 It is HOT.
After all it’s August, traditionally the hottest month of the year in the northern hemisphere, so why am I surprised? Record highs were recorded this week in Phoenix, parts of California and I’m sure many other cities throughout the world. It doesn’t help that we are literally trapped inside. When the pandemic started, I found time to get outside multiple times a day. Now at 5am, the temperatures are already pushing 80+ and if I don’t pull myself out of bed, I miss my chance for fresh air. Throughout the day, I look out the window longingly. Dreaming of a fall, or winter, or spring day. I would love to feel 75 degrees for just a few hours (that’s not too much to ask). I’m sure there are good reasons for the recent heat wave, global warming, lack of rain, etc. but this is not a blog on weather patterns. While temperatures are literally increasing, so is the heat surrounding online debates regarding:
Have you noticed how cruel people can be about these topics? I understand people are passionate. I understand many of these topics feel like decisions with life and death consequences, but it is shocking to me to see the hostility of people’s words on social media. If we step back, we can see these flames are being stoked by fear. People are afraid for the unknown. It’s easier to be angry than scared. When we are angry (read: fearful), we find temporary comfort in people agreeing with us. Their confirmation is support we are not alone in our thoughts which tames the fear, even if just a little bit. But that reassurance is short lived. It only takes the next inflammatory post, news story or email to remind us the heat hasn’t subsided, in fact it’s still rising. In the middle of all this, I launched a cool new program I call “Living in Flow”. The contradiction of trying to achieve flow while living in these “unprecedented times” is not lost on me. But I thought “If not now, then when?” There is so much chaos on the outside, it seems like the perfect time to check in and give some attention to what is going on inside. As you might expect, in the first week the participants were feeling the heat of all the things I listed above and more. We shared our stories and our struggles, no longer wanting to live in a pressure cooker. We walked away from the first meeting with the intention to play more and miraculously we all found time for it. Play was fun, refreshing and calming amidst the daily demands. There is more work to do, but this group is on their way to finding their flow. You may be struggling to find your flow. It may seem impossible to escape the heat, after all you can’t change the weather or social pressures surrounding us. Like me, you may be looking out the window wishing things were different. We don’t always understand why things happen as they do. Every experience leaves it’s mark for the next. Will we “fight fire with fire” and risk our anger burning it all up? Or will we stay inside, accepting the heat, reflecting, and knowing cooler days are coming? Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Don’t miss a post – sign up to receive the blog in your inbox every week. Scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a box to enter your email in the upper right side of the page.
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 We survived week two working from home full time with the kids! Let’s celebrate how far we’ve come! Who knew a couple weeks ago that would be such an accomplishment?
Trust me it is. Dare I say, this week even seemed a little more manageable as everyone gets a little more accustomed to this new routine. The level of urgency in some work requests were not at the “hair on fire” level. Hopefully this new level of rationality will continue. Next week our kids begin their school assignments. Not only will this add another stress, but it will also add two more devices onto our already stretched thin WiFi. (On a conference call Wednesday, “internet unstable” flashed on my screen and I had to start banning Netflix and Xbox, not my most popular moment.) I feel fortunate to have a 6th grader and a 10th grader, who can work on their own without my help. I’ll check in next week to tell you how our transition to “home schooling” went. This week, you have seen me around noon every day, popping onto Facebook Live and pulling a card from my new quote deck. The quotes are some of my favorite reminders taken from my blog posts. What I never could have predicted was how deeply they would resonate with all of us during this time. A few months ago, when I was pulling together items to put in the Working Mom Survival Kit, I wanted to include a few encouraging messages along with the essentials. As a working mom, I’ve found it’s easy to start the day with good intentions, calm, cool and collected, ready to face the day. Inevitably, at some point, the stress starts to build, and I shift to autopilot, leaving all my good thoughts and intentions in the dust. If I had a reminder I could refer to throughout the day it would help me stay on track. I had tried setting reminders on my phone, scheduling breaks in my calendar and keeping a gratitude journal. They all worked to some level, but weren’t enough to keep the stress away. Having something on my desk, next to my monitor would catch my eye throughout the day and help me keep it front of mind. The idea for the quote deck was born. Over the last couple months, I found forty of my favorite quotes, painted the design for the cards and the box and found a game company to produce them. Choosing the name was the hardest part. I posted a poll in my mom’s group to vote on the name and the feedback was great, something was missing. One day it came to me - Working Mom S.O.S.: Reminders to Save our Sanity. There are many moments throughout the day, when I feel like sending out that S.O.S. signal. Now, all I need to do is pull a card as a reminder to reset. I had no idea of knowing, the name would be equally as appropriate and prolific self-quarantined in the times of a global pandemic (words and phrases I never thought of before). I have to say I was a little nervous to get on Facebook Live to start, but I really love these cards and was excited to share them. Coming on Live each day has “forced” me to take a quick break and I’ve avoided falling victim to my autopilot. Here are the reminders I picked this week:
If you’ve been watching, you’ve probably seen the surprise on my face when I pull some of these cards. It’s like my hands are magically pulling the card we all need to hear during these crazy days. Some days, it appears I’ve written the cards just for these times. My blogs have always carried a message, but in light of new circumstances we are seeing the messages differently, with a new sense of understanding. Thank you for all your likes, hearts, comments and support on the Facebook Lives. If you want your own set of cards, you can order them by following this link. In the meantime, I’ll continue to pull cards and share them each day as we help each other through these unpredictable times. Heart-FULLy yours, Kacey Don’t miss a post – sign up to receive the blog in your inbox every week. Scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a box to enter your email in the upper right side of the page.  What image comes to your mind when you think of the word balance? A balance beam? Or maybe a stack or differently sized rocks? The feeling I get is that balance is a little shaky. I see myself with my arms out, waving and wobbling about, until balance is achieved. When you look up the definition of the word balance they use words like equilibrium and steadiness. One of the definitions is “the equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.” It is this definition of balance that we think of when we hear the phrase “Work Life Balance”.
