Despair

I have always judged people who run away from their families harshly. But not anymore. I understand why people run away from their children. I too, feel that despair today. The childcare is completely relentless. As a person struggling with illness, it doesn’t take away their need for love, attention, food, fun etc. It never gets easier, it’s a never-ending struggle and you completely lose sight of yourself. Between the lunches, the demands of the teachers, homework and relentless feeding, pouring juice, wiping bottoms, there is nothing left for me. I don’t have the strength to care for myself, let alone these kids.

I have felt that I really wished to be hospitalised with this illness. Even for three days, just to have someone feed me and care for me and to let me read and sleep. I’m the only one around me who seems to understand that it’s pretty serious. I’m the only one who can feel my exhaustion and know how much strength it takes to get out of bed and out into the cold to take a child to school. As much as your loved ones say they care, compassion runs out at some point. People get sick of helping the one who has always been so capable. Well, just so you know, I’m sick of it too. I’m sick of feeling tired and having headaches and struggling to do the things normal people do. I’m sick of asking for help and compassion. I’m sick of it all but I don’t get to escape this fatigue.

The exhaustion makes me ratty and I end up shouting at the kids. Then I feel guilty for being a bad parent and yelling at them all the time. But I just can’t seem to see a way out.I can't go out to escape them because I'm really exhausted most of the time and going out makes me even more tired. But they are here, all the time, wanting things from me. Even when I have a nap, I feel obliged to get up after an hour or so because they might be starving, or without toilet paper or cold or lonely. The feeling that their 24 hour care is on your shoulders entirely is a great responsibility and there is no respite. That in itself is exhausting. Just to have to be the responsible one all the time. 

I love my children too much to run away from them. But I’m really exhausted. Weekends are hard. Today I feel that it is hopeless for me to have any dreams at all. How can I aspire to be anything and to follow my destiny when I’m so exhausted from just parenting? I can’t follow my life passion because I’m too busy just keeping them alive. At times I wish I had no ambition. I wish I was born being content to do the lowliest of jobs and to merely exist. Then I wouldn’t feel this despair of not being able to follow my dreams.

So what should I choose? Neglect the kids and get myself well so that I can have some future to look forward to? Or care for them and take months or years to recover fully? It wont do them a lot of good to have a mother devoid of hope. If anyone has any advice or solutions, let me know. 

Dig a Little Deeper

As a mother of small children, I watch a lot of animated movies. Have you seen the movie The Princess and The Frog? The main character, Tiana, is a hard working woman who has a constant need to prove herself. She gets transformed into a frog along with a frivolous prince and they embark on an adventure in the bayou in order to become human again.  Along the way, they both learn a valuable lesson about what they truly need and how it differs from what they want.

The little frogs encounter Mama Odie, a voodoo priestess, who guides them towards their destinies. She sings a gorgeous song about getting what you need instead of what you want. During the song the prince realises that he needs Tiana but Tiana doesn’t have any revelations. At the end of the song, she thinks the message was to dig a little deeper into her reserves and work even harder towards her goals. I got a flashback of the song and the scene where Tiana just doesn’t get it. What prompted the flashback was reading some of my goals towards the end of last year. My health had been deteriorating for months, with mainly symptoms of fatigue and headaches. I thought the problem was motivation and I thought if I could just set the right targets, I’d get there.

My revelation over the past few months has been that my days need more writing in them. And yet I’ve let my inner critic bully me into believing that my book is rubbish and that no-one will want to read it. I think I’ve been procrastinating by arranging too many social outings and not only has it tired me out, but it has also distracted me from making progress on the work. My idol, Elizabeth Gilbert, has often mentioned that quality is not our responsibility; we just have to show up and do the work. As I’ve mentioned, I’m working through the creative recovery program in the book the Artist’s Way. The book has taught me that showing up is the most important thing I can do, even in the face of negative feedback and the Wet Blankets who will try to squash my dream. 

So perhaps my lesson from the past few weeks, feeling that my health is slipping backwards after all these months, is now clear: DO MORE WRITING. This morning I spent about ninety minutes on my book and it felt great. The quality cannot be guaranteed yet but that’s not my focus. Right now, it’s my job to show up and write. For hours if I can. And how do I feel? Great! I want to feel like this every day and this thought has made me more resolved to finish this book. 

