Tag: workingmum

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Career

Career Change Can Be Scary

lit candle visualizing how career change can take you into your own light

A case study

Everyone knows that a career change can be daunting, if not full on scary. That is true with or without kids, but with kids there is just so much more to consider. The good news is, that achieving a career change can be less difficult and challenging, if you have someone on your side to guide you through it. Today, I’d like to share with you the case of one of my team leaders and how she overcame her fears and mental boundaries with my support.

Maybe you have already taken my quiz, or done the deep dive to look at whether or not your career is stalling. If this has confirmed your inkling, that something isn’t quite right with your career, you are probably thinking about what you could change. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be a full career change. Maybe you just want to focus more on one particular aspect of your current role that plays to your true strengths. If that’s the case then please keep reading – Laura, as I will call her for this purpose, went through these struggles with my help and was able to tap into her strengths as a result.

visualising career change as a journey

Laura’s journey

But let’s go back to the start. Laura was one of my team leaders in the science sector. She had been with the company for a long time and in a restructure ended up in a team leader role. She was hardworking and dedicated to provide excellent support to her clients. Unlike you, she was single and without many other family commitments – she loved her job and put in all hours. Now you may think that this is not a useful case study for someone with kids who has got very different constraints still. Hear me out though – her worry about changing tracks and about tapping into her true calling were just as real nonetheless and without the right support she would not have dared to make the step either, kids or not.

Mismatched career development

Laura was doing great, she always got fantastic client feedback. She knew the company inside out and was a genuinely warm hearted, supportive colleague. I became her manager after successfully moving up within the company, but we hadn’t worked together before. She initially felt that I as her younger, with a much shorter company history could not teach her anything new. And in fact, I did learn a lot from her about the section of the company and how it worked as well as what did not work so well. Luckily, I was able to surprise her though in the best ways possible as you will see.

Once we’d all found our grove in the new team (there were two other team leaders next to Laura), slowly problems started creeping up. Laura was so dedicated to her clients, that she wasn’t able to also manage her team and fulfil her tasks as a team leader. This meant that the other two colleagues stepped in and picked-up the slack, supported her team as well as theirs. I in turn picked up what was left undone by the three of them as a result. Opening up the discussion on how to solve this within this small team, only worked so far. Laura wanted to do better in her team leader role, but her passion was for the work with her clients and supporting them rather than a team and assuming managing duties coming along with that.

When excellence does not align

The clients were over the moon with Laura’s dedication and many started asking for her, even outside her specific remit. What a gift Laura had from the clients’ perspective! From a company perspective it was great that external clients were so happy, but at the same time Laura didn’t fulfil her role to the extend the company needed her to. It culminated in her team and other teams coming to me saying that her working out of hours and permanent availability had lead our clients to believe that this level of service was standard and out of hours working normal. The teams started receiving complaints directly regarding their perceived bad performance and soon enough these made their way to me.

Solutions that empower

Laura and I had already started looking at her workload and how to prioritize so that she would be able to deal with her portfolio as a team leader, while delegating the more direct client contact to her team. We had regular meetings and while she understood the knock-on effects her ways of working had, it became soon apparent that she couldn’t transfer her passion for support and care from the clients directly onto her team. She had worked like this for more than twenty years, so of course it was not going to be an easy switch.

I started suggesting, that she may want to consider enrolling onto an internal programme qualifying her to move into a role at the same level. A role that meant providing counselling support to clients – something that to me seemed to be perfectly in line with all her hard work and what she used to like about her role.

Listening to yourself for meaningful change

Initially, Laura wasn’t partial to the idea. Talking it over on various occasions she revealed that she felt too old to change her career and risk being unhappy in the new track. She felt, she would let everyone down who had relied on her all this time. The client reviews proved to her mind that if she left to a new role nothing would work anymore. At the same time she wasn’t convinced that she really had a gift in connecting to clients outside of her current remit. And then, of course, enrolling into a programme would also mean putting exactly that to the test and potentially failing at something that meant so much to her.

That really is scary! I understood that then and still relate to this so much now. It is incredibly vulnerable to put yourself out there like this. It is incredibly courageous and as you will find out, if you keep reading, at least equally, if not more rewarding.

lit candle visualizing stepping into your light through career change

Stepping into your light through a career change

Only once she was able to allow her own fears and concerns in. Once she was able to fully identify them, we were able to work through them one at a time. Laura didn’t enroll in the professional development programme right away, but she did when she was ready and had worked through some of her fears. She was lucky in that she knew the role she would cover after taking the programme was being created anyways. With her record of service and experience as well as references she knew that she could easily secure it.

That is not always a given and may make it even harder to step into your own light. Her fears were still very real obstacles for her to overcome after so many years on the same career track. A career track that didn’t truly align with her anymore once she advanced to a more senior role.

It is not always easy to see your own strengths for fear of failing, for fear of not being good enough after all. Especially, if you chose your career track a long time ago – before even having kids. It can feel like failure to change tracks, I get that. Laura had the same struggle, even though she didn’t have kids: Moving into a new career, even if it is adjacent to your old, or asking for a promotion, feels incredibly vulnerable, because what if you fail?