The phrase Work Life Balance implies the need to evenly distribute your time between work and life. From the start, we know that is near impossible. If you work eight hours a day you would literally have to balance that out with eight hours of “life”, and in a perfect world eight hours of sleep. Though the math works out, the reality rarely does because “life” is not just one thing to manage. Life breaks out into family, household, friends and personal responsibilities. Now you are trying to find balance, equal time, for all of these things. It’s overwhelming. Thinking about it in that way brings to mind an image of a Jenga game, where the carefully stacked blocks are balanced but teetering waiting for one more piece to be removed before it all falls apart. So how do you get past that feeling that your daily balance is a tower of blocks that is waiting to collapse? First you need to accept the fact that balance is not something that can be measured daily. Some days everything falls into place – your work gets done, there’s no traffic, making dinner is a breeze and you get to spend quality time with your little ones. Other days, you’re not so lucky - a big work project means working late or a sick kid means not working at all. As if the overall stress of days like those are not enough, we put added stress on ourselves by thinking about how out of balance we are on that day. We need to accept that balance is something that can look very different from day to day, it doesn’t have to be equal as the definition implies. The powerful fact is that you get to define what balance looks like for you. For me, it’s come down to deciding what is most important to me in that given day. If I have been working late, then I try to find a quick dinner to make so that we can spend time with the kids before bed doing something fun. Or if there is a book report due the next day that is nowhere close to being done, that might mean leaving work early and logging in later on that night to finish up. I know it’s not always that easy. Summertime is a great time to look at what is and what is not working. It gives you a chance to slowly start to incorporate your new vision of balance and see how it works before the school year adds another level of chaos. Work life balance, or even just life balance, is possible when you are living your own definition. It doesn’t have to be perfect equilibrium, as long as it feels steady to you. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey  A few years ago I was feeling “off”. Looking back, I’m not sure I could have narrowed it down to one specific feeling. It wasn’t that I was unhappy – I had a great life, great family, friends, job, house, etc. And it wasn’t that I felt like something was missing. I just had this feeling like there was something more. I started looking for things I could change, so I started looking for a new job. After a couple weeks, I felt totally uninspired and discouraged. It was the end of 2012 and I had just started following Gabrielle Bernstein after her appearance on Super Soul Sunday. She was offering a free teleconference focused on goals for 2013. I signed up and dialed in. Gabby is a fantastic speaker. Even over the phone, unable to see her, you could feel her energy and passion. After only a couple minutes, I grabbed a pen and started taking notes. Then, as if she were speaking directly to me, she said – “It’s not about the job, the title or the company. The most important question you have to ask yourself is how do you want to feel?” And with that one question, my life changed forever.
