds of chemotherapy and I lost all my hair – including my eyebrows and eyelashes.

Life became a three-week cycle…

During the first week I was given my chemo drugs and the side-effects would be at their worst. Feeling constantly dizzy and sick, the headaches made my head want to explode and all I wanted to do was sleep. I had to force myself to eat and then try to keep it down. No matter how many times I cleaned my teeth I couldn’t shift the horrible taste in my mouth. And for the first five days of each round, I had to have daily injections in my stomach. They increased my white blood cell count and encouraged my body to keep producing bone marrow, but the side-effect of pain in my joints was excruciating. Weak from the toxins flooding my body, I had no choice but to lay on the sofa whilst life carried on around me.

During week two my immune system would be at its lowest point. I had to be careful about what I did and where I went. I was told to keep away from anyone with a cough or cold. To not touch lift buttons or handrails. To carry anti-bac gel with me wherever I went and if I went to a café, to only drink out of takeaway cups. By week three I’d start to feel a little better. I’d have a bit more energy and could manage a few short walks, but come Monday morning, the cycle would start all over again.

Giving up my independence…

Normally fiercely independent, I felt incredibly helpless and totally out of control. There were so many things I could no longer do that I’d previously taken for granted. Everyday activities like having a shower, getting dressed and going up and down the stairs became a challenge. Unable to do the school run, I had no energy for any of the other ‘mum’ jobs either. That fell to my husband. Overnight he became mum, dad, full-time caregiver, housekeeper and master juggler – all whilst somehow still managing to do his full-time job too. Being his amazing usual self, he took care of me and the boys and did all the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing whilst I watched, rested and prayed that the chemo drugs would do their job.

The fear that my son might have to grow up without his mum, that I’d have to leave everyone behind was immense. Some days it would completely engulf me. I’d lay on the sofa, too weak to move, having to listen to my husband read Harrison his bedtime story and put him to bed without me.

One evening I lay there listening to them having dinner together in the kitchen, talking about their day, about what Harrison had done at school when it hit me:

This is what their life would be like if I wasn’t here. This is what their life would be like if I don’t make it through and my cancer gets the better of me.

Tears rolling down my face, those thoughts changed EVERYTHING. Harrison still had another eleven years of school and thirteen more years until adulthood. It was my job to be there for him, to be his mum, to see him grow up. There was NO WAY I was going anywhere just yet.

Finding the strength to fight…

That day was a huge turning point for me. Somewhere inside, I found the strength and determination to fight. I told myself I could beat this and I vowed that if I did, things would change. I vowed that I would make it my mission to slow things down, to take back control and create a family life we love. A family life that was less stressful and more enjoyable. A family life where I was truly present and I chose quality time together over housework, errands and my never-ending to-do list. No longer would I give priority to all the everyday ‘stuff’ that didn’t matter.

Thankfully, my cancer hadn’t spread. Two years on I’ve made it through to the other side and I’m now in remission. My hair has grown back and my scars, the scars I see in the mirror every single day, are a gentle reminder that I’m stronger than what tried to kill me.

A different person…

Cancer has changed me in ways I can’t even begin to describe. As well as feeling like a totally different person on the inside, I’m different on the outside too. In addition to my scars, I have a new left breast created from muscle and tissue taken from my right thigh and my daily medication has caused me to gain a few pounds.

Externally, my scars have faded fairly quickly, and whilst I’m incredibly grateful for that, I’d be lying if I said it was the same for my internal ones. Emotionally and mentally my internal healing has been a lot slower. I still struggle to comprehend what happened to me and all that my husband and boys went through. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t worry that my cancer will come back and take me away from everyone I love. Every cough, sneeze, headache and stomach pain fills me with dread. I live in constant fear and I don’t know if I’ll ever get past that. But for the sake of my boys and myself, I have to try to push past it. And I make myself push past it.