Taking the leap is easier and faster with support

I am still today proud of Laura for taking this brave step and trusting me in the process to support her despite the initial struggles. She once told me that without this encouragement, she would not have made the career change and probably ended up miserable in a role that no longer suited her. Not everyone will need the support – some people just take a while and once they see the picture more clearly, they are decisive and take action on their own. Often this process takes much longer though than when you get support, but everyone has their own schedule and that is absolutely fine.

We all know that family life is always busy and if it is one thing that I am constantly short of, it’s time for sure. So you either choose to wait and see once the kids are older (read up on why I personally don’t think, that this is a good idea), or you decide to get the support and fast-track change that empowers you to make the right choice for you and your family.

Be ready to course correct

The other thing to remember about coaching is that the outcome is not always what you anticipated it to be at the start. So you may come and present all the facts in a way that are in line with what is already at the back of your head. However, you need to be prepared for this outcome to change over the course.

I’ll be honest and say that when I first started working with Laura regarding her role, we both thought it was a matter of adjustment and helping her, find her new priorities. It ended up being a small scale re-training with a new job on the other end as you have seen.

This is also why it is important for a coach to listen carefully and attentively, to really tune into what is moving you and who you are. That is also why as a coach, my approach is never one size fits all. While I truly believe that almost anybody can benefit from increased body awareness, which is a key tool for my work, the degree to which I will make use of it will vary from client to client.

What to look for when you get support

If you decide to get support and tackle a career change, or ask for that promotion, always try to find someone who aligns with you and your values. Try to get to know them before you commit for more: Look at the methods they use predominantly and how flexible they are in applying those. What is their area of expertise? Who have they worked with in the past? And, if you can, schedule a free short appointment online or in person to get a feeling for them and see if you ‘click’.

Lastly, there are increasingly options to join coaching programmes online that are much more cost effective than one-on-one coaching, or can supplement one-on-one coaching to speed up progress and cut cost. Here again, you should choose based on your personality and values and what aligns with you personally.

If you feel like you want to work with me, or if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’d love to hear from you, of course.

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Career

Should I try to have it all? – Career development in motherhood

spiralling staircase visualising a dwindling career

Understand why you may feel stuck in your career and why you should try to change this

winding staircase from above; visualises a dwindling career

There are many reasons why your career stalls or even dwindles once you become a mother. But does it matter? We can’t have it all anyways, can we? No, we can’t have it all. That is if you define ‘all’ as everything we ever wanted at the same time. That is never realistic though since we always achieve goals only one step at a time. So it is not so much about having it all in the sense of having everything at the same time. We can, however, set priorities that are in line with our values and what we want from life. This is also true for our career development.

You are not alone in this

This article sets out to reflect on reasons for why your career may have stalled or dwindled with motherhood. The discussion unpacks common reasons that I have come across a lot. The article will hopefully show you, that you are not alone in this. I want to show you, that it is not fault that your career development has slowed in motherhood. The “why” behind a career off-track feeds into why it is important to plan how to get your career back on track. Just waiting until the kids are older won’t do the trick.

Make it your own

You should evaluate your specific situation. I am providing a career check-up as a quiz and a self-assessment alongside this article. They will help you look at:

  • how much you feel the reasons mentioned here affect you and your career development, or not, and
  • it offers you an opportunity to reflect on what other reasons play a role for you individually, if you do the deep-dive self-assessment.

The second part of the self-assessment will help you to reflect on why actively driving your career growth might be a good idea. In my experience, it is crucial to work through the form step by step in writing. It really helps you reflect on what is most relevant for you, so take your time with it. This article is really just a starting point for you. You can find the form at the end of this article.

Helping you make the right choice for you

With “more you and not more to do” in mind: Please rest assured, that I don’t want to add to any overwhelm or pressure you may be feeling already. I want for you to be able to make an informed choice on how you want to develop your career, or not. You could even still be pregnant and apprehensive of what it may mean to go back to work. With this article and the check-up I want to support you in making the right choice for yourself. I want to support your career development in and throughout motherhood.

Disclaimer – getting ahead during your first pregnancy

Are reading this while pregnant with your first child? It’s great, that you want to get ahead of the game. Please bear in mind, that only once your baby is here and you get to know each other, you can really grasp whether or not your current career path is going to work for you. You may also find that you need to change tracks.

It depends on your child’s character and the way in which motherhood challenges and changes you. This can change even later on as your motherhood journey progresses and maybe your career stalls despite best efforts. In that case, it might be good to go back and re-assess your situation to get a better picture and new starting point. But let’s dive into some of the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for why career development may get off track in motherhood.

Body changes in pregnancy – changed focus post-partum

pregnant woman with hands making a heart over the growing belly. The belly changes visibly during pregnancy, but also the brain changes.

Already during pregnancy your body is changing to ensure that you can care for your baby. It prepares you to focus on the newborn and its needs after birth. We now know that there are even changes to the brain of a woman during pregnancy, preparing it for optimal function for when the baby is born. (e.g. Hoekzema, E., Barba-Müller, E., Pozzobon, C. et al. Pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure. Nat Neurosci 20, 287–296 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4458; more recently Servin-Barthet, C., Martínez-García, M., Pretus, C. et al. The transition to motherhood: linking hormones, brain and behaviour. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 24, 605–619 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-023-00733-6 ). All of this makes perfect sense, especially from an evolutionary perspective.