I saw my doctor this morning and he confirmed that I’m now in remission officially. I have been working towards this point for a long time and I have been worrying about my health and my constraints a lot. Last week’s setback of feeling so tired and feeling like I’m losing ground was perhaps a lesson that needed to come before the remission confirmation. Maybe I needed to feel that tired again to remind me that I don’t just dive into life again full steam ahead because it won’t serve me.

So perhaps I got what I needed, and not what I thought I wanted. 

How Do You Restore Yourself?

In suffering from a stress-induced illness, I realise that I was not caring for myself properly. At the time of my worst symptoms it was really difficult for me to understand how this happened. A serious diagnosis leads to a great deal of introspection and self-exploration. In so doing, I have come to realise the sources of my stress and the things that drain my energy.

I have noticed that there are many people who are sufficiently aware that they need to recharge in order to avoid burning out. Someone I know runs an exclusive fashion boutique and she takes every Monday morning for herself to catch up on things and to get organised for the week. Another friend recently took herself away for the weekend to have a massage, strolls by the sea and a change of scenery. Someone else I know visits a health spa for a week a year just to escape the humdrum of life. My previous business coach took herself out to a movie now and then. In a previous post, I spoke of these actions as a firebreak, in specific reference to the women’s retreat I recently attended.

Having developed a stress-induced illness myself, I’m now much more aware and interested in those who are heading the same way. I have noticed a lot of people lately who are either in the midst of a burnout or are approaching it rapidly. No-one but themselves can adjust their lives or prevent them from developing major health concerns. If you are feeling close to burnout, take a step back and find a way to restore yourself. Even if it’s just half an hour in the day to listen to your favourite music or to do something you really enjoy doing. The effects of doing those small acts of self-care can be quite powerful over time.

I often wonder who is reading my blog and what they’re thinking. I would so love to hear from you and to hear about what methods you use to restore yourself. I see it as part of my research going forward in writing about my favourite topic: aligning with your life passion, and thereby increasing your joy. 

I have found that it’s tricky to get in touch with what you love after living a life of obligation for a long time. I was unable to answer the question “what are you passionate about?” for at least six months. Now I can say “writing”, “helping people” and “aligning your job with your talents” but there may be some more things that emerge in the next few months.

Personally I’m getting much closer to my future career, although I’m not quite there yet. One of the really important steps is to understand what you don’t enjoy or what drains you. Once you have identified that, you can no longer continue doing what you did before. Passion is a major ingredient to success and if you don’t have passion for what you’re doing, it’s not sustainable.  Being aware of how little energy I have now is actually a blessing because I’m clear that I can’t spend the few hours of energy I have on something I don’t enjoy. I need to spend my precious reserves on things that energise and restore me.

I’m shaping my life to remove things that detract from my happiness level and including things that increase it. I am still very constrained in terms of how much I can achieve but I try to look back to remind myself of how far I’ve come and to keep up the focus on healing and recovery if I want the future I have my sights on.

Start as You Mean to Go On

Being an efficiency freak, I like to optimise almost everything I do. I find better ways to get school lunch ready and try to work in parallel in the kitchen as much as possible. While the kettle is boiling, I quickly get other things done and I’m always aware of starting the longest thing first. In a way, I apply Project Management principles to most things I do, working along the critical path.

So when I had children my life was turned upside down. No longer did I have the time to do all the things that I could previously do. It took hours to get ready for a short outing and just at the time of leaving the house, a change of clothes would be required for various reasons known to mothers. Something had to give and I must have made the (very poor) decision that it was my own self-care. 

Many times when I had a pedicure in the past, the beauty therapist told me things like “You really should moisturise your feet”. I couldn't help but be amazed that mothers had the time to put cream on their bodies at all, let alone their feet. What would they be doing while the cream was sinking in? I kept thinking that this woman probably doesn't have kids and she most definitely is not a business owner.

I also remember thinking that our paediatrician is insane for wearing beads and dangly earrings. I stopped accessorising because small children tend to grab things. I thought to myself that I’ll wear fun things again when they are bigger. As much as delayed gratification is a good quality, it can be taken too far if it interferes with self-care. The paediatrician has a constant stream of little kids through her rooms and there’s no good reason for her to stop dressing as she wants to. I stifled my own creativity and pushed my needs aside. I should have just found a way to manage and still be myself.

I read many books before becoming a mother in order to know what to do. It didn't really help that much, and I had to fumble my way through the first few years. The advice other people gave was best for their family but not for mine. One piece of advice from Tracy Hogg is truly a gem, however: Start as you mean to go on. In other words, don’t start something that you must change later, such as baby sleeping in your bed.

