10 Things Pregnancy Taught Me About Health, Happiness & Letting Go of Perfection

Dominique Elissa (0:00)

You will never be perfect. It is unattainable. You need to learn to appreciate where you are right now. Welcome to Selfdom, Beautiful Humans. I'm Dominique Alisa, your host, and I'm so grateful you are here. Selfdom is a safe space for meaningful conversations around wellness, nutrition, personal growth, and becoming the best version of you. Welcome back to Selfdom, Beautiful Humans. This week feels like a bit of a pregnancy week, but I'm back and I'm so excited. As I mentioned on Monday, this is going to be the 10 lessons I have learned over the past nine months. So pregnancy is such an eye-opening experience. You're sacrificing so much for this little being in your belly before you've even given birth. I've had some real awakenings on what health really means. I think that's kind of the overarching theme of what this episode will be. So whether you're pregnant, whether you want kids, or whether you are just living your best single life, there is so much to take away from this episode. And I'm really, really excited to share it with you. Okay, I'm going to jump straight in. Number one, ordering the healthiest thing on the menu isn't always the healthiest thing. Okay, I'm going to say that again. Ordering the healthiest thing on the menu isn't always the healthiest thing. So, my old self, if I was going out for food, I would look at the menu in advance and always order the healthiest thing. That's quotation marks.

What's the point of going out for a meal if you're going to order fish and vegetables when you're at a stunning Italian restaurant?

I am saying this because I probably go out once a week for a meal.

It's not like I go out all the time. Yes, if you're someone who gets all your meals out, you do have to be conscious. But if you are like me and you maybe go out with friends once or twice a week, the healthiest thing you can do for yourself is to order the thing that you want and to enjoy it with your friends and to laugh and to not think about the macros in your food. So that was such an eye-opener for me. I think being pregnant really leaned in. Like when we go out for food, I look at the menu and I pick the thing that I want to eat, not because it is the healthiest thing. This is something I'm going to take away postpartum and for the rest of my life and also really embed this in my children. Like pleasure and indulging are all beautiful things of life, and we should not be demonizing certain foods and going out for food. It's literally one of life's greatest pleasures.

My second learning is being a human being is so much better and cooler than being a human doing. Okay, guys, we are in this world of optimization right now. Every single person is waking up at five, going to the gym, counting their macros, going to bed at a certain time, like so, so, so strict. And don't get me wrong, I love routine so much, but you don't need to be doing all the time. Being is more productive in my eyes. So being pregnant, you need to rest a lot more. You need to look after yourself in a more gentler way than maybe before. And I have to say these moments of stillness have allowed creativity to flow out of me. I feel like I'm more present with the ones that I love because I'm just being. When you're someone who is overachieving and wanting to do all the things, you can be at a social arrangement and be thinking about the next thing you've got to do or the workout you're going to do after and this and that. You're not in the moment, you're not present. And I think if you continue living your life like this, constantly doing, you're going to look back and regret it because you were never present. So yeah, I think celebrate just being. You don't always need to look at your phone. You don't always need to be making 100 plans. Like I was that girl on the weekend that would have planned, planned, planned, planned, like didn't ever want to be alone, didn't ever want to be doing nothing needed to do. But now I honestly love like a nap. I love reading a book on the couch and just leaning into that slower phase of life. I feel more connected to the people in my life than ever before because I feel that present peace is such a big part of it. And I think especially in the culture that we live in here, you know, in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, it's very big on optimization. And I think just on social media, I think we really glamorize people who are like burnt out. Like it's seen as something to be super proud of. If you're burnt out, your body is exhausted. You're probably doing too much. You might even get sick. Let's start glamorizing the people who go sit at the beach or sit in a park without a phone, with a book, and just be. My third learning is chasing perfection won't make you happy. My whole life, I think being a model from such a young age is like striving perfection. Like if I had a blemish, if I had this, if I had that, it's like life isn't good.