This could be one reason why you may feel less focused on or even interested in continuing to develop your career in motherhood. Already during pregnancy you may experience some brain fog and difficulty concentrating on or remembering things. Combined with potential overwhelm with what it means to care for a baby, it is very natural to take a step back. Taking a step back and slowing down for a while (or also for longer, if you choose to and can afford it), is perfectly fine.

Time off post-partum

Time off post-partum is so important not only for bonding and healing. Sadly, the time you get varies so greatly from country to country, not only for mothers, but also for fathers. Staying away for too little time can be similarly detrimental as staying away for too long.

The effects of coming back too soon

If you have to go back to work only weeks after giving birth, your whole body and hormones are probably still all over the place and nights alone are bad enough to make it tough to work. As a result you may feel like your job is only a burden, keeping you from bonding with your baby. A very short recovery also sets you up for an extreme disconnection from your body by the way. It forces you to push past any pain or discomfort you may still be experiencing just so you can function at work and keep your job. It also sets mothers up to do badly in a job they were good at before. This adds to another reason that I will discuss below which is the appreciation of mothers as part of the workforce.

When you take a longer break

Contrary, longer time off after giving birth as much as that may be desirable for some, can also affect your performance. When you come back to work, things are likely to have changed. Maybe new systems are in place. Maybe you get assigned to a new role and have to learn things at least partly from scratch. If you have asked to work in a part-time role, you may as a consequence have fewer responsibilities than before. Working part-time your salary is likely to have decreased. Having to start (partly) from scratch and basically being demoted after coming back to work, often means that you may feel less capable and certainly less appreciated on the job.

Lastly, both, coming back very soon, or coming back later, are likely to make you feel less competent and less confident for the aforementioned reasons. You are probably less likely to speak up in a meeting, pitch an unconventional idea, or ask for a promotion. On the flip side, your employer is likely to perceive you as less engaged, maybe less sharp, which leads them to the conclusion that you may be less interested in career development.

Motherhood perceived as risk and burden for organizations

This leads us straight into the next set of reasons why your career may stall or dwindle. Employers consider women of childbearing age as a risk to their business. For example, a pregnancy may mean that a woman is put on bedrest. It means she misses work from one day to another without handing over. As a result, important projects are often not assigned to an expecting mother, already hampering her career prospects and taking away an opportunity to prove herself.

Even amongst colleagues there can be resentment for expecting mothers. They anticipate picking up the slack during her maternity leave, for example. If a woman secures an open-ended contract after holding a fixed-term position and she gets pregnant, you can rest assured that people will talk behind her back. It was all strategy to get the secure job and then get pregnant after all.

Mothers as costly second class employees

These are just a few examples how (expecting) mothers are often disregarded in the workplace. This even happens if they have remained with the same employer who seemed to value them before. I have said it elsewhere, but it couldn’t be more obvious:

Mothers are considered second class employees for who special arrangements need to be made at the personal level (e.g. space for pumping/nursing), but also at a team level (splitting up the task while she is gone, or hiring and training someone to cover for her during maternity leave). All at extra cost to the company. Motherhood is never associated with positive career development from an employers perspective. Additionally, expectations are, that mothers will attend to their sick child more often than the fathers and miss work yet again. Statistics confirm this expectation, but that doesn’t mean that mothers don’t make up for it in other ways. To be honest this whole topic is worth exploring in a separate article in future, so I will leave it at these few examples for now.

In short, (expectant) mothers aren’t perceived as performing at the same level as pre-pregnancy. They are considered a burden and risk, also financially, for the organization and the team during pregnancy and thereafter. Lastly, adding culture into the mix, mothers aren’t considered as interested in serious career development. If they are, they are labelled as bad mothers. But more on that later.

Lack of good part-time positions

From a job market perspective, there is also the problem of quality part-time positions, including those at leadership levels. It is often assumed that leadership positions require a full-time contract. Even worse, many current managers think that from a certain level of management, you need to work more than full-time, i.e. at least 50-60 hours per week and more, in order to get all the work done. Something has got to give, right!? And their family life suffered after all, surely this could not have been done differently…

It is often the mother who decides to decrease her hours, not least because her career has likely already taken a hit (see reasons above) and the partner, if there is one, is likely bringing home more money (now). Economically, it doesn’t make sense for them to cut the hours of the person with higher paycheck – at least not on the face of it. The young family will loose income in the short term that is sorely needed. Income that also pays towards childcare, which is inevitably necessary, if both parents want to work. Which brings me to the next reason why mothers’ careers get off track.

