Constance Hall: "I am me first, a mother second. And I'm not ashamed of that."

Of all the things I believed I was put on the earth to do, this was never it.

I was a hairdresser for 15 years. My passions were writing, painting and singing.

While I was lucky enough to be gifted some mild talents in the creative world, the main gift I was blessed with was different to your everyday skill. I was blessed with the #nof*cks gene, ever since I was a kid.

Watch Constance Hall speak to Mia Freedman on No Filter. Post continues below.

I would hear people whispering, worried about what other people might say or think if someone found out something. It was all so foreign to me. I was much more concerned with doing what I wanted than what someone might think of me.

Now when I say #nof*cks, I mean about the trivial shit: gossip, people’s opinions, family approval.

I suppose I can thank my family for that; we’ve had a strong “as long as you’re happy” vibe since I was born, no family name to disgrace or reputation to live up to. I was free and still am.

I obviously have f*cks to give – I care about people, hurting people, embarrassing people, people that are suffering, animals that are being abused, I even give a f*ck about the planet.

I simply don’t have any f*cks to give towards what’s expected of me. While others chased approval, I chased happiness.

Of course I get hurt when I hear things said about me. I’m human. But I don’t live my life based on how anyone expects me to live it.

 

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A post shared by constanceandtribe (@mrsconstancehall) on Feb 19, 2020 at 4:15pm PST

I didn’t even know that I was unusual, I just thought I was a mad b*tch.

One day a boy from school came up to me and said, “Did you f*ck Jason on the weekend?”

“Yep,” I responded.

“But didn’t you f*ck his best friend Justin the week before?”

“Yep,” I responded.

Mouth wide open, he backed away.

My mate nudged me and said, “What are you doing Con? You haven’t f*cked either of them, you’re going to ruin your reputation!”

“No,” I responded, laughing as I licked my frosty fruit icy pole, “I’m going to ruin theirs.”

And that kind of sums up how I lived my life. I was free of the chains of other people’s opinions. I could study art, travel, come home with nothing, no degree or place to live and always land on my feet.

Then, when I was 25, I found my wings well and truly clipped. I had my first baby. And it’s fair to say I struggled big time.

I was depressed, anxious, exhausted, I lost my identity, my drive, my sleep. I lost me.

Because I’m completely crazy, I went back again and for a second. Now I loved these children, do not get me wrong. I loved and still love my children more than I have words for – they are fun and funny and everything I ever wanted in children.

My issue was with this system. All of a sudden beautiful Constance, creative Constance, hilarious Constance had become a cleaner, a cook, a wife and a mum.

And I wasn’t very good at it.

I struggled for years, I went to see psychologists, I joined forums, read books and just as I was getting my shit back together, starting to feel like me again, found a system that let me work, keep the house reasonably clean and get my creative on, which gave me some sort of identity back… I fell pregnant again. With twins.

 

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Do you know what I’m sick of? My hormones being used against me. If I’m about to get my period, if I’m pregnant, if I’m on a new contraception… It always gets blamed for my shitty mood so that whoever is actually responsible for my shitty mood has a scape goat. Well not anymore. I prefer to think of my hormones as a magic eight ball, they come along once every month to give me insight as to who’s being a dick. And it’s not their fault if that happens to be everyone!!! They remove my blind fold and say “Ta dar!!!!! Fuck wits everywhere!!!” Lucky I love the fuck wit. ????

A post shared by constanceandtribe (@mrsconstancehall) on Jan 29, 2020 at 7:38pm PST

I couldn’t believe it. I had two options: I could cry and sink, or I could laugh and swim. I chose to laugh.

One day the child health nurse came to my house and I opened the door, tits out, probably a bit of blood stained on my pants, I let her in and went back to my position on the floor. I had spent the last half an hour making the twins smile. It was my happy place, seeing two gummy grins at the same time.

She looked around at my house. It was a mess. My three-year-old son was dragging a chair to the freezer so he could steal another ice cream, my daughter was marching through the house singing Let it Go at the top of her lungs.

There was washing to be done, something boiling on the stove and a kitchen full of dishes and there I was laughing on the floor.

I was expecting a lecture that I would pretend to take on board, but the nurse looked at me in awe and she said, “Jesus, Constance, would you consider doing seminars? I would love my first-time mums to see this home. Full of love, devoid of stress. I wish more of my mums could just embrace this time with their babies instead of freaking out that their lives aren’t perfect.”

I started speaking to other mums, hearing what they were going through and all I wanted to do was show them what an incredible job they were doing. I wanted to force them to appreciate themselves and stop stressing out about things that didn’t matter.

I saw women that were desperate to live up to the standards other women were putting on themselves, women comparing their relationship to the ones they saw online or their friends.

I’ve had women break down crying to me over catching their husbands cheating, only to turn around 10 minutes later and upload a picture of themselves and their husband with the caption “perfection.”

I’ve spoken to women who were riddled with parental guilt for screaming at their children. Who actually believed that nobody else loses it from time to time.

And women who hate their post-baby bodies, who haven’t even looked at their naked bodies in the mirror for years.

And I believe this is all due to the bullshit version of perfection we are all sold.

The bullshit perfect family, the bullshit perfect dad, the bullshit perfect body, the bullshit perfect relationship, the bullshit perfect drug-free home birth followed by solely breastfeeding until they move onto mashed kale and blueberries and co-sleep until the kid’s 14 because she’s an Aries who was born in the year of the golden dragon and they thrive with attachment parenting learning to speak French before English and have a blog with 100k followers before she’s 6 months old and blah blah blah f*cking shoot me in the f*cking head.

Now I am an ordinary woman, but I am a mother who went from having nothing, crying in the line at Centrelink, believing I had no future, in a very unhappy marriage, too anxious to leave the house some days.

A woman who hated where I lived but was too depressed to follow through with social engagements and leave the house; too body conscious to eat more than one salad a day, weighing 52 kilos and still believing I was fat…

To the woman I am today. A best selling author twice over, the owner of my own clothing label, married to my soulmate, living in my dream bohemian treehouse in the country. I get my 70 kilo half-naked body out in public almost daily and genuinely love it, all with six kids under my roof who drive me insane and fill my heart up all at once, every single day.

Over a million people love me, or at least follow me – and even more hate me. I’ve been subjected to more online hate than you could imagine and still I persist. I don’t back down. I believe in myself. Even when it would be easier to disappear, I stand tall. I stand as a the Queen I am.

Changing the world was never going to be easy.

My blog took off in 2016, but not because I have the perfect white house and indoor plants, pet Groodle and am paid tens of thousands of dollars to wear chic labels. In fact I’m the kind of blogger labels would pay to stay away from their brands.

We talk all things Constance on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues below.

It took off because b*tches are done. We are done with this perfect shit, we just want to be ourselves.

We want to laugh at the toddler that shat in the esky, we want to read about someone else’s husband who’s acting like an entitled twat, we want to know that we aren’t alone with loving the shit out of our kids but not being so fond of our entire identity being taken away by this one part of our life, motherhood.

It took off because we are tired of being turned against each other, viewing each other as competition when deep down we know we are allies.

I am me first, a mother second. And I’m not ashamed of that.

I have spent my whole life not caring less about others’ opinions of me, and that never came in handy as much as it did the minute I became a mum.

And now I am so pleased to announce that I have created an online course, The Queen Plan. I have sisterhood secrets that I am desperate to share.

Because Queens are my passion.

I have helped thousands and thousands of women give less f*cks to the people and things that don’t deserve them, saving their f*cks for what truly matters. Helped them rediscover themselves, figure out if they need to work on or move on from their unhappy relationships, accept their new bodies – not once they’ve toned up or shedded some pounds.

Helped them learn to accept their anxiety, move it out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s seat.

And become themselves again. Get excited about life after kids, because it can be more exciting than ever before.

The Queen Plan by Constance Hall is six-week plan to put yourself first, love your body, get more sleep, rekindle your relationship, and rediscover your identity after having kids.

Find out more and get access to your free trial of The Queen Plan here.