Stressed Out Supermom: Finding Calm as a Working Parent
The layers of stress in your life can stem from anywhere, depending on which roles in your world fall heaviest on your shoulders. When you’re feeling stress in multiple places, it sometimes stacks much like a layered cake—layers of spongy requirement stacked together with fluffy, decadent pleasure that’s often spread far too thin. As a whole, it is a sweet gift to be a mother, but that doesn’t mean that our plate doesn’t become overwhelmed with all there is to do or lead us to feel like we might just topple over out of exhaustion.
Before you dive in, remember that our professionals are always here to help
Have your (stress) cake and eat it too!
To play with this metaphor a bit, we can think of the stress in your life congregated in layers, some dense and others lighter. You don’t get to choose much about this stress cake—you can’t always choose how it stacks up, or how thin the sweet layers of wonderful between each responsibility are spread. It’s evidenced that working moms have 40% higher levels of stress and it’s no wonder. Layer after layer piles up—long after you have reached your capacity.
So what flavors of your world make up the stress cake that threatens to overwhelm every day? For many working moms, the stress comes from a few key places: work, relationships, parenting, and balancing personal ambitions and emotional needs.
But more than that, it’s all of the bits and pieces of the things you feel drawn to do, pressured to do, or required to participate in. It’s the active choices, activities, requirements, and pressures that stir in seamlessly with the strains that are more visible: anxiety over deadlines, commutes, permission slips, and class parties.
The endless list of obligations of motherhood that are both required and desired—these are the stressors that whip themselves into such consuming chaos. The only thing that feels bigger is the guilt that comes along with them.
So why can’t I seem to reduce the stress?
“We value women’s time as if it’s infinite like sand, and we guard and protect men’s time like it’s finite like diamonds”, says Eve Rodsky, researcher and author who advocates for gender equity for women.
And honestly, she’s right.
Women in general, and especially mothers and women in tech, are in sore need of both stress management and time respect. Boundaries can help with both.
You aren’t failing if you need boundaries on your time
A lot of the stress that builds up to soaring levels is born from the load of labor expected of women no matter the additional roles they carry in their lives. It’s easy to make excuses that fall in line with the expectations you feel you must hold. These excuses may look like feeling as if you are more flexible, your work is more understanding or that you know just what to do when your child needs you.
But boundaries aren’t an excuse- they are an indelible line that grants you the identity and space you deserve to exist beyond the stress. Feeling as if you must apologize for your identity does not mean you don’t deserve one. You are not lazy or selfish for letting boundaries help you establish those roles, and it doesn’t diminish the incredible influence you have in your work and family lives.
How to find your calm and strike balance
We’ve got a list of tools specifically curated for stressed working moms (hey girl) to help you reduce stress and embrace your calm, but there’s a secret. In order for any of these tools to work, you must use them. Even when it’s hard. Use them, every day, without apologizing for needing them in order to begin a stress management practice.
Challenge yourself to do nothing.
It’s that simple (and that seemingly impossible). Make a day where you do nothing productive, and own it. It isn’t lazy, and there’s nothing wrong with it, yet it goes against everything you believe about the worth of yourself and your time.
Reduce screen time
Spend less time exposed to the spaces that remind you of your stress, so reduce the time you spend with screens that are associated with your work or mothering duties. This doesn’t mean you can’t read that book on your kindle or listen to your favorite songs—simply disconnect from the people and things that ask for your energy.
Check in with (and move) your body.
It doesn’t have to be yoga or an hour in the gym. A daily wander or a longer intentional walk—alone—can help you get the space from the stress that’s etched into your life and allow you to reconnect with the world going on inside of you.
There are more ideas you can use to get a grip on stress before it sinks its hooks into you. Some may feel more helpful, while others are a rinse-and-repeat of “not going to happen”, so take what you need and leave the rest unapologetically. There’s no added obligation here for you, mama.
Get more sleep
Schedule time for worrying
Journal daily
Masturbate
Reframe your work schedule
Delegate parenting tasks
Your identity isn’t a hobby and you must begin to do the difficult work of carving out the space in your life that you’d like to take up. When you recognize that your time is truly valuable and you are worthy of asking for space and boundaries in your world, it begins to open up.
While stress may be unavoidable, certain times of your life may present a greater challenge to hold onto the self care practices that keep you grounded. If you’re ready for something more personalized, with support responsive to the specific challenges that colors your world, take our free assessment or book an appointment with one of our clinicians today.