Cost of childcare

Cost of childcare is prohibitive in many places. It is actually often so high, that some women would have to pay all their salary towards childcare to go to work and that trade off often does not seem worthwhile to them. Obviously, we need to lobby for more affordable, high quality and flexible child care. In the meantime the direct comparison of cost with the mother’s potential income falls short in my opinion.

two hands spreading out a stack of dollar bills; picture visualizes the high cost of childcare

Why does it fall short? Firstly, because both parents should pay for childcare. So we need to deduct childcare cost from both parents’ incomes, or the over all household income. You could even add in a weighting dependent on the share each salary has in the combined household income, in fact. This assumes that the mother’s pay has decreased (as explained above) as a result of parenthood. Parenthood, however, is a common endeavor. Not only would the mother assume the cost of childcare in full, or at least more in proportion, but even chip in her free labor as care work at home.

This brings me to my second point, why the straight calculation of the mother’s income against childcare cost is wrong. The mother also looses out on other benefits such as healthcare, pension etc.. More importantly, she looses at least some work experience that would qualify her for higher paying jobs and allow her continued career development, better pension and benefits. Spoiler alert: This is a very good reason to keep thinking about your career and how to maintain, if not develop it while your kids are small.

Society’s expectations of mothers

Then there is society… I am sure you know this from your own experience, but the incredibly high expectations society has of mothers have long made their way into stand-up comedy. That is how ridiculously high they are. With regards to working, of course, mothers should work nowadays, but also not be ‘too ambitious’ and work ‘too much.’

A good modern mother works, loves her job, but not more than her children or her partner. She works diligently, needs no breaks, does not talk about her kids at work, nor do problems with her kids affect her work. The minute she leaves the office (the school, the practice), she fully embraces all her maternal duties. She bakes the most beautiful cakes and playing with the kids is the only break she needs. Household chores are no problem either, although a maid once a week is kind of acceptable. She’s the perfect wife, daughter and friend too, of course.

It is no wonder that mothers are weary of actively pursuing better career development for fear of doubting their own commitment to their children and family. Naturally, they also worry about how they and their family is perceived by others. Who knows what would happen to the rest of the family, the rest of the world, if she were to have more responsibilities at work. It seems so much easier to just wait until the kids are older and expectations ebb off a little.

Why not wait until the kids are older?

You certainly can wait until your kids are older – it’s your choice, provided it is an option for your family financially. The question is, however, what are your options and chances to pick up your career where you left it off and how quickly would you be able to proceed again at the previous pace. What are the risks you take by simply waiting and seeing how it goes when you get back? Please remember, I am assuming that you are inherently interested in developing a career for your own intellectual pursuit as much as financial freedom.

Being stuck with the “mum label”

I have outlined the issues that go along with taking time off from work above, these won’t get any better unless you very actively (for fear of saying ‘aggressively’) show an interest in developing your career. There is already a bias against you. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to get out of that familiar position on the one hand, but it will also be even harder for you to get someone to notice your work and potential on the other.

Financial loss through missed career opportunities

You will loose out financially, because you are less likely to get higher paying jobs and better benefits as I mentioned when looking at childcare cost. It is really important that you set up a plan with your partner how the combined household income will also cover these costs for you. Especially a retirement fund is extremely important, if you choose to stay home longer, or if you choose to not pursue career growth.

Economic considerations and aging (grand)parents

And let’s not forget, the longer you wait the higher the discrepancy in your salary compared to your partner’s will be. It means that if there are circumstances requiring less hours at work and more time at home, you will invariably be the one to take this on, further reducing your chances at a career of your own. Often once the kids are old enough and more independent, the (grand)parents start getting frail, requiring more care. It is, of course, lovely, if grandparents are looked after and cared for by their family – that is not the point here. The question is, whether or not you are prepared to again stay at home more and take on the extra care work. Please don’t get me wrong – if you want this, then that is great and perfectly fine. I just want you to really think it through from start to end.

Effects of perimenopause and menopause on career development

Other than your own, or your partner’s parents getting older, you also get older as your kids age. No surprise there, I know. What we do know, however, is that perimenopause and menopause can go along with severe symptoms that are often not connected to the hormonal change women are experiencing and hence women don’t get the help they need.

Struggling at work

Sadly, these symptoms lead to women feeling unsupported and unable to perform on their job (some 40% on a weekly basis and 20% on a daily or multiple times per day basis according to Biote research). Brain fog, forgetfulness, depression are just a few of the debilitating consequences of a changed and changing hormonal status. As a result 10% of perimenopausal and menopausal women experiencing symptoms even left their job (Fawcett report ‘Menopause and the Workplace’). The number of women considering leaving their job is even higher at one in six according to CIPD research from 2023. This does not seem to be a time where we start thinking (again) about career development.

If not leaving their job, between 10.8% and 15.6% of women report missing work depending on the severity of their symptoms. More severe symptoms meant a higher likelihood of being absent from work (Mayo Clinic, 2023, ‘Impact of Menopause Symptoms on Women in the Workplace’). Luckily, more research is happening now, but doctors are still not well trained and research is still small in this area.

In short, when your kids are older, you might not feel as capable as you used to. Without the right medical support you may not be able to actively drive forward your career development depending on how strongly symptoms affect you. Similar to when we have kids, we just don’t know what to expect. We don’t know how challenging this new phase of live will be.

Where does that leave you?

This article was a long read and I appreciate that you have made it this far. Thank you! I think there is probably a lot of food for thought now and in my experience mulling it over alone, won’t be nearly as efficient as taking a good look and assess for yourself where you stand and how much the discussion in this article affects you. For that reason, I have created a self-assessment for you at no cost. You can get it below and please feel free to reach out with questions or feedback.

