Playful Rooted

I have a dirty secret.

I’m one of those people.

The people with thousands of emails in their inboxes.

I wasn’t always this way. “You see, it all started when…..”

I had three kids. That’s pretty much the ending of any story of mine lately. “I didn’t do this in the past, but then I had three kids.”

Anyway! I was trying to get ahold of my inbox situation recently, deleting dozens/hundreds of emails at a time, when I came across a random, unread email from Kristina at Toddler Approved with the subject line: “Tips for Parenting in Survival Mode.”

Serendipitous. I NEEDED to read this. I paused my email deleting spree, settled in, and read so many things that resonated with my soul. Kristina’s email was great; she shared this post and a bunch of links at the bottom, and down the rabbit hole I went, nodding the whole time and feeling so seen. I eventually made my way to this post on six signs you are suffering from burnout, and oh my word. Every one of these had me saying, “uh yeah.”

You feel unmotivated to do anything — especially your own self-care.

You feel numb and cannot seem to experience authentic joy. (I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately accessing ANY emotion – happiness, sadness, compassion, anything. Some really big, scary, and disappointing things have been happening with my close friends, my community, and even my family, and I’ve felt numb to most of it.)

You feel a constant heaviness holding you down, dragging you along that makes it hard to take action.

You feel negative and frustrated about many things in your life but you feel powerless to change anything.

You feel resentful for any rest or fun your partner has in their life. (YUP.)

You feel like you are being swallowed up by constant responsibilities and feel overwhelmed with where to begin to change the pattern.

If that’s burnout, consider me burned.

But of course, the impossible aspect of this is that the cause of my burnout isn’t going to go away any time soon. As a mom of littles who need me so much every day, burnout is kinda inevitable, right? And I don’t want to wish these days away because, truly, there is so much love and lightness in every single day. I LOVE being a mom and I cherish these days. But it’s hard, too.

I have a lot of little people relying on me, and it’s just.so.much to try to gently guide their hearts, challenge their brains, nourish their bodies, cultivate their relationships, encourage their milestones (looking at you, P), and keep up with the dishes and laundry. Not to mention try to have a social life. Or see my husband. It’s impossible!

Anyway, the point of this is that if you have ever been challenged by parenting through burnout, know that you are SO not alone. I see you and I’m there with you. And when the days feel like this….

….I have found that these few things help. A bit. 😉

Forget about all the other chores and just do the ONE CHORE that makes you feel the most ‘together.’ For me, this is a clean kitchen. I have no problem ignoring the laundry pile until people start running out of underwear, but if there’s a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, I am much more likely to snap at the kids. (Or cold shoulder the husband, hi babe!)

Forget about all the other parenting things and just do the ONE THING that makes you feel most like a good parent. For me, this is reading out loud with my kids. Mac and cheese for lunch and pizza for dinner? Sure, fine, as long as we get some connection through reading together.

Find something to look forward to that’s just for yourself. I’m going to a very exciting conference this weekend, and I have been so looking forward to it for months! But it doesn’t have to be as big as a conference, of course. It could be a solo trip to a coffee shop to read a book or spending 20 minutes a day learning a foreign language or just a kid-free walk around the block with a good podcast. It can be so hard to find time for these things; sometimes you have to create the time, but it’s very worth it. It doesn’t necessarily happen every day, but I think at least once a week you need to have something fun on the horizon that’s JUST for you.

HIRE HELP. This is like the number one tip on every article ever written about burnout. If you’re like me, you roll your eyes and think, “We’re not the Rockefellers!” (Actually, I’m quoting Ben there. ;)) But! It’s possible even if you’re not rolling in the dough, as we are not. You don’t have to hire a full-time nanny; we just hired a neighborhood kid to mow our lawn for 30 bucks a week. It’s a really small thing, but just having that one thing taken off our plates for the whole summer feels SO good! And we’re supporting a local young entrepreneur, which also feels good.

So.

Burnout sucks. It is hard. But, as our letter board tells the kids every day:

And we can! We can do this.

xo!