I had walked out the front door, closing it firmly behind me. I could hear my toddler on the other side of the door crying. He was in good hands: our part-time nanny was there; I could hear her lilting Irish accent over the sobbing of my son. My husband was home, too, working away at his computer upstairs, so if my son truly melted down, Bill was there to save the day.

I was leaving for work, which I had done many times before. I had scheduled massage therapy clients for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, typical for a weekday.

So why did I feel so guilty leaving?

And why did I feel even more guilty about looking forward to going to work where I’d be around adults who used their words and who didn't demand every bit of patience and energy I possessed?

When I left my son for something fun for me, like a solo walk without him or to meet up with a girlfriend for a rare coffee date without kids in tow, the guilt I felt was even worse.

It felt like a never-ending equation I was trying to balance. Giving to myself meant taking away from my child. There was only so much time and energy available. There was only so much me.

But that me was miserable.

It was a never-ending loop: I wanted to feel happier so I added “self-care” activities into my schedule that took me away from my son (and later both of my boys ) but I then felt guilty about the time away from my child which made me feel miserable which made me want to spend more time taking care of myself to feel happier which meant taking time away from my child...

I wasn't sure what to do about the imbalance that was sending me into tailspins. But I knew I had to do something.

Back then, when my now teenaged son was just a toddler, I came across the work of Ellen Galinsky, author of the book, Ask the Children. In her research, Galinsky spoke with more than 1,000 children, ages eight to 18, about how they viewed their parents’ balancing act between family time and work.

Galinsky found that the majority of children interviewed believed they were spending enough time with their parents. (It didn’t matter whether the mom stayed at home or worked outside the home.) Children in the study didn’t wish for their parents to work less. Instead, a large percentage of children in Galinsky’s study wished for their parents to be less tired and less stressed by work – so that the time that was spent with children was quality time.

In Galinsky’s studies, more didn’t equate with better.

“I asked kids what they were going to remember most from this period in their life, and I asked parents to guess what the kids would say,” said Galinsky in a Frontline interview.  “And parents almost always guess the big event, the vacation, the wonderful family reunion, you know, the five-star kind of family thing. And kids talked about the very small, everyday rituals and traditions that say to them ‘We're a family.’”

After reading Galinsky’s work, I wish I could say that I had an ah ha moment and the guilt vanished. It didn’t.

I still calculated the equation of the time away from my children and the time spent with them. I still evaluated the quality of our interactions – did I seem enthusiastic when we were rolling Thomas and Edward around the train track again? However, I became more aware of being truly present when I was present. I noticed that when I added the activities I enjoyed into my schedule (with and without my sons), I was happier and more patient. And, per the laws of Algebra, when I added happiness into my side of the equation, it had to be added to the other side, too, which generated more happiness all around.

Although the mom guilt didn’t disappear, it softened. Less judgment, more acceptance, more love.
 
Author and lifestyle guru Danielle La Porte describes guilt as “the price of admission to fulfillment.” Guilt is the price for doing anything that you desire: everything you say yes to means you’ll have to say no to something else. Your time/energy/happiness equation isn’t going to balance all the time. Sometimes work or other activities will get more of you. Sometimes your children will. Balancing the equation is like homework: an ongoing assignment, different problems every day.

As Danielle La Porte observes: “Guilt and joy are not part of the same equation.”

Which one do you want to work with?


Join me and a little more than a handful of other moms at this month's mini-retreat. We'll be talking about guilt and ways to ease out of its stranglehold on your happiness. For more information and to register (space is limited to six moms per mini-retreat), go to the Mini-Retreats page.

It's getting busy around here. Earlier this month, I launched a new coaching package and had an incredible response. I also started working with a brand new tool with my massage therapy work and it’s reinvigorated my practice.

I love having a full schedule. But then, I worry. I worry about being too busy. I worry about not having time for my family or for taking care of myself (which historically has always the first thing to get thrown out of the schedule when I’m trying to fit a client into an already jam-packed calendar). When my massage therapy practice was at its peak, I continually said yes and yes and yes to more work, more back-to-back clients, more of taking care of my clients and my family and everybody else – and less taking care of me.

