Meet Taylor Heaton of Momming is Hard in Fort Worth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Heaton.

Taylor, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always wanted to be a mom. My mom was such a great example of what is was supposed to look like. She made it look easy. I married my high school sweetheart (Scott) just out of college and we started our family a few short years later. I love my two children, Molly (4) and Cooper (1) SO much, but being a mom is harder than I expected. It requires constant sacrifice, surviving off of minimal sleep, and cherishing every rare opportunity to shower.

In the middle of me figuring out how to be a mom, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Alopecia which caused my hair to fall out. It started slowly with just a small spot on the back of my head but soon spread all over. I lost so much hair that I bought a wig, which was a much harder and more humiliating process than I ever imagined. The many doctors I saw didn’t have any answers for me and I felt very alone. After a lot of debate, I decided to tell my story publicly by making a YouTube video and posting it to Facebook. After months of trying to hide what was really going on, I took my hair down and showed off my bald spots. I took control of my situation by letting others know when I wanted them to know instead of waiting for all my hair to fall out and addressing it out of shame. This was one of the greatest decisions I ever made.

I learned that by sharing my struggles I could empower others and let them know they’re not alone. I received so much amazing feedback from people all over the world – Wales, Australia, California, the emails kept coming. It gave me so much joy to see that even in suffering I could, with God’s help, offer hope to others.

Through friends and continued research, I adapted a diet and lifestyle that eventually helped my hair to grow back COMPLETELY. It was a miracle to me. But I took the same approach I had with Alopecia and applied it to life as a mom. Motherhood is so unbelievably difficult and tests me every day. And in our society, there is a lot of pressure to have it all together and be an awesome mom that guides her kids through Pinterest crafts and has healthy food planned out for every meal of the week. I decided to start openly sharing my struggles with being a mom and letting others in on the real ins and outs of daily #momlife: crazy tantrums in the middle of a church service, spending hundreds of dollars on diapers instead of clothes and other things you want/need for yourself, making four different meals to accommodate each family member for every meal. It’s exhausting. But in sharing my shortfalls, I again learned the power of being vulnerable to bring others together and create unity and hope. I started a blog called “Momming is Hard” where I blog about funny things kids do, frustrating situations I find myself in, and how I find strength by looking for the positives along the way and expressing gratitude for the little things in life.

I also work four days a week as a private flute teacher in Fort Worth. I have about 40 students and get to work one-on-one to help them develop not only musical skills but important things like self-confidence and empathy for others. I love my job because of the relationships I get to make and also because of the flexibility it allows me as a mom since I’m in charge of my own schedule.

In all things, I try to incorporate my belief that God uses all things for good, and that positivity and gratitude can mend or greatly improve every situation. I love helping others find their true potential and see things from new perspectives.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In addition to being diagnosed with Alopecia, I also suffered a foot injury that resulted in surgery in 2014 when Molly was just 7 months old. I spent two months on a scooter with wheels in a very small apartment raising a little girl who had just started crawling. Even with all of the amazing help and support from my family, life as a mom was incredibly difficult and overwhelming. After recovery, my foot was never the same. Although the pain was gone, the structural modifications to my foot prevent me from running. It’s possible, but it’s a major risk. Any further damage could result in life-long pain that might not be treatable with surgery. This huge shift caused me to look for creative outlets for managing my health and keeping an active lifestyle. I turned to a yoga channel I found on YouTube – Yoga with Adriene, which allowed me to exercise in my house without finding a babysitter. I soon developed a love for an art form I knew very little about. Yoga has taught me more patience, eased my anxiety, and strengthened my body in ways I never expected. Just by sharing my love for yoga on social media, a friend approached me and asked me to lead a class for her small health community. I loved every minute and hope to find more opportunities to do this in the future.

Another major trial for me has been adapting to a completely new diet as a result of my autoimmune disease. Most doctors admittedly don’t know much about autoimmune disease and they wanted to prescribe me more and more medication that had nothing to do with the underlying cause. Through hours of my own personal research and study, I learned that removing certain inflammatory foods from my diet could do wonders for my symptoms and possibly reverse my disease. To give you an idea of my dietary profile, I worked in a bakery from 2012-2013 and then ran my own bakery out of my home from 2013-2017. My motto was basically “Sugar everywhere, all the time.” But after my research and much debate, I eliminated gluten from my diet completely and greatly reduced my sugar, dairy, and caffeine intake. I also decided to stick to whole foods or processed foods with fewer than 5 ingredients. This change completely revolutionized my life. The debilitating anxiety I used to experience on a weekly basis was almost completely gone and I seemed to have more room in my brain to think. I learned that food can be used as medicine, and that lesson alone was worth the journey. But this whole process took at least a year. It was a gut-wrenching process that had me waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats and shakes because of withdrawals. But I stuck with it and saw major changes in my physical and mental health.

Because of this, I felt myself pulling away from life as a bakery owner. Don’t get me wrong – sugar is wonderful and such a great thing when celebrating life’s important events, but being around it all the time and spending time thinking of how to market these types of products to friends and family didn’t get me as excited as it used to. I knew my heart was starting to tell me it was time for something new.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Momming is Hard – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My new company “Momming is Hard” is an online blogging community where I offer judgment-free tips for health and happiness. I specialize in positivity, encouragement, and guidance for living a healthy lifestyle. It’s easy to feel judgment from other moms because of differing personal views on parenting, so I pride myself in looking at things as objectively as possible and offering insight to both sides of important issues – working vs. staying at home, vaccinating vs. not vaccinating, breastfeeding vs. formula, etc.

All moms are superheroes in my book. We all have different backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, jobs, schedules… and we really need each other for support and encouragement on this crazy journey called motherhood.

What sets me apart from others companies is my compassion for others. My site is not about me trying to prove a point. I share vulnerable stories about my life with the hope that something I’ve learned might help you feel like you’re not alone, and that’s it’s totally ok to be an imperfect mom. “Momming is Hard” is a safe place to share mom doubts, failures and frustrations and receive encouragement in return. I do my best to reply to every comment and answer every question.

My three rules for finding health and happiness as a mom are:

1. Give yourself lotsa grace.
2. Accept and honor yourself where you are at today.
3. Love yourself. As best as you can in this moment.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m working on my first book – “Momming is Hard – A Judgment-Free Guide to Health and Happiness” which is more of a “how-to” book with specific tips for staying healthy and keeping your sanity. Topics include managing anxiety, mom guilt, diet, exercise, financial health, sex, and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: taylorheaton.net
• Email: taylornheaton@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mommingishardyall/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mommingishardyall
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mommingishardtx

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.