One thing I was strict on was the sleeping arrangement. My babies slept in a bassinet next to my bed for the first few nights and then into their room thereafter. I didn't encourage them to sleep in my bed because I knew it would be hard to get them out. The sleep deprivation with a newborn and recovery from pregnancy is enough. One doesn't need to be woken by a gurgling infant very few minutes. 

I think that this principle of start as you mean to go on, should really be applied more broadly. In a new job, in a new relationship, in accessorising around little children. I know that I had the thought many times in my business that I will be able to follow my dreams as soon as I turn this business around. Looking back, I can't believe I put my own dreams, needs and interests on hold for so long. I didn't realise just how much harm it would cause me. 

With Mother's Day yesterday I was amused to see how my girls scrambled around to tidy the house to help me. It has taken our family, including me, some adjusting to care for me. They mimic what they see and if I never care for myself, they seem to have trouble doing it too. But from what I saw yesterday, we have evolved and we now look after Mom in this house because we want her to go the distance.

Keeping the Boredom at Bay

I've been wondering lately why I seem to avoid meditation and my daily nap, despite the fact that they are on my self-care roster as daily activities. There are days when I skip one of both of them. The plain truth is that it’s boring. There’s an opportunity cost in that I’m not learning, growing, advancing towards something. I suppose one could argue that the nap and the meditation speed up my recovery but it just feels boring to think of nothing and to sleep. At the end of each day I like to feel as if I’m closer to a goal or improving myself. But I suppose the reality is that I need a lot of days with nothing but rest in order to restore myself to full health.

And as usual for me, when there’s a problem, I need to find a solution. I’m doing well on my roster in that I’m ticking off the occasional responsibility item such as children dentist trips. But it does get monotonous. And I have read that any happiness-inducing strategy needs to change occasionally if you want to retain its effectiveness. It’s easy to get bored of scheduled acts of kindness and gratitude journaling. So today’s task is to plan for the next month as well as to get started on my book.

As I've mentioned in my post about goals, it’s important to set deadlines and to create sub-goals. I've created a rough outline of chapters for my book and have given myself a month on each chapter and a month to edit. So chapter one is due in a few weeks and it will be something new for me to tackle. As mentioned, one of my focus areas is to find flow activities and writing is certainly one of them. Any flow activity, by definition, needs to include a challenge that is slightly greater than skill, in order to keep your attention and to challenge you. It will be a difficult exercise to structure my ideas into a set of chapters that work well together.

I also realised that I’d like to inject some fun or creativity into my life. I've heard of an online course where you can learn to draw. I've signed up for a women’s retreat in May that should be an opportunity to be creative, meet other people and of course, to escape my children. And I think it’s really positive to be taking a step that puts my well-being first. As I mentioned in my last post, I need to speak up about the things I want to do and not to just let everyone else decide my activities for me.

The organiser is Taryn Harris, who also suffered from a stress-related condition and changed her life as a result. She is really inspiring to me and I’m so looking forward to meeting her and understanding the insights she can share.

A batch of books arrived today which always cheers me up. For a change, they are not related to happiness or self-help but are around rediscovering your creativity. This is just the catalyst I needed to shake things up and find a little optimism in the drudgery of rest. And yes, I will most certainly do my meditation and my nap today.

Self-Care Roster

In my last post I was a misery and I won’t apologise for it because that’s reality. I’m done trying to please everyone and be something everyone expects me to be. Yes, I get down, and it will happen again. 

The way I usually approach something that needs to be fixed, like my health, is to have a plan. I feel empowered when I take action so I've come up with a Self-Care Roster. Starting yesterday, I decided to do a few things daily and some things weekly or monthly etc. I know it doesn't sound earth shattering but I have to DO something.

I've set myself a limit of five outings a week, excluding the school run. This ensures that I don’t overdo things and is worked into the roster. My self-care roster has four categories:

• Grooming:  Haircuts, manicures etc. This helps reinforce in my mind the importance of looking after myself.
• Responsibility: Medical check-ups for myself and my kids such as dentist, mammogram etc.
• Healing: Much needed care in my current state, including things like reflexology, Body Stress Release etc.
• Growth & Fun: Reading, writing, savouring, gratitude and knitting.

Reading is a way for me to grow myself and also helps me feel that I’m moving forward. I need to consume a lot of books as my list is really long. The more I read, the more material I have for a future book and my blog. I see it as research and it is not taxing.

