When we think of motherhood words like gift, beautiful, and amazing come to mind, or at least that’s what society and the world has us believing we are supposed to feel and think. While, yes, being a mother myself, I can say motherhood is all those things, AND what about the other side of motherhood, the side no one talks about, the side that if we admit to, makes us fear that people will think we are terrible mothers, or maybe WE think we are terrible mothers for thinking it. The reality is, we all think and feel it, so I shall say it, motherhood is a gift, beautiful, amazing AND IT CAN REALLY SUCK. It’s okay momma, guess what, you get to love being a mother and also dislike it. This is a completely valid feeling and thought because the demands of being a mother can often be too much and overwhelming. Want to know why you feel irritable at times, exhausted or even burned out? Studies have shown that the average mother works 98 hours a week, that’s two and half full-time jobs!
So, let’s chat about the mental load, you know that invisible to do list floating around inside your brain that no one really gets (except maybe other moms). The endless questions ruminating inside your brain, nagging at you: “did you fill out the permission slip?” “Did you RSVP to little Susie’s birthday?” “Crap, what was on my grocery list that I worked so hard on with planning the meals for the week only to leave it on the kitchen counter?”, Of course little Bobbie left his baseball stuff at home even though I told him 38983 times to not forget it (one being right as he walked out the door), “How can I restructure my day to swing by and drop it off?”. Then let’s sprinkle in all the different types of mothering styles that leave you questioning your choices around parenting. Momma, are you up to date with the latest style of parenting or trend that came out on TikTok? No? Cool me neither. And if juggling all that wasn’t enough let’s go ahead and sprinkle in self-care, because remember we totally have the time to hit the gym, read a book, soak in a bubble bath and do all things to make us feel better. Psstttt…hey, don’t forget your significant other who is grabbing at you hoping for a little bit of attention even though you are overstimulated and touched out making the thought of being touched right now makes you want to scream and turn into She Hulk.
No wonder you are exhausted momma! Give yourself some grace and compassion (you know that stuff we give to everyone else). You are one human trying your best to juggle it all and still trying to maintain some sort of resemblance of a human. So how do you combat this? How do you fix it? Honestly, I don’t think motherhood ever stops being an endless ying yang of peace and suffering. However, there are tools you can do to help lessen the intensity of it. You might try the following:
- Time blocking– I am the queen of schedules and love being a good planner. Block out times and specifically plug things into them. We do this with the kiddo’s doctor appointments, so do it with other things, including your self-care. The trick here is to make sure you are super protective of that time and not allowing other “to-dos” to overlap during this time. For example, if from 11-11:10, I’m going to sit in silence, I’m not going to throw the laundry in the dryer while doing it.
- Mind mapping– A lot of our overwhelm can come from the endless tabs inside our brain open at one time. It’s too much to keep track of, so dump it on paper. Write it all out. Seeing the spider web of all the things going on in my head, not only allows a visual to see why you feel the way you do but also give you space to look at it more objectively and either delegate out, take stuff off or shuffle things to make you feel more in control and the to-do more manageable.
- Thought diffusion– Our brains are such great things and the WORST because they can tell us lies. That mom guilt you feel, yea, that heavy weight sitting in the bottom of your stomach telling you, “You didn’t do enough”, “you are a terrible mother”—LIES. I encourage you to challenge them, put those thoughts on trial. Is there evidence to support this? What would you say to a friend in the same situation? Stop being a bully to yourself momma!
- Mindfulness– Sometimes, try as we might, with the best scheduling and plan, it’s just not the week to squeeze in a bath, a long reading session, heck it may be one of those weeks where you have to reheat your coffee 5x before you drink it all. So pause, take a breath. A deep breath and while you do, check in with yourself, what are you feeling? Where do you feel it? Can you release it? Can you shelf it until you get through the day? And another deep breath…
The biggest takeaway if you have read to this point, is breath momma you aren’t alone. Being a mother is such a challenge, and you are ALLOWED to feel multiple things about it. You are ALLOWED to say you love your kids and dislike the demands that come with being a mom. Even in the hard days, I hope you remember to be kind to yourself, to maybe use the tools above to help, but if nothing else remember, your brain is liar, and YOU ARE A GREAT MOTHER.
