Yes. It has been a while since I have written. And no, I haven’t forgotten I have a blog. But somewhere in the midst of having a baby, finding a routine as a family of four, prepping a house to sell, packing, moving, transitioning to a new place and unpacking, it just hasn’t seemed like a priority. And then I had one of THOSE days. If you have children, no explanation is needed, but please allow me to expound.
It was one of those days…the ones where nothing seems to go right. The ones that start 2 hours before they are supposed to because a little person decided that they should. The ones that start with you exhausted and only go downhill from there. The ones where you yell too much. And then hate yourself for it. The kind of day where your carefully constructed to do list becomes an in your dreams list. The kind that seems to gradually spiral out of control until you have no idea how to bring order to the chaos and are so completely emotionally and physically spent that you are not sure where you would find the energy to do anything even if you did have a solution. The kind of day where you would gladly run away with the closest traveling circus and trade places with the dancing bear. Yep. One of those days. And that’s when I lost it. Completely.
It’s never a good thing when your two year old is the one patting your shoulder and telling you “It’s okay, mommy. You will be alright.” But, that was exactly where I found myself that afternoon. Thankfully, that’s when my husband arrived and helped me reclaim the day. Quickly assessing the situation, he sent me out to the deck with a book and a bowl of ice cream, packed up the boys and took them off on a walk. As I relaxed on the deck and took a few moments to myself, I started to find my equilibrium again. My loving hubby returned with dinner and two happy boys, a replenishment of chocolate for my empty stash and then even cleaned up the dishes after dinner and put my toddler to bed.
Later that evening while we were talking, my husband told me to stop beating myself over the head with the “worst mom ever” award, as I was once again going over the days events. I still felt so guilty for basically falling apart. He said that it sounded like I might have a little bit of something like caregiver burnout. At first I just thought he was trying to make me feel better, so I decided to do a little research and found that there was something to his claim.
There actually is something called “mothering burnout”. Quite simply put, it’s a case of being “needed” too much and not taking the time for self care. There are three main things that can contribute to mothering burnout: unrealistic expectations of your role as a mother, perfectionism, and cultural messages that are aimed at making women/mothers feel bad about themselves. While I was reading up on this, I suddenly realized that I had not taken any time to myself for self care (unless you count the 10 minutes in the shower every day) in over 3 weeks! The more I thought about it, I came to see that since I have the privilege of being a stay at home mom and don’t have to “go to work”, I believed that I should not expect to have any time to myself. That taking said time was being selfish. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have discovered for myself just what comes from this way of thinking. And it is definitely not the best for me or my family. In fact, it will benefit my family, my marriage, and my other relationships more if I make some time to take care of myself, than if I keep on going when I have far surpassed the point of having anything left to give.
After learning about mothering burnout, I took some time to spend with God in prayer and read my Bible, something else that had been severely lacking for several weeks. Where should I open up to but Matthew 11:28.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
I have read this passage so many times, but it never struck home more than it did that day. Weary and burdened…I could definitely relate. Here in these few verses was the solution. Jesus said to come to Him. He said to take His yoke upon us and learn from Him. First of all, we need to asks for his help and involve Him in our day. Secondly, we need to listen and learn.
We were created to live in community; to ask for and offer help to one another. I think that is what we can learn from this passage. Jesus said to take up His yoke. In Bible times, a yoke was used to hitch two oxen together to pull a load or plow a field, the purpose of it being to equalize the load and make it easier to carry. What a beautiful picture of what God offers us!
God never designed us to do life on our own. Jesus also said that He was humble in heart and that we would find rest for our souls. I’ve realized that is prideful to think that I can or should do everything on my own. Humility says that we need each other. Humility empowers us to ask for someone to come alongside and carry whatever our burdens may be. Not only are we to enlist God’s help, but also the help of others in our community. For me that means leaving my Superwoman cape for playing dress up with my kids, stop being such a perfectionist, and reaching out to my community. There truly is rest in that.
So what have I learned? I’m not perfect. We mothers are really good at beating ourselves up and focussing on our shortcomings and failures. If there were medals handed out for this, I would have a gold! But what good comes from focussing on what we have done wrong? Yes, it is necessary to acknowledge what has happened because unless we do that, we can’t move on from there. The challenge is trying to learn from it and then put your best step forward and try again.
I love having a family. And I love that they need me. The trick is finding a balance between helping to “carry their burdens” and asking for help to carry mine. Will I fail again? Undoubtedly, yes. But as my favorite quote from Anne of Green Gables states, “Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it yet”. Now that’s a thought worth hanging on to.
Of Shattered Things 