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Background & Culture Theory Current Topics

Maternal burnout & body awareness

Why body awareness matters most for working mothers and how it can help in avoiding maternal burnout

I have started this blog with a sketch of how centuries of cultural practices are contributing to mums feeling guilty. A guilt that can lead to overwhelm and maternal burnout, because women are taking on more and more without looking after themselves. Why and how body awareness makes a difference to realigning with yourself and with what is truly yours, will be the verse of this blog. But I skipped a step since I have not really explained what I mean when I talk about ‘body awareness’. Defining body awareness is key to understanding

  • why it will make a difference to your experience as a working mother;
  • why it is important to reconnect with your body;
  • and lastly, why it is not your fault that the disconnect happened in the first place.

Defining body awareness

Body awareness is the ability to perceive, understand, interpret and react to the signals of our bodies from within and without. Signals from without would be feeling a breeze on your skin, for example. The body schema is another aspect of body awareness. It combines signals from without and within and allows you to move more or less effortlessly and more or less consciously through space.

For example, if we wear a large backpack, or a bulky purse and we move through crowds, our body schema normally incorporates that protruding item to allow for smooth movement without bumping into other people. To do that we combine physical signals outside of ourselves (like seeing other people, feeling the backpack) with signals from within. The vestibular system adjusts how you balance your body with the added weight, for example. The body schema is a big part of proprioception, i.e. the way we perceive ourselves within our own body in time and space.

Signals within can be basic needs like having to use the bathroom, being hungry or tired. Feelings and emotions also manifest physically and are signals from within, but can and often will be triggered from events without our bodies. If you fall and scratch open your knee, for example, the resulting pain comes from within your body while its cause came from without. Sadness can stem from a loss of a dear person. Happiness can be incited by spending time with close friends. Anger often comes from other unresolved feelings and so on and so forth.

Learned disconnect

Often we have learned from a young age that we cannot or must not trust these signals. The scratched knee does actually not hurt (as badly as we make it out). We have been told to calm down, or not be too intense, when we did not feel calm at all. We have all heard:

picture shows a street sign saying yield. We have learned to yield to the perception of others when it comes to our body rather than trusting ourselves paving the ground for maternal burnout.

‘Don’t be sad.’ or

‘You are so much prettier when you smile.’

It means that we learned to distrust our body’s signals and how we perceive them ourselves. We exchanged this at least partly with what others thought appropriate behavior and appearance might be. Our own bodily signals were henceforth labelled ‘too much’ and had to be ‘reigned in.’

This is the short version. If you look at it in more detail – hopefully I will get around to it eventually, it is even more complex. Especially women are being taught about their own bodies from a young age distorting their own perceptions and trust in themselves.

How motherhood boosts the disconnect

Fast forward to motherhood and you have the perfect ground for fully disconnecting from your own body and developing maternal burnout. Years of being told that others know more about your body, what it should look and feel like, you enter to a nowadays almost complete medicalization of your own body that henceforth shall serve to create another human being. We now know that even the brain changes during pregnancy to prepare for the task of motherhood. Once the baby is born most likely you will be dedicated to raising it and putting it first. From an evolutionary perspective this makes perfect sense and keeps the species alive.

Overwhelm & maternal burnout

However, it disregards that we no longer raise our children collectively. Often even grandparents are not close by to support the growing family. Taking care of one or more children, in particular when they are still young, is physically as well as emotionally draining. If you add to that a disconnect from your own body, a consistent disregard for your own needs, you are on the fastest way into overwhelm and maternal burnout. This is not what our children need. This is not what we need, nor do we want it. It’s just something you so easily slide into without noticing.

Disappointed professional ambition

Then we add to this professional ambition. Maybe you experience personal disappointment at what you thought you’d achieve professionally, but simply haven’t. Simply couldn’t, because it was just too much. All the time and money you spent on education. The time spent on working hard to proof your value at work, on personal development and continued education. Will you wait until they are older, but then maybe so will be your parents or in-laws – who will look after them? Probably you, because your partner is likely to earn so much more than you at this point, that it doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Empowering body awareness

I am digressing a little, but then again, I am not. This is the scenario that is very real for many of us. I am not saying, that it isn’t important to take care of other people, but it should be a conscious choice and not something you end up doing, because you are a woman. To the contrary taking care of other people is hugely important while it doesn’t get nearly enough recognition socially. Last but not least of all, you can only really take care of other people, if you know how to take care of yourself.

Picture of a woman in a lotus seat. Body awareness can help you steer clear of maternal burnout.

This is where the loop closes: In order for you to be able to take care of yourself, you cannot skip the step of reconnecting to yourself and to your body. It allows you to decide how you want to take care of others. It allows you to choose to pursue a career and how to prioritize according to your own as well as your family’s needs. Body awareness won’t solve all your problems, no. It will, however, make you stronger, more resilient and creative in finding solutions that work for you. It will empower you in situations where you’d otherwise feel helpless or maybe even hopeless.

