Why is Taking Time for Us so Hard?
What is your normal day? Do you start around 6:00a.m, work right through the day and when the parents leave, you have a dinner meal to prepare and your own children to attend to? Is it 9:00 p.m. later before you can relax? That makes for a very long exhausting day. Why do we do that?
Well I believe we never got permission to do it any other way. I don’t remember my mother saying, “Now make sure and take time for yourself.” Actually what she told me is your children and husband always come first and in my world their needs never seem to end.
Resentment can build up and you catch yourself saying to your husband, “The least you could do is help me,” or “Can’t you see I’ve been working all day?” Resentment can easily turn to anger and Presto! We get just a teeny bit “bitchy”.
Well, who can blame us, right? Is it our fault that we feel used up at the end of the day? Actually,yes. We rarely, if ever, say those precious and powerful words, “I am taking some time for me.” To declare you need that time probably feels like you’re admitting failure of some kind and you may think, “I should be able to do it all”. NOT!
Many times providers say to me, “My mother did it all”. In most cases our mothers did not work outside the home or if they did it was not the 50-60 hours a week that most providers work. We have unfair and unrealistic expectations of ourselves.
We wonder why the men in our lives are not more tuned into our needs. We forget they were raised with different beliefs and with mothers like ours! I often think men were the lucky ones. The example they saw at home was dad comes home puts his feet up and relaxes and mom prepares dinner for him. They honestly don’t feel guilty when you are working at home, because in their world, that’s your job.
Where to begin to change things. I started by hiring a cleaning person. I used to always say I couldn’t afford it. But what I felt was guilt about having that luxury for myself when other members of my family needed or wanted other things. Then I decided to do it any way. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself and would not be without it today. This change in my daily routine took than responsibility away from me and allowed me extra time for whatever I wanted. You may ask, “What did I do with that time?” Of course, my first thoughts were about all the other work-related things that I thought I should be doing and never seem to get done.
I finally I realized I had four hours I didn’t have before and I was going to begin by taking one hour for myself. I always said that if I just had some extra time, I would read romance novels because they were fun and took me away into another world. I began by allowing myself one romance novel a month. It was a beginning. I had to start small because remember, I was dealing with guilt at the same time.
We women have to stick together and help each other take the responsibility of caring for ourselves and stop blaming others when we don’t. Because guess what? If you don’t, no one else will.