You see, whilst the physical, mental and emotional side effects of cancer have been incredibly hard to get used to, the bottom line is I’m still here. I’m still alive. I won my fight and I’m here for me, my boys and my husband and I’m determined to make the most – and best – of whatever time I have.

Cancer’s biggest lesson…

My fight with cancer taught me that life is precious and that it goes way too fast. Life as we know it can change in an instant and so many of the things we think of as important actually aren’t. Happiness is a choice and it’s OK to let go of the things that are weighing us down. Being rich isn’t about how much money we have in the bank and nothing matters more than spending quality time with the ones we love.

Cancer forced me to totally re-evaluate what I wanted from life. To make the most of the time I have with my husband and boys and to do what I could to make family life LESS stressful and MORE enjoyable. It made me want to help others to do the same too and so I created A Simple and Contented Life. An online platform that helps busy women all over the world to reduce the overwhelm, take back control and create family lives they LOVE.

Why? Because life might have a habit of throwing us curveballs when we least expect it, but it doesn’t have to mean the end. No matter how tough life might be, no matter what struggles you might be facing, difficulties you might be going through or how frustrated or overwhelmed with life you might be right now, there are things you can do to make a change for the better. I’m doing it and with the help of this book, you can too.

Switching things up…

The fact that you’re reading this means that like me, something has prompted you to want to switch things up. Something has made you want to reduce the overwhelm, take back control and create a life you love. A life you won’t want to take a vacation from. Yes, my story might be a little extreme, but my point is that it doesn’t have to take a diagnosis of cancer to prompt you to want to make a change for the better. You can do it any time you like. We all have the power within ourselves to create a life we love. We just need to say YES.

Maybe you know that you and your family deserve a better quality of life, but you don’t know how to make it happen. Maybe all the mess and clutter has simply got the better of you and you have no idea how to start making your house a home. Or maybe finding time for you feels like mission impossible. You desperately crave five minutes to yourself but when you get it, you don’t know what to do with it and you feel guilty about taking it when there’s always so much to do.

Maybe it’s all of these reasons!

Maybe you’re spinning in circles, juggling all the balls, completely overwhelmed. You’ve got to the point where you can’t take it anymore and know that things have to change. You might not know what you need to change, or how to go about it, but you know that something has to give.

And if that’s the case, I want you to know that by picking up this book, you’re taking the first step.

Switching things up to create a family life you love isn’t as hard as you might think. It’s simply a case of being honest about what you want from your life, of what you want for you AND your family, of being honest about what makes you happy and then taking the steps to make those things happen.

Now you might be thinking, that’s all very well, but I have absolutely no idea where to start and the idea of figuring out what steps to take is completely overwhelming! If that’s the case, don’t worry! This book has everything you need to kick-start creating a family life you love.

We’re about to embark on a journey that’s going to help you create the family life you so desperately crave. Together, we’re going to figure out what really makes you happy. We’re going to figure out what really matters to you most. We’re going to reduce the overwhelm, eliminate the unessential, take back control and start prioritising what matters. We’re going to create a family life you LOVE!

By the end of this book, you will have:

Assessed what you really want from your life.
Identified the areas that are weighing you down.
Reduced the mental and physical clutter.
Reduced the overwhelm and taken back control of family life.

And, you’ll have a solid plan for how to:

Organise home life so it’s easier to manage.
Spend more time with friends and family.
Focus on your own wellbeing – without feeling guilty.
Create a family life you don’t want to take a vacation from.

By following a simple framework that breaks everything down into three easy-to-manage parts. Parts that are referred to in this book as pillars. Pillars that form the foundation upon which my online platform A Simple and Contented Life is built and pillars that are going to help you create – and live – a family life you LOVE. They are:

Love Yourself
Love Your Family, and;
Love Your Home

You’re going to tackle each one in turn, and I’m going to be there with you every step of the way. Come the end of this book, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to start creating a life you won’t want to take a vacation from.

And so, it’s time to step out of a life on autopilot and into one of purpose. It’s time to start creating AND living a family life you LOVE.

Are you ready? Let’s dive in!