Do you want to take back control? Do you want to empower yourself, to trust yourself to make the right choice?

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Current Topics

When life gets in the way

airplane taking off into the sunset
©u37suikdl (pixabay)

Trust your body and your body awareness practice for coping with life challenges

My original plan for the next post was to write another theoretical article on the female body. I also announced this in my previous blogpost and still think, this is an important topic which I will write about eventually. For now I listened to my body instead. I will tell you a little about my own recent struggle to maintain a strong body awareness practice. Hopefully by sharing my personal experience you will be better prepared than I was and use your body awareness better for coping with life challenges.

airplane taking off into the setting sun to visualize body awareness practice on the move
©u37suikdl (pixabay)

The big move

Earlier this year, we decided that we would make a major move, far away from family and most friends. This was exciting and challenging at the same time. We could not have anticipated just how challenging it would become and we are still in the process of settling in our new home now.

There were just so many things to organize and do… As a couple we have moved around quite a bit, but with kids only once and within the same city. As parents who made the decision to completely uproot our live and that of our kids, our main concern was to help the kids transition smoothly.

Where the mental overload started

dark haired woman with closed eyes, forehead creased and rubbing her temples to show mental overload when you loose your body awareness practice

While we were still in our old home, I had my routines in place and remained attuned to myself as best possible during a time of impending change. But here is where I started to loose my connection despite having all the tools and knowledge; despite a strong body awareness practice. When our move finally started there were every day new obstacles, new plans and adjustments I had to deal with. My mental load exploded from one day to the next as a result.

After the initial overload with our old home being packed up (a process badly managed by the moving company) we started a long line of moves into various temporary accommodations. This is where I missed to notice just how dysregulated my nervous system and body were becoming.

Missed opportunities

Helping the kids to adjust remained our primary concern. With the move happening over the summer, we wanted to give them a bit of a vacation feeling. We hoped to gently transition them into their new surroundings. We did slow down a lot during that time. At that point I missed the opportunity to reinforce my practice of body awareness. While I did practice, I didn’t fully create a new routine for myself during that time. It is something I tend to do during vacations to allow myself a little more flexibility and exploration in my own practice.

old fashioned suitcases packed messily and clothes sprawling out - packing and unpacking over and over again can make you loose your body awareness practice
© Irina L (Pixabay)

I did and could not anticipate, however, just how challenging the next phase would be. I could not have known how much I would have benefitted from a strong practice at that exact (future) moment.

And that is the thing. That is life. It sometimes throws things at us unexpectedly – planned for or not. We had to move from temporary accommodation to temporary accommodation, packing and unpacking over and over. Finding supermarkets and the things we needed over and over. A million small things to consider at the same time.

Nourishment for the body is more than just nutrition

One example is finding my way in a new supermarket and getting to know the products. This is important to me, because I want to nourish my family and myself. I don’t want to just put anything into our bodies. For me this is an important aspect of body awareness – one I intend to write about in the future.

Initially shopping in a new country and supermarket means reading and understanding an awful lot of labels and ingredients lists. It takes so much time and mental capacity. Of course, I will be more lenient in times like this. Preparing food in temporary accommodations also has its limits. But I was not ready to fully relinquish our diet to convenience.

It’s also different, if you go on a proper holiday. You eat special local treats that are maybe not as good for you. But you simply can’t get them at home anymore. I did not want my kids to develop unhealthy eating habits that could easily continue going forward.

New routines over and over

I also kept re-establishing routines for us in each accommodation and at each phase of the move. The only routine that I did not re-establish over and over was my own body awareness practice. Instead I practiced as and when I remembered. That wasn’t often enough though since there was so much new information I was processing all the time. It reminded me of just how much mental and physical energy we save, if we have good routines in place.

All will be well, or not?

The kids started school, my husband went to work. Things needed to run as smoothly as possible while taking these next big steps. I was so focused on transitioning my kids that I barely noticed, just how far I was leaving myself behind. I kept telling myself that once we can move to our new home, all will be well. When our things finally arrived, however, I only realized just how much had gone wrong with the moving company back in our old home as well as our new.

Everything was an even bigger mess than you could have imagined. Things were and are missing. Boxes were randomly labelled and furniture not set up properly creating a safety risk for our children to name just a few. At both ends people rushed in, did a bad job and left again. I felt so overwhelmed at so many levels, it’s hard to explain.

There is something very intimate about someone else touching most if not all your things. Someone else coming into your home to pack it up, or to unpack it is more personal than I ever imagined. For them it is just another, probably not so well paid job. At the same time no matter what, safety always comes first and they certainly did not care about that. How could these people be so reckless? You can do any job well and you will have a better chance of moving up, or finding a better job. Surely at least that should be a motivation, if not other people’s safety and wellbeing? I clearly had been too naïve about the sheer scale of our move, but also about how deeply the thoughtless and reckless of people would affect me.

The body’s last resort

Not surprisingly, I ended up getting ill – which, obviously, I couldn’t. My husband had to go to the office and even started travelling again. The kids had to go to school and kindergarten. I had to settle our youngest at kindergarten while I was so deeply unsettled myself. Maybe as unsettled as I have ever been in my life. At that point, I was back to ‘only functioning’. I did what I ‘had to do’. I wasn’t able to stop and breath, move intentionally and listen for fear of falling apart. Only once bedtime came and all the noise and hustle of the day were gone, I allowed myself to feel it all, to notice what my body had to say.

I am just now coming out at the other end of the tunnel. Three weeks after we could finally move into our new home, I am still not fully recovered from being ill. What I have learned though is that my connection to myself is strong even when faced with adversity. My practice, however small it may be, is strong enough to re-connect me to myself when I most need it. Even very little body awareness practice can make a huge difference for coping with life challenges. I can say for sure that I would have coped much better with all of it, if I had maintained a stronger practice throughout. Honestly, I don’t know if I realistically could have done it differently though.

No magic wand

Luckily, I at least didn’t have fixed office times, or a new job to start with a new employer at the same time. It would not have been possible! Body awareness practice is super important and can make a difference for your job performance and career. It is not however a magic wand that can make everything go away; or you magically manage to do more than what is humanly possible in 24 hours. It can however give you the strength and confidence to prioritize in your own way, to decide which path is right at that point in time for you and your family.

Maintain your practice

I am sharing all of this, because I know how life can get in the way. We all need to remind ourselves once in a while to:

1. try to keep our body awareness practice going whenever and as best we can, because we never know what life will throw at us.

symmetrically stacked flat stones on a reflective surface with setting/rising sun in background

2. not beat up ourselves, if we slack in our practice and feel that we are losing touch – you can and will get there again, if you are determined to do so.

3. to remain aware of our bodies and to live intentionally are a conscious choice, a continuous practice.

I want to offer you the knowledge and support that you need to build that continuous practice. However big or small that practice needs to be for you without adding to your load, without another item on your list. Just more you, not more to do.

Categories
Background & Culture Theory

Mum guilt

– deeply rooted in the past – & what you can do about it now

If you are a working mum, chances are that your life is full! Full of laughter, full of play, full of color and chaos, full of healthy meals, full of delightful moments with the whole family, fabulous family outings and vacations… or maybe not… maybe it’s not just like that all the time – mostly, sure and especially on social media -, but not exactly all the time… 

showing cluttered chair and desk - mum guilt for not being on top of all the chores at home
©Congerdesign (Pixabay)

Motherhood in real life

Technically, come to think of it, yes, there is laughter. Yes, there is color (on the new rug) and chaos (literally everywhere). But there are also tears and shouting, because you opted for the wrong cup or you cut the sandwich incorrectly, or just because you decided bath-time could no longer be avoided, or because you said the wrong thing at the wrong time to your teenager. And with that, there is also a whole lot of guilt – mum guilt to be precise.

Where mum guilt creeps in

Many of us still live in pretty traditional setups. Even if you and your partner are striving to divvy up care work more equally, it often doesn’t come easily, but needs careful planning and hashing things out. So here we are, actually pretty well organized (not to call it optimized), well-read when it comes to modern needs based and gentle-parenting , and yet, we feel guilty:

  • Guilty for meals that are not quite as healthy as we know they should be;
  • Guilty for homes not as picture perfect and tidy as we see on social media, in catalogues and invariably at that perfect friend’s home (who frantically tidied and cleaned ahead of our visit);
  • Guilty for sending our kid(s) to childcare while we are at work;
  • Guilty for spending the evening in front of the TV with our partner, because we are both exhausted from the day (when we ‘should’ be connecting and having meaningful discussions about life). 

But let me backtrack a little.

The roots of our mum guilt – past perfectionism

Most of us raised as girls will have learned how important perfection is and that only perfect will do. Perfection at all levels: motherhood, relationship, professional life, and impeccable looks, of course. Yes, we can do it all, and it all needs to be perfect. Now you are asking yourself, what this has to do with a patriarchal society, or maybe not, but bear with me as this is really a crucial thing to understand, if we want to move past the guilt and into our own strength.

two wedding bands on an open book
©Pexels (Pixabay)

Girls were expensive (parents had to accrue a dowry) and had to be married off to a good family (not least to form alliances). The best chance a family had for their daughter to find a fitting match was to be as perfect as possible in all matters of family life (i.e. care-work) and physical appearance. In short, she had to be an asset and not a liability for her new family. The physical appearance was a sign of health, so important when it came to ensuring healthy heirs.

The ‘motherhood penalty’ – how the past impacts the present

Nowadays that we have long gone beyond this paradigm, the patterns have still been passed on over and over… and over, so that they are hard to extricate. At the same time we are no longer just in the home space, of course, and luckily so. Yet studies show that most care-work is still done by women. We are also participating in society at many other levels – not least as professionals at work. Our physical appearance (obviously) also matters in the public domain, so much so that I will dedicate a separate article to the female body and how it is being objectified by past and current culture.

Studies furthermore show that there is a pay gap between men and women. While women without children are catching up with men, mothers still trail behind and risk poverty when they are old, because their pension is too meagre to support them. In fact, when a woman has a baby her career stalls, or even dwindles. A man, on the other hand, becoming a father is most likely to experience a career boost.

Of course, we are now starting more to take precautions, that we won’t fall short in pensions later on. But we are still a long way from equality when it comes to combining parenthood and paid labor. It also means that the pressure is on women to catch up in their career, or to push harder for that promotion when our plates are already full with most of the mental load, if not all the care-work in many instances. More pressure is likely to also create more mum guilt for the times when we feel overwhelmed. When we feel we don’t get enough done. When we are not in line with our values when dealing with the kids.

Modern parenting for a future society

And let’s not forget: Having children and raising them is not nearly as private as everyone makes it out to be. No, we are raising the next generation of our societies. We are doing so mindfully in an ever more complex world.

We now understand better that raising children does not work with reward and punishment. Kids need connection and nurture. They need a secure space to be their own person, making their own mistakes… As parents we are here to hold them, to offer advice, to allow them to try and fail on their own terms. We set age and individually appropriate boundaries negotiated between child and parents over and over again. These are recurring discussions and negotiations, reflections and questioning of standards and how things ‘should’ be done.

Working against deeply rooted patterns

Even trying our best (and that is true even in moments where we fail to meet our own standards) we will forever doubt whether or not, we made the right decision in that exact moment. With perfectionist ideals in mind it seems a Sisyphean task. Let’s not forget that most of us probably never enjoyed the kind of upbringing we want for our children. Thus we have to constantly analyze and go against what was deeply engrained in us during our own childhood.

Unsurprisingly, what remains when our child goes through a hard time is the guilt, the worry:

‘Could I have done anything differently?’

‘Did I work too much and did not spend enough time with them?’

‘If only I had done…’

And we all know that we will probably never get an answer to these questions either. Mum guilt waits for us at every turn our life and that of our children takes.

Mum Guilt and the body

This is but one perspective on guilt and where it is coming from. It will differ for each of us when it comes to other reasons we feel guilty. Guilt can be influenced, for example, by how we were raised, where exactly we grew up and if our family lived according to rules of a particular faith. Peer relationships we have had, if we were bullied and so much more can also play a role. Regardless of the reasons, guilt is an emotion hugely relevant to maintain human groups in their functioning.1 As a result guilt comes along with strong physical cues, like stomach aches, nausea, tension, sleeplessness to just name a few. These will all be reactions that you will want to get rid of quickly as they are so incredibly uncomfortable. They are also an opportunity to reconnect and notice the signals of your body.

Doing right by our children…

So, what can we do about it? Are we just doomed to suffer through this worry over and over again? How to change a system, a culture that has its roots so far in the past? It takes several generations to change something established such a long time ago. And still I believe that we do not have to suffer silently (and smile doing so, of course).

So, yes to a degree, we will always worry that we are getting things wrong, or that we got things wrong in the past. We are only humans after all and bound to fail. The key is to acknowledge failure, accept and learn from it to do better next time. ‘Better’ is not a scientifically defined concept, but is the continuous striving to do right by our children.

…means doing right by ourselves

Lastly, but not least importantly, it also means to strive and do right by ourselves:

  • to know our own worth and
  • to define motherhood on our own terms
  • to reconnect to ourselves and realign physically as well as mentally.

The latter really is the basis for the other two. Only once we reconnect to ourselves on a physical level, taking all our own needs seriously, we realize our own worth. Our worth that was there all along buried under expectations and cultural practices. It also means that we’ll be able to have more self-compassion when we feel guilty. We can strengthen our resilience. Self-compassion and resilience will help us to be there for our children when they need us most. It will help us to apologize without holding a grudge, to be a good and healthy example to them in what it means to be human. We will set them up to be more resilient, because they see us fail and get up again. And we allow them to fail and try again.

Your inner strength professionally

woman sitting on a wooden floor with legs crossed, hands folded in front of the chest; picture is cut-off at shoulder level; mum guilt for taking care of ourselves
© Irina L (Pixabay)

By reconnecting to yourself, you’ll also be able to

  • set healthier boundaries at work with the confidence that
  • your performance and focus are at their best while
  • recognizing when they are not and
  • how to remedy from a place of strength and trust that you are worthy everyday regardless of your performance.

Re-connecting to yourself through your body will allow you to choose your own career path. It will help you focus your professional life how it suits and serves you best without sacrificing motherhood or ambition. You can make more intentional choices and prioritize the way that is best for your family and yourself.

Breaking the guilt cycle together

As mentioned above guilt has a strong physical manifestation. Therefore it is probably not the ideal place to start practicing to reconnect with your body. In order to break the cycle of mum guilt and its effects on our children eventually, we need to become mothers that are connected to ourselves even in moments of guilt. We need to feel mentally and physically grounded most of the time and notice as well as acknowledge when we are not. It is not a matter of just waiting and pulling it together until the kids are older and it gets easier (because what if it doesn’t?). We are risking too much by waiting, we are risking not being the mum that we always thought we’d be, the (professional) person we’d become. 

We are in this together! It is a constant practice that I am here for with you. The blog is and will be a great resource for your, but if you want to ensure that you get all the news and resources first, please consider subscribing to my newsletter.

  1. Guilt ensures adherence to rules. Also note the connection here as motherhood is inextricably linked to maintaining a group, i.e. a family firstly, but secondly a society. ↩︎