working mom – Jenn Sheridan

Which way do I lean?

“The days are long, but the years are short.” ~ Gretchen Rubin

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” ~ James Taylor

With Spider Boy’s first year of preschool coming to a close next week, I’ve been looking back over this past calendar year a lot lately, my first year as a “stay at home mom.” This year has been a lot of things. Intense. Emotional. Chaotic. Playful. Stressful. Fun. Messy. Diverse. Routine. Challenging. Exhausting. Beneficial. And ultimately, Priceless. My boys will turn 2 and 4 this summer. No longer babies and yet still so very young. Every time one of them climbs up in my lap, or reaches up to hold my hand, or snuggles down in bed with me, I feel such deep gratitude for this time with them. They are growing so fast, physically and mentally and emotionally, and each day is a new adventure with them, a new opportunity for me to see them for who they are, to create a safe space for them to explore, to expand my perspective as I see things through their eyes, to learn from them as much as I am teaching them.

It is not easy. I am “on” 24/7, even in my sleep. My buttons get pushed pretty much constantly. I have been punched, head-butted, kicked, slapped, and elbowed, not always accidentally. I have changed more diapers than I could possibly count. The constant never-ending drone of meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, dishes, and laundry is often overwhelming. There is no such thing as “just running in” anywhere. I am almost never alone.

I benefit greatly from having gone back to work after the birth of both of my boys. I know what it is like to come home after your child has already gone to sleep. I know the grief of having all too many of your child’s “firsts” happen with other people. I know that weekends are there just so you can catch up on laundry and grocery shopping and other chores. But I have also experienced the simple pleasures of “water cooler” conversations and lunches out with co-workers. And I know how good it feels to do work that you truly feel good at, and to even receive external validation for the good work that you do. Having had both experiences really helps me to appreciate the pros and cons of both choices, if indeed it is truly a binary choice. There are aspects of my work life that I miss (the people, more than anything else), but I’ve lived through it and know how miserable I was trying to balance raising a family with working outside the home, especially after the birth of my second son. On a good day, I felt like I was mediocre at everything I did; on a bad day, I felt like I was failing miserably, not even treading water, drowning in the overwhelm.

Like many women I know, I received news of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In with mixed feelings. While I really appreciated that she wanted to address the issue of women not rising into leadership roles in government and large businesses, I felt she really did those of us who have thoughtfully and consciously made different decisions a disservice. Long before I became a mother, I really struggled with the idea that I needed to give up so much of my time and energy in order to build someone else’s pyramid, as Daniel Quinn would phrase it. My life has always been multi-faceted; I’ve joked about being a “jack of all trades, master of none,” but truly, I just have a wide variety of skills and interests, and I don’t think there is a “job” that exists that could encapsulate enough of them for me to feel fulfilled. I’ve always needed my time outside of the workplace to round things out, to take classes and be involved in my spiritual community and write and be in nature and much much more. When I left my for-pay job, yes, it was so that I could spend time with my children, but it was also so I could consciously create the well-rounded life that I wanted to live, and be the best example for my children I could be of someone who lives life fully.

One of the things that I feel most thrilled about with this “new” life that I am creating is that there is no longer a clear delineation between what is “work” and what isn’t. My life is my work. Whether I am repotting the organic tomatoes that I grew from seed, tucking my toddler in for his nap, stirring the batter for a batch of zucchini bread, creating a flyer for an upcoming workshop that I’m helping to facilitate, preparing for a board meeting at my son’s preschool, or sitting down to grab a few minutes for quiet meditation, it is all my work. I have never felt more fulfilled.

This is what I feel Sheryl Sandberg and so many others have missed. It seems to me that having a conversation about gender in the workplace is “so last millennium.” Whether you are a man or a woman, whether you’re an empty-nester or new parent or opting not to have children, shouldn’t the encouragement be to live life more fully? To find what it is that you’re passionate about and do that? And if it doesn’t fit inside someone else’s box, to create your own box? I would love to see these influential people talking about how to spend less time at the office and more time exploring this amazing planet we live on, beginning with your own backyard. This isn’t about commitment or ambition or even work-life balance. This is about recognizing that it is all your life, and it is worth making sure that it is one that is being truly LIVED. So which way do I lean? I am leaning in . . . towards life! Namaste.

Working mama

The phrase “working mother” is redundant.
~ Jane Sellman

I’ve been back to work officially one month today. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a rough month. There’s always so much to do and rarely enough hours in the day to scratch the surface, let alone feel like I’m accomplishing anything or getting to spend enough quality time with the boys. But it’s a work in progress, with each new day an opportunity for me to cull out what isn’t working and try something new that might.

