Thursday, October 12, 2017

Balancing work and kids

I have been absent from this blog for a long time. I was too busy to write. In the meanwhile I had another boy (now almost 2), I studied to become a do-in yoga teacher and recently i returned to the corporate world meaning I started to work again. I thought being a stay home mum with 2 small kids was hard but honestly being a working mum sucks! Big time, especially if you are highly sensitive. I feel i am never enough. I have too little time with my kids, too little time at work and too little time left for myself (and according to my husband, too little time being a wife). I realised being highly sensitive and juggling work stress and home stress with small kids is super draining. I feel often so frustrated and get annoyed or angry. Especially since I realised that my office job is not fulfilling at all. I feel I am waisting all my time being behind a computer with problems that are not important. Highly sensitive people have a much stronger need to work in a field they believe matter. I guess for many other people an office job that pays the bills is ok. But for a highly sensitive  person it's not enough. I want to use my special gifts professionally and do a job that really matters to others and this world. Luckily because of my do-in yoga study I know what i want to do with my professional life. But it means giving up a semi well paying office job to become self employed in a total different field with no certainty of income. I am scared. I am scared to say goodby forever to an office job, a stable income, a certain lifestyle. Being a stay home mum has told me that this is also not fulfilling. That I need to do something professionally that fulfils me. I know what. But I need time to study more and I feel i never have time next to the kids and my office job. I am doing yoga everyday and still I get easily overwhelmed. The stress at work is killing me and when I come home to two crying and needy kids my threshold for stimuli and emotions is totally reached. What have i tried to survive:
- yoga (I developed a special series for highly sensitive people with many grounding and emotion releasing exercises)
- getting enough sleep (hard to achieve with long to-do lists)
- making a plan how to stop my office job and work in a more fulfilling profession
- realising what my ideal balance is of work hours and hours with my kids (meaning i need to work less hours. Still have to talk to my manager to ask for less hours)
- sometimes putting hubby before kids (if he's happy he's much more likely to help with kids and household and luckily he's been very helpful since i started working)
- moving to a calmer, greener and more kid friendly neighbourhood outside the city (has done wonders on me and the highly sensitive kids - need to post about this separately)
- accepting life can't be perfect all the time (sometimes I shout, sometimes we eat pizza and no self cooked meal, the kids clothes are never ironed and my hair is never nicely made)
- organising help: babysitter, cleaning lady, grocery delivery and grandparents that fly in from other countries to help out
- trying to accept that its a journey to find my balance. I am not there yet. I might loose it again.
- trying to feel and realise what my outside living and work situation do to my mood (next step is to make changes to life to feel better).

Let me know how you are handling working and small kids? I was 4 years at home. In retrospective it was great but i was also often overwhelmed with being alone with two kids. Is being a stay home mother also not ideal for highly sensitive people? Where's the correct balance of time at work/time at home for a highly sensitive mother. Love to get some comments from you.


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