I remember a morning during the shutdowns when I felt overwhelmed to the point of tears when the alarm clock rang. I had become a work from home parent, trying to figure out how to help high school students transition to a new platform of social emotional support while juggling my own daughter’s learning on a remote platform. There was a lot of change happening all at once and some of the things that used to seem so simple were compounded with isolating from others, empty shelves at the grocery stores, and wondering what I could possibly do to make it through. This is how I learned that self-care is an essential part of motherhood.
Truth be told…motherhood can become very overwhelming. Can you relate to counting down the minutes to nap time or bedtime so you can carve out some quiet time for yourself? Wishing for some uninterrupted time in the bathroom only to find little fingers poking through the bottom of the door, needing you?
As moms, we don’t always have the answers. We get tired. We might even be tempted to look at the highlight reels of other moms on social media, believing that they have it all together and somehow, we don’t.
If you can relate, I need you to hear me when I tell you that you are not alone. Motherhood doesn’t come wrapped in perfect packages but in unraveled ways that can sometimes unravel us.
This is not what we daydreamed that motherhood would be, for those of us who are dreamers. Discovering the messy parts of our humanity in this role can be quite humbling.
That particular morning is the day that I realized how I had neglected my own needs for way too long. Motherhood is a role that serves the needs of so many and it can go without notice when we lose ourselves in the process.
I had to have a mind shift. I had to realize how my thinking was leading to an unhealthy thought pattern of thinking I couldn’t manage what I had ben given.
I did not have to have all of the answers, I needed to learn some more about myself as I embarked on a journey of self-care. I learned some very important things during that time.
5 Lessons I learned About Self-Care
1. Quiet Time Is Important – I learned that I need some quiet time in the mornings. Moments invested in an uninterrupted space make a huge impact on my mood. I find myself better able to respond rather than react to situations when I get this quiet time.
2. Morning Prayer Sets The Tone For The Day – A morning surrender helped frame my thinking for the day. Moments of overwhelm tended to be more quickly released to the Lord when I started out my day in prayer.
3. Positive Self-Talk Goes A Long Way – I wrote down encouraging verses that I would turn to when I started to feel overwhelmed again.
4. A Schedule Can Be Helpful – Even though my schedule shifted a lot based on the day, having a general outline of a plan helped build in some structure that we had all lost from the sudden changes in our daily routines. Maintaining a scheduled bedtime and meal times not only helped me, it also helped my family to have some consistency.
5. Community Matters – Life looked very different in the midst of what we now call social distance. This time of isolation spent with the family within the walls of my home created the space to recognize how strong the ties in some of my other relationships really were.
I began reaching out to other moms and it became clear to see that we were all able to relate to some aspects of pandemic burnout. Maintaining the direct communication with other moms became very important to me.
Recognizing what I needed for myself and creating some boundaries to make it happen did not mean that I loved my children any less. In fact, it helped me to communicate my love for them in a much better way.
Banding together won’t give us the perfect ending but it will give us comfort and strength along the road ahead. When we walk together in our vulnerability and find the inner strength to activate our faith, we make room for intentionality in our interactions with those we love, particularly with our children.
Let’s journey together through the unexpected places of motherhood and continue to find ourselves along the way.
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