Taking things off your plate…to make room for YOU

A couple of weeks ago, I went to an evening yoga class for the first time in years.  I’ve wanted to do this for ages but my guilt showed up every time I thought about booking.

My internal dialogue would typically say ‘It’s going to be a nightmare for my husband, the girls won’t like it either, maybe I’ll just continue to do yoga online after they go to bed.  It’s fine.’

But.

A while back, I made a commitment that I’d do this to a group of parents I’m working with at the moment.  So I booked.  And I went.  And it was glorious.

Yes, it was chaotic when I left and the girls cried.  But as soon as I left, I felt such a lovely sense of freedom, and for an hour and a half I could immerse myself in something that I really enjoyed, knowing that my ‘jobs’ were being taken care of at home.

I think the reason why so many of us struggle with self-care is because we trying to do it ON TOP of everything else that we do. 

A client once told me about a spa weekend with her friend, which she said was wonderful – but the stress of doing all the jobs before she went and the stuff she had to pick up afterwards made the thought of doing it again a little daunting.

And it made me think…maybe self-care is as much about taking things OFF our plate, to make room for what really fills us up.  We have so much going on as it is, we can’t possibly fit more in even if it’s something we really enjoy.

But as women, I think a lot of us struggle to ask for help.  We subconsciously feel that we need to do everything, and I think there are 4 key reasons why this is:

Mum Guilt:

We all know how this feels like.  Research has shown that around 90% of all mums have felt guilty at some point.  And it feels never ending. Guilty for doing too much, too little.  Guilty for all the emotions that our children might bring up in us, even if this is a totally human response.  Guilty for taking time for ourselves but then guilty for getting cross when we’ve burnt ourselves to the ground. 

And all this guilt prevents us from feeling better and happier about ourselves – which is fundamentally what children need to thrive.  Happy parent is a happy child.  So why do we do this to ourselves? 

I’ve often thought that guilt is a bit of a wasted emotion, as there’s nothing you can do about it.  The situation is exactly the same regardless of whether you feel guilty or not.  Yes, you might feel guilty about it at first, but the quicker we can move on to rectify the situation having learnt from our emotions the better it will be for all of us. 

But this can be easier said than done, and this made total sense to me when I read somewhere that ‘Guilt is an attachment to judgement’…which ties into the next point on expectations.

Expectation of perfect mother

Culturally, socially, expectations are everywhere. I do think there is more representation of a ‘realistic’ mother in everything that we consume (social media, magazines, TV, newspapers) but the picture of a perfect mother is still ingrained deep within us, which makes these expectations really difficult to shake. 

‘Will they think that I’m a bad mum if my child is tantrum-ing in public/if I complain about the enormity of the parent role/if they get too much scree time etc etc etc.’ is something that may or may not pop up in our minds consciously, but I would imagine that it’s lurking somewhere in our unconscious for most of us. 

But if these guilty thoughts about being a ‘bad mum’ is an attachment to judgement, who’s judgement are you fearing?  And how valid are those judgements? Do they have any right to judge you? Probably not. 

They have no idea who you are, what kind of day you’ve had, or generally how you are as a parent.  It’s can be really difficult to shake expectations, but if you find yourself feeling guilty or bad in any way it’s useful to ask yourself where the judgement is coming from – and whether it’s valid.  Most likely the answer will be no, and then you can make a conscious choice as to how you want to feel about the situation.

Cultural ‘conditioning’ that others come first

Growing up as a girl, we are often told to be kind, to be nurturing, to attend to other people’s needs and feelings.  It might not have been said to us explicitly, but the implicit messages are all around us.  So when we are culturally conditioned to be like this , no wonder we find it so difficult to put ourselves first when we have children. 

But, just like the oxygen mask analogy – we can only help others if we help ourselves first. We are the leader in our family, and we would never expect a leader of an organisation to do their best when they’re getting little sleep, doing everything and having very little rest.  We know that we have more patience, tolerance, empathy and compassion when we are fully rested and we feel that our needs have been taken care of – and these are all qualities we need in bucketfuls when we’re with our children.  So let’s remind ourselves, self-care isn’t selfish – it’s actually an act of kindness for everyone around us.

How we link our self-worth to ‘doing’

I think self-worth gets linked to ‘doing’ from a very young age in the western society.  It starts with our schooling, where if we work hard then we achieve good grades and we get praised and go on to achieve academic success. If we don’t work hard though, we’re somehow told that we’re not good enough and made to feel bad about ourselves.  So of course, most of us grow up feeling like we must always be doing, achieving, being productive – to be ‘someone’ in the world and feel like we’re accomplishing at life. 

But in reality, self-worth is an inside job.  It’s an internal sense of being good enough, and worthy of love and belonging from others.

Only we can decide how much worth we put on ourselves, and if we are always dependent on external factors to tell us how worthy we are then we’re never going to feel totally happy.  And so we continue to do, do, do. 

But we are so much more than what we do!  We can stop most of the ‘doing’ and still be good enough, and worthy of love.  So it might be worth mulling over these questions when you feel the urge to do everything:

1.     When I feel I can’t ask for help/make things easier for myself, what I am really telling myself?

2.     Where is this coming from?

3.     If I believed that I was good enough and worthy of love already, how much less would you do?

4.     Think of 3 reasons why you’re good enough, if you can’t think of any then ask your friends and family and I’m sure they will give you so many reasons. 

5.     Remind yourself of these reasons when you feel the urge to do, and allow yourself to ask for help or just take time for yourself – knowing that this is the best use of time for everyone (see point 3)

As you can see, there are so many reasons why we can’t seem to look after ourselves. 

But we know doing it all is impossible.  We were never designed for this, and however many hacks that we might find in life, we will never be able to do it all. 

So.  What could you take off your plate, your to do list this week? Where and who could you ask for help? Or what could you potentially drop all together?  To make space for what’s really important, and what replenishes you – so that you have more to give to those that you love, and to the life that you want to live?