I ended up having to take a year off from providing massage because my hands hurt so much.

Worrying about what might happen has kept me stuck. I realized I wasn’t reaching out to share my new coaching program with more moms because I was trying to decide how many clients I could see in a week and still be able to sit down to dinner with my family. I hadn’t updated my website to share my amazing new body therapy treatment because I worried that if people get as excited about the possibilities of this treatment as I am, I’ll have to steal time from my writing, creative, date night, girlfriend, dance class schedule to make room.

Silly, isn’t it?

When I looked at my keeping-me-stuck thinking from an objective point of view, it made no sense.

Holding this objective point of view for your own life is called being The Watcher in the coaching world. When you can bring kind, nonjudgmental awareness to your thoughts, emotions, and actions, you’re better able to create solutions, get unstuck, and move forward.

Being The Watcher meant understanding that I needed a schedule. This has always been my first step, ever since I was in high school. My past is littered with schedules where I’ve mapped out (and often color coded) blocks of time – fitting in work time, family time, creative time, writing time, downtime, date night time, girlfriend time…

A place for everything and everything in its place. More or less. Of course the unexpected often happens (so much so that it really shouldn’t be unexpected) but the schedule remains a foundation that I can return to, bringing order and routine to calm the chaos of everyday life.

So, instead of worrying that my new activities would prove to be too much, I sat down and mapped out where everything was going to fit. I put in my boys’ school schedule first. I blocked off Monday mornings to write – because I get really cranky when I don’t have a dedicated chunk of writing time. Dance classes on Tuesdays and Fridays. Creative/downtime on Wednesday morning. Volunteering at the middle school library on Mondays at lunchtime. Friday morning coffee date with Bill. Availability for coaching clients, moms’ gatherings, body therapy sessions, family Sundays…

It more or less all fit into a schedule.

And then right away I was tested.

A brand new client suggested Mondays for our three coaching sessions that will follow her private mini-retreat. Smack dab in the middle of my designated writing block.

This sparked an inner battle between what I call in The Well-Crafted Mom book the Mean Manager and the Kind Caretaker. The Mean Manager told me that I was being selfish. She pointed out all of the places where I had blocked off time for “frivolous” activities. She reminded me that scheduling this client would only take three Mondays away from the writing block. Only three. I could certainly write around that.

The Kind Caretaker sat me down and reminded me of another one of my clients, who I’ll call S. S has been taking my advice about self care to heart. She’s a self-employed mom who is homeschooling her two kids so there’s no doubt that she’s busy. Every moment of every day is filled. And yet … she’s been finding time for herself, for the things that help her to feel happy and healthy.

And the result of her focusing time on herself? Her business is booming.

She knows why she’s all of a sudden so busy and I know, too: It’s her energy. It’s not only that she has more energy to bring to her business because she’s exercising, eating well, and enjoying her life. Her business is booming because the energy she’s bringing to her clients is clean – not resentful, not overwhelmed, not full of worry.

All of her clean energy works like a magnet to draw more goodness in – good clients, good relationships, good work, and good times.

And, she's become really skilled at saying no to what doesn't feed her soul or feed her family (so her clean energy stays that way).

Using my lovely client as inspiration, I suggested days other than Mondays to my new client. We found times for her follow-up sessions that work for both of us.

And on Monday morning, I sat down to write, putting my thoughts down on the page, using that clean energy to draw more goodness in.


Want some help figuring out what comes next and how to work through the obstacles that are in your way? Join me for some coaching…
• There’s still room at the next moms’ mini-retreat this Saturday, August 13th. We’ll be talking about ways to get unstuck and how to move the obstacles that get in your way. Here’s the link to register: http://conta.cc/29PM0lr

• I have two spots left for moms in my private mini-retreat program this month. We’ll work together to figure out what’s next for you, build a plan, and you’ll create a vision board that will be your inspirational map. Plus, you’ll get three follow-up coaching sessions to help you stay on track. Interested? Send me an email to set up a call to see if this program is a right fit for you.