Priorities & Reflections on the birth of my Medicinal Mushrooms Shop

I made a friend recently who shared with me her priorities. She said first was her elderly parent , second her business and third her husband. I immediately thought in my head. Oh that's interesting that her business comes before her husband (family) , but she also doesn't have children. I immediately pondered my own priorities and remembered that I had just told my husband that my top priority is definitely our children, then him , then my business and household duties. But as I thought about it I wondered , is this true ? Are my children truly my priority ? How do I know ? How do I determine that? Then I questioned if this was ideal. ( in the back of my mind I thought , of course it is obvious that I should prioritize my children/family first ) but , do I? As my little business is slowly...slowly taking off , it's easy to think that I definitely must be prioritizing the kids , or my business would be doing better. But if I'm honest with myself, I don't think I actually am truly prioritizing them. I have always been a bit of a workaholic and to not being consistently making money has been very hard for me as I've stepped into motherhood. I worked during Zephyr's first 2 years of life from home , thinking that it was worth it to make some extra money, and that it wasn't putting any strain on him , since we needed the money. But I'm sure it was not the most ideal thing for me to be on my phone so much. When Summhyr was born I made a decision. I quit the work from home job , even though we did still need the money. But I wasn't feeling fulfilled with it and I also wasn't sure how I could handle 2 children and a job. I know many people do it , with even more children. And they do it well. Without sacrificing their children's wellbeing, I'm sure. But we all have to decide what works best for us. A miraculous thing happened when I quit. My husband got a huge promotion , and shortly after that my herbal business was born. It was during winter when I made the decision. We had all gotten sick at the same time and it was awful. I had been hearing about the amazing power of Medicinal Mushrooms for a while , and I had started taking a Reishi tincture a few weeks before Summhyr was born. I heard more and more about how these mushrooms can boost your immune system , preventing illness, cancer and just helping to strengthen the reservoir within your body that contains your vital forces. Ive always believed mushrooms to be one of the most amazing things on tbe planet , just realizing how they are literally directly connected to Mother Earth through their mycelial network. I went to a community class recently put on by a local grower of gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and we all discussed how we believe mushrooms possibly are from other planets , possibly sent by aliens, or our future selves or something, who knows ? There's so many theories , but one thing is certain : they're very useful, intelligent and probably the future saviors of our world. There's a lot of reason why I say all this, and I could probably write several different blogs about all the different benefits and ways that mushrooms have shown their benefits. But the one I'm most interested in currently is the medical side, the info coming out about all the possibilities of using them in the medical world in the future , in terms of replacing antibiotics and many other things. But most of all, anecdotal evidence. Especially from my own experience and from people I have sold them to. One customer of mine was having a lot of issues with her oxygen saturation. Especially at night. They had given her different prescription meds to try that she said didn't seem to be working, and she was not happy about the side effects that were included in the product description. I mentioned to her that the Reishi that I formulate is Especially beneficial for the respiratory system, lungs and helping build up your tank that houses all your vital forces. I gave her a bottle to try for free because she was unconvinced. But she was really happy to announce a few weeks later that she was doing much better. Recently I asked her how she was doing and she said she had forgot her Reishi on a trip and now she was back to square 1. Feeling awful again. It's interesting how the mushrooms work , they have such subtle effects that you don't notice how good they are until you stop them , usually. I figure no reason to , I'd rather not find out. I'm much happier with resilient immune systems and calmer kids.

Back to the topic of priorities though, basically I have taken a good look at how my actions actually reflect my priorities. I decided I probably was focusing a little too much on work and business building and not enough on my children. I still want to grow my business , but as my husband has told me , it will happen organically as it needs to. Everyone talks about how the hours are long but the days are short when it comes to children , and I really don't want to regret not prioritizing my babies. Something I've struggled with in regards to this though is how exactly do I prioritize them ? Because it is never black and white , it's always changing and flowing depending on the day and what's going on. Some days the priority is to take care of myself so I can show up for them mentally and physically and that's what I struggle with. It's so much easier to have an all or nothing martyr type mindset and make the decisions as follows : "hmm, I really could benefit from doing some stretching in the sun, but my kids are asking me to do this or that with them , and I did make a promise to prioritize them. Wrong ! It doesn't always mean that we as mothers have to do exactly what they're wanting in every moment. It's dance to figure this out , to still prioritize ourselves from time to time so our cup is full enough to give them the love they deserve. And I think this is ultimately the best way to prioritize them, is to make sure we are loving ourselves also, so that we can love them fully.