What’s working includes focusing on the positives. The first time I went out to lunch with a few coworkers, I was holding a somewhat messy sandwich and I just took a moment to savor being able to eat slow(ish), with both hands. As busy as work can get, if I need to pay a bill, it only takes a minute to write out the check and walk it over to the mail drop — a task (or series of tasks, really — where are those stamps again?) that could have taken most of a morning when I was at home. The regularity of the routine has Spider Boy back to enjoying daycare — when I dropped the boys off yesterday morning he was happily anticipating getting to play with his friends all day — and he is relishing getting to spend more one-on-one time with Grandma again. And Bean has had a developmental boom that I know is due in part to interaction with children at a variety of developmental levels.

What’s working also includes a combination of shifting my perspective and truly staying present to the moment. Most Sundays, I take the boys grocery shopping — what felt like a chore when I was on leave now feels like a fun way for us to spend time together. Spider Boy and I talk and hug our way through the store, and I get to experience how he interacts with the other customers (strangers are most certainly just friends he hasn’t met yet). My husband and I have found new ways to connect with each other, whether it’s talking (hands-free!) on our morning commutes or doing our chores in the same room during naps. Sleep deprivation may leave me fuzzy, but that’s just an opportunity for me to let go of needing to be completely on top of everything, and having Bean wake up to nurse in the night feels like an opportunity for us to snuggle close.

And then there’s the work itself. Returning from maternity leave gives me the opportunity to ask how I want to spend my time. Sure, every job has a series of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to say you’re doing the job. But every job also has an opportunity for you to ask who am *I* in this job and how do I choose to show up? I choose to have my work be an extension of my Work, which means I choose to encourage people to live their lives more fully. When I was asked recently what people in my position do, the words I jotted down were: empowering, facilitating, mentoring, mediating, problem-solving. I would probably also add “healing” in the sense that I try to shine my light of positive opportunity into areas that might otherwise appear dark and see what shifts.

There is always room for improvement. I have my moments of feeling frazzled and emotional and exhausted and wondering how I’m going to get through the next five minutes let alone the rest of the week. But I am taking it one day at a time, taking every day as a practice, taking every moment as a new opportunity. And nothing, but nothing, beats the pure joy that runs through my being when Spider Boy comes running in at the end of the day yelling “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” as he throws himself into my arms, and then watching little Bean’s face light up when he sees me. I am truly, madly, deeply blessed. Namaste.

Originally posted on Pachamama Spirit

Roller-coasting

You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster . . . Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! . . . I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it. ~ Parenthood

I am on an emotional roller coaster these days. Today is my little Bean’s 4-month birthday. He is such a sweet delight, and brings me so much joy. But this is an anniversary of mixed feelings as it denotes that I am returning to work next week.

Whether or not to be a working mom could be, I’m sure, the subject of many posts. This is not going to be one of them. But this experience is an opportunity, like so many opportunities, for anxiety to rise up, along with all of my niggling doubts (and self-doubts), and the full range of my emotions to spill out of me (often onto those around me). But it is also an opportunity, like so many opportunities, for me to practice my craft, practice connecting to source, practice trusting that what is best for all of us is manifesting in our lives right now, practice staying present to the now instead of wandering off into what is still yet to come.

The practice, however, is not always my first stop these days. Sleep deprivation and not taking enough time for self-care (not necessarily in that order) have left me a little rough around the edges. After I nursed Bean back to sleep at 3 o’clock this morning, I could not fall back asleep myself. He and his brother had spent the whole day at daycare yesterday, and I was struggling with how little time I got to spend with either of them that evening. Not because of the evening itself, but because I was worried that this is how it is always going to be moving forward, and I was anxiously trying to figure out how on earth I was going to ever be able to spend enough quality time with them to satisfy me. *sigh*

I won’t bore you with the ugly details of the next couple of hours. Suffice it to say I worked myself into a lovely lather before the practice kicked in. But finally, I was able to come to a place where I could honor the emotions I was feeling (fear, sadness, and love, oh so much love). I gave myself permission to not have to be the absolutely best mom/wife/daughter/manager/colleague/friend for a little while. I remembered that what happens next week is next week’s opportunity for practice, and that today all I have to focus on is, well, today. I breathed in the intoxicating smell of baby and looked deep into his joy-filled eyes and enjoyed that single moment, and then the next, and then the next, and remembered that I don’t have to spend all day, every day with him to have these divine moments.

Parenting is a practice. It is not the easiest practice I’ve encountered, but it may be the most effective. It triggers such intense joy, but also all of my doubts and fears. And behind every trigger is an opportunity to release and let it all go and come back into the present moment so much more aware, so much more appreciative, and so much more joyful. As I write about today’s roller coaster, the emotion that most strongly comes to mind is gratitude. Today was a gift. Ah, thank you! Namaste.

Originally posted on Pachamama Spirit