How did I want to feel? That was a good question. The question followed me everywhere I went – driving in the car, making dinner, drying my hair. I turned to my journal, my trusty old friend. I started writing and like many times before, the answer I was looking for appeared on the page. I wanted to feel the excitement and synergy of working as a team on a project. I wanted to feel less tired and less frustrated with my children. I wanted to feel supported. And I wanted to feel more connected with the people in my life that were so important to me. Boy, it sounds like I was a total mess! It certainly didn’t feel that way being in the middle of it, but when I finally slowed down enough to listen to myself, I could clearly identify why I was feeling “off”. When you see someone and ask “How are you?” what are the responses you usually hear?: “Busy! We’ve had a different activity every night.” “Things are just crazy for us right now.” “The weeks feel like they just fly by.” Sound familiar? I’ve caught myself saying, one or all of these things multiple times. It’s weird because without even recognizing it, your routine, calendar and to do list start to take over the management of your days. Your entire day becomes one big checklist from morning until night. And then you wake up the next morning and do it all again. Despite all the technology gains and efficiencies, we’ve somehow managed to come up with more to do instead of less. In our frenzy to get everything done, we stop questioning why we are doing it all in the first place. I had known that something was “off” for quite a while, but I left it on my to-do list as something to dig into at a later time. There’s always a “but”. I know I will be so much happier when I’m able to (fill in the blank) BUT…….. I’ll do it when school gets out or when this project at work is done or when baseball season is over or when the kids are a little older. It’s hard. Really hard. I know, I’ve been there. First it’s hard to allow yourself to get quiet and listen. (I had originally typed that it was hard to find the time, but that’s not true.) The time is there for you, you just have to have the courage to face yourself, to ask yourself “How do I want to feel?” It is important to do this without judgement. You can’t be your own devil’s advocate and talk yourself out of why you should not want to feel that way. For me, this is why writing it out is so helpful. In my head I can get in this back and forth banter, but when I see it written out it there is more clarity – it’s harder to allow the other side to “argue” with your gut/heart instinct. Deciding how you want to feel is just the first step, albeit a big one, you can’t just stop there. Once you know what the desired feeling is, you have to take action. You have more control of your feelings than you realize. For me, I wanted to feel more connected with my friends and family. Each morning, I told myself that I was going to do things to feel more connected. I set reminders in my phone to go off every couple hours in case I got too busy and forgot. I made small talk with the barista (not something I’d normally do). I complimented a co-worker on a beautiful blouse. In the middle of the day I sent a text to a friend, just to let them know I was thinking of them. Imagining their face as they read it brought a smile to mine. These all started out as small connections, but grew into something more. I know these examples sound simplistic. The actions that you need to take do not necessarily have to be difficult. The challenge comes when you incorporate this into your everyday life on a consistent basis. You can’t act from a place of feeling and let your to-do list run your life at the same time. This involves creating a new habit where every day you commit to yourself how you want to feel and make small strides throughout the day to achieve it. Start today, set aside the but and ask yourself - how do I want to feel? Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey I’ve been reflecting recently on what it is like to be a new Mom. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 11 years (what!), since my daughter was born, but the feelings seem like they were happening just yesterday. You spend weeks and months preparing, reading books, talking to friends, family and getting unsolicited advice from everyone who crosses your path. Everyone tells you how wonderful it is going to be, but then when the baby arrives, you realize it is so much better than anyone could have described. I remember coming home from the hospital that first day, settling in and thinking now what are we supposed to do? Day by day you figure it out. What worked one day to calm her crying does not work another day, so you just keep trying new things until something works. The days go by and slowly you get into a routine (however odd the hours might be).
I was fortunate enough to spend three months at home with my daughter before having to go back to work. I knew it was going to be hard to go back, but financially I had to work and I was looking forward to having adult conversations. So on her three month birthday, I dropped her off at the daycare center, in the arms of a near stranger and went off to work with tears in my eyes. I was able to pull myself together on the drive to the office and what happened next was surreal. As I walked into the office, it felt like I had never left. It looked the same, smelled the same and the same familiar faces were walking around in the hallway. Mentally I knew I hadn’t been there in over 90 days, but when I sat down in my chair it felt like it was just yesterday. It was weird. I picked up right where I left off. It was comforting to be able to jump in, take my mind off my baby and feel like I was getting something done. At the end of the day, the anticipation and excitement of seeing my baby was unlike any I had felt. It was fun to leave work with a surge of energy, instead of feeling tired and worn down from the day. Even though my job was the same, I was different. “Problems” at work no longer felt like the end of the world – it was really hard to get spun up about something when I was surrounded with pictures of a peaceful, sleeping baby. My world was now bigger and the minutia of what happened at the office seemed less relevant. After a few months of being back, I started to think about my “career”. I had always had my next goal clearly on the horizon and now for the first time I wasn’t so sure about those goals. My priorities had shifted, I didn’t want to work 50-60 hours a week to get ahead, but on the other hand, I wanted to feel like I was moving forward and not staying stagnant. I felt like no one ever talked about this side of becoming a new parent. It’s easy to talk about choosing the right daycare, getting into a routine and doing things in your new role as mommy. But no one ever talks about what happens to your old role as career woman….. It took me many, many years to get to a place where I felt like I had figured it out. I read a lot of books, did a lot of soul-searching and journaling. My perspective and expectations changed dramatically along the way. One thing I also realized was that I wanted to help other moms get through this, whether it’s in the form of this blog or one-on-one coaching. This is a topic we need to start talking about on a larger scale. We are one of the first generations of moms that feel they can have it all – a rewarding, successful career AND a rewarding, successful family life. The fact is there are still only 24 hours in a day and juggling both priorities is not something that comes instinctively. It takes conscious effort. It’s difficult. But when you commit yourself to defining your priorities and allowing for flexibility, work life balance is something we can all achieve. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey p.s. Does this sound familiar? Are you struggling with work life balance? I’d love to help by offering you a free 30 minute consultation. On this call we’ll talk about what balance looks like today, what you’d like it to look like and what actions you can take to get there. Let’s get started, email me at balancedheartcoaching@gmail.com to set up a time. |
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June 2021
AuthorI started writing this blog because I wanted to have deeper conversations beyond "How are you?", "Busy", with other parents. Over the years I've shared personal stories, articles, authors and topics to facilitate conversations with parents about the joys and the challenges of parenting. |
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© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching
Disclaimer: I may receive affiliate compensation from the resources and websites mentioned on this website.
© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching