Category Archives: Work

Intentions for 2015

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in goal-setting, Learning, MIndfulness, parenting, Work

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I prefer setting intentions for the New Year, not resolutions. “Resolution” sound too rigid, too laden with perfectionism to be attainable to anyone. Success for me comes with putting forth an intention, a determination to act in a certain way. An intention gives me space to try again tomorrow when I inevitably fail. I’ve come up with three  intentions for 2015. They are: Love, Write, Play.

Love. This is the most important. My husband told me around the first of the year that his priority for 2015 was our family’s happiness. This really hit home for me. The truth of busyness in cultivating a new business is convenient and true but that’s not good enough. Love for me also means not yelling. I’ve talked before about being triggered to yell by Elisabeth hurting or harassing Baci but he’s no longer with us. I’ve started reading Yell Less, Love More by Sheila McCraith creator of the Orange Rhino Challenge. Yelling isn’t my default but I do yell occasionally and I want that to stop. “Love” embodies mindfully nurturing my relationship with my husband and daughter without excuses.

IMG_0443Write.  When I’m writing, I create better work / home boundaries and more realistic goals for myself…both essential to ending overwhelm. When I’m writing, I have less time for social media. I’m reflective and slower while getting more work done, working in pulse mode as Brigid Schulte learned and later adopted in writing her own book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has The Time.  I unsubscribe from what isn’t useful or beautiful not just in my home, but in my life. When I’m writing, I remember to let go of what isn’t serving me. I listen to my gut instinct more and respond quicker, wasting less time, because I’m less reactive to events around me. Writing always makes me better. When I’m writing, I’m a better coach and counselor because I’m there too. I wouldn’t ever ask Soraya Chemaly, Bernadette Jiwa or Stephen King where they get their ideas. I have so many, they are note-booked. What I don’t have is time blocked in my schedule on a daily basis to put them on paper. That changes this year.

Play. I haven’t yet gathered my thoughts for a review of Overwhelmed but I’m carrying a few of Shulte’s best lessons with me. One of them is Play. I thought that I did play. I go for coffee with girlfriends and sit down on the floor to construct towers of blocks with my daughter. But neither of those are play. A lot of our play as adults seems to center around eating. Did this start in college when our “socials” were intermixed with baking cookies or a run to Ben and Jerry’s? Eating, even with friends, is not play. Neither is engaging in an activity your child wants you to participate in with them. That’s life’s invisible work. Play is remembering what you love and doing it again…or discovering it for the first time. It’s about creating opportunities for your body, brain to think and move in different ways, whether that’s street hockey or painting with a group along the Eno. Soccer, scavenger hunts and capture the flag are on my agenda for 2015 as I bring in Play.

An intention also means “the healing process of a wound”. With my 2015 intentions, maybe I am healing the wound of past years and beliefs. I like the idea of it. Rebirth, not failure, is implied. A wound isn’t absolute, like chronic pain or a death sentence, it’s elastic and adaptable, ready for change. That’s exactly where I am. Right now anyway.

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The Things We (Women) Carry

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Feminism, goal-setting, MIndfulness, parenting, Work

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DeathtoStock_Creative Community8And I don’t mean diapers and Cheddar Rockets. I’m talking about your emotional baggage.

I talked to a group of pregnant women and their partners on Tuesday morning at Women’s Health Alliance in Durham about expectations and worries postpartum. Like the rest of us, most had done a really good job of taking care of the essentials before the baby arrives: getting the car seat installed, setting up a crib or co-sleeper, taking care of the responsibilities of work before we take our leave, etc. What was missing, for them, is preparation for the essentials that come after the baby arrives. Sure, we or friends have set up a meal “service” like Take Them A Meal but what about other essentials? Essentials like support from other new moms, permission to let the housework slide, time to take deep breathes, heal and be present with the emotions that we are experiencing.

Pregnant or not, as women, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we can do it all and that we should do it all. And that’s our first mistake. This impossible promise, though, is much more realistic (or feels that way) when we don’t have a child in the picture. As soon as the baby arrives, however, the gig is up. It quickly becomes clear that the social expectation of having it all/being it all/doing it all is not only unrealistic but also tightly packed with more shame, guilt and anxiety than we had ever imagined when we’d first stepped into those tight shoes. But once we’re got them on, they’re hard to just kick off.

In order to live with peace, be present with our children, sleep soundly at night, stay in good health and leave work behind when we shut down our computer, we must get rid of off these awful shoes. No matter how hard we try, they will never really fit us. And we are not the problem! They don’t fit any woman. We need to shrug off what’s not working because it’s costing us a lot. Even as I type these words, I know how hard this is for me. Unless I get the pinwheel of death, for example, I never actually shut down my computer. I’m not alone on this one. It saves me time to keep the computer on, to just open it and begin to type. Doesn’t it? And, is that short-term timesaver “enough” to balance what I’m giving up long-term?

To start casting off what’s not working, we need to look carefully at (state aloud, document, get an accountability partner, etc.) what our essentials actually are. And that’s a small, tight list! Once we know that, then we can start eliminating some of the emotional baggage of the “stuff” that we carry with us that prevents us from spending time on those essentials. There are additional costs associated with carrying emotional baggage which doesn’t serve us. Intangibles like energy, creativity, money, focus.

We will talk about some of this in Toddler Group because the baggage that we carry also affects our relationships with our toddler, our partner of course, and other important people in our lives. When you’re overwhelmed and feeling guilty, how do you think you’d deal with our impetuous toddler? Yeah, kind of like that.

What can you stop carrying?

-Originally published 12/18/14 at Outside The Mom Box