Are you currently experiencing the overwhelm of trying to ‘do it all’?

OMG! I am.

It’s hard because I’m not someone who comes home from work in tears but tonight I called my mum and I could feel them on the surface, knowing I was on the verge of bursting out with a waterfall.

I spoke to mum about the challenges of returning to work part-time, as much as I was happy to return and as much I thirst for impact, it has been full-on to say the very least!

Cut a long story short, I’m running a team usually made for two full-timers that I’m leading on three days a week and it’s taking it’s toll.

I’m not enjoying my work anymore under so much pressure to ‘do all the things.’

Home life on the other hand, has been amazing.

Whilst choosing to spend some time out from my own personal projects to focus on rebuilding my relationship with my partner; laughing, playing and having fun with baby girl and Mitch. I have prioritised feeling and giving love, support and forgiveness. It’s hard work though but meaningful and important to me to keep my family together, happy, healthy and strong. And it means time; slowing down, patience and softness.

Those things don’t come naturally to me.

And I also lost my furry best friend, Mina. (I will do a separate post for Mina because there is so much to talk about with choosing to adopt a furry best friend that I truly believe is so healing for the both of you.)

And grief takes time too right?

Time…Fucking time…So this ‘time’ thing is what’s pressuring me. It’s my own internal time limit. It’s my own pressure. No one is sitting with a clock ticking, saying, “Hurry, the fuck up, Simpson!”

It’s me.

I want to do ‘all the things’.

I want to do them because time on this earth is never certain. I don’t know how much time I have or my loved ones have. I don’t know how much time you have. And I want to spend time with my daughter enjoying every moment with her, but I want to work and make impact to be of service to those who need it. I want to work on my personal projects because you deserve it too.

My head, my heart, my health (my memory or is that just mum brain) is hurting at a cost.

Back a few weeks ago, I planned to start recording my audio book, start a podcast, launch my online course, maintain a part-time job (which should be shared with two full-timers. Did I mention that?), nurture my relationship and family, be a great mum and spend time with my dog. But I became really sick for weeks. I couldn’t shake it until I stopped doing ‘all the things’ and went on a holiday for week.

Well Mina is no longer here and I have to find a way to rebalance things and I think with a bubba who is now walking, things are getting more intense.

So I need to figure this one out or I will be on the course for a break down. And that’s never pretty.

I can do hard things. YES, fucking oath! I can survive anything and you can too. Right? Of course we can.

But then something happened.

Do you ever feel like you met the right person at the right time and they give you the best wisdom and you find yourself wondering were they an angel?

Well, I met Sonia, a sonographer for a health check-up.

Sonia asked me about my experience as a new mum and me being me, I began to honestly give her a brief, maybe not so brief description of my experience of the last 14 months. Not in so much detail that I gave her a headache but enough for her to relate and talk about her experience of post natal depression.

She listened not just with her body but with her heart and I could feel how she held me with such tenderness and care and she began to give me the most amazing wisdom that I so desperately needed to hear.

She said this,

“Before you were a mum, you ran at 125%, now you’re a mum, you’re running at 150%, you’ve gone back to work, you’re up to 175%, you have a relationship, add another 25%, you’re working on your on side projects. You’re running at 225%.

I probably fucked up the percentages but you get the message.

She went on to tell me that becoming a mum wasn’t the hard thing, trying to do ‘all the things’ was.

She said, “accepting that you can’t do all the things”, and here’s the good shit, “as you did them before you became a mum is the hard part.”

She went on to explain, she struggled for years to try to do all the things putting herself under enormous amounts of pressure was her downfall, needing medication and she had to learn to accept this new version of herself that could only manage so much.

And I went away feeling relieved that she was able to put into words what I had been feeling overwhelmed by.

She nailed it, I cant do all the things as I was able to do them before.

I can still do hard things but not as intensely as I was able to before.

And that acceptance comes with an enormous amount of sadness to me.

There is a grief stage to this.

I don’t feel angry or resentment but with any big change we go through these stages but there is definitely a sadness. A loneliness. But grief is not unfamiliar to me which is probably why I’m able to process the death of Mina a little easier this time but I know it requires acceptance, time, softness and a slowing down process.

So now, I need to work out how to do that in a way I can still do ‘all the things’ because not doing ‘all the things’ is not an option for me but I need to find a way that feels a little easier than right now.

But it’s not gloomy, as I fought back my tears tonight as I came through the door from work, Mitch told me I walked passed him, I smelled like a fairy floss sandwich and I got to kiss my baby girl goodnight. I feel love and that’s all that really matters right?

Sending you so much love and healing.

Your friend on the path,

Renee.