Writing my blog helps me express myself. As an introvert and a people-pleaser I often bite my tongue on things I’m thinking. I don’t freely express my opinion for fear of retribution, appearing foolish or stimulating a debate I don’t want to have. So this is a way for me to express myself regularly and practise writing, thereby improving myself.  

Some happiness experts recommend thinking about our happiest moments and days, be it remembering the day our child was born, our wedding day, being accepted into university or just a great day with family. This is the savouring activity which I plan to do daily for a week. I’m planning to look through my wedding album and the many photos we took of our children as babies.

Gratitude is a well-known happiness-enhancer. David Steindl-Rast, in his wonderful TED talk, talks about how gratitude can change the way we behave. If we are grateful, we don’t hate or envy others, we don’t abuse or hurt people.  In order to make the most of opportunities that come our way, we need to stop and listen and then grab them when they come along. 

I think I’m naturally a grateful person and I often count my blessings. Something we do each night is to look at our sleeping girls and marvel at the miracle of them. No matter what kind of crazy they unleash in the day, they look so peaceful and angelic while sleeping. This is probably also savouring but also includes a degree of gratitude.

The knitting is a way for me to create something and I’m helping people at the same time. Our school has a project where the teddy bears are given to children on the night they are removed from their abusive families. It is the first thing of their new life. I’m knitting because I find it relaxing and I’m helping someone, which is aligned to my personal values.  Tony Robbins and many other influencers of personal growth, cite Contribution as a meaningful endeavour to enrich your life.

I have quite a few ideas around the healing activities that I’d like to explore but that’s perhaps for another blog post. Included in this is Nia as a contributor to wellness but I’m not up to it physically right now. The weekend illness taught me that. So I do what I can and I battle the despair with goal-setting.

Wallowing and Wondering

For someone with a naturally optimistic tendency and writing a blog about optimising happiness at work and in your life, I’m off track today. I’m wallowing in misery. As mentioned on the weekend I have a bad cold and am feeling awful. Feeling physically awful also tends to make you feel sorry for yourself. It started me thinking about just how often I catch a cold. During winter it’s about two per month. That means that I’m losing half of every month. With such a weak immune system, I’m likely to pick up every dangerous bug that lurks in the mucous of small children. And it hits me hard.

When kids get sick, their mother has to look after them no matter how near death I feel. I put my self-care on hold (as usual), and scurry around making them juice, giving medication and making them feel loved and comforted. How much I yearn for some matriarch to emerge from a mystical mountain, bossing around my family and telling them I’m not to get out of bed under any circumstances. I’ll call her Panacea, the goddess of Universal remedy in Greek mythology. Panacea, I’m open to anything – just bring it. If the silver bullet is that four letter word ‘Rest’, then just use the bullet for its intended purpose and put me out of my misery.  

I have a feeling some people think I’m just putting it on, or it’s in my head. I’m no stranger to mind over matter. You can’t run almost 90 km in one day and not have a strong mind. The trouble is I have been suppressing what my body has been telling me for so long that I've lost touch. I can’t tell when I’m overdoing it or about to overdo it. I thought I was getting better at that but I don’t trust myself anymore. How can I make any plans? I want to experience things in order to write about them. I want to set up meetings and appointments every day so that I’m stimulated, growing and finding my flow. I've understood that I shouldn't have persevered so long in a job I dislike. I get it. I've understood that I need to find something I love to do, and I've understood that I need a respite during my day. What more do I have to learn? And for how much longer must I recover?

I’m trying to have some fun in my days and evenings but it may even compromise recovery. I’m not sure I can just focus on healing and recovering. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about owning a creative mind being like having a Border Collie for a pet. You need to give it work or it will find its own work and you might not like what it does. How can I be expected to hang around the house, waiting and RESTING. I feel trapped and stuck. I’m unable to hope for and plan for a future when leaving the house is hard.

Yes, I know, it’s temporary and I’ll feel better soon. But some days are just like that and I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. I want to move forward. I want to make progress. I’m reading about gratitude and enjoying the moment, finding flow activities. But how can I do that if I’m feeling so awful? Without your health, life is very difficult. We don’t value it nearly enough until it’s compromised.  

I often don’t want to publish anything when I’m feeling down. I have a tendency to wait until I’m feeling better again, edit and publish, of course with a positive ending. But that’s not so honest. We all have days where we just feel stuck. I’m impatient,  I want to get on with my life. When will I be able to go out and see clients all day and have enough energy to play with my kids? Is that so unrealistic?