Finding yourself in parenthood

“Just take some time for yourself”, “go out and see a friend”, “go and get a nice massage or find a yoga class”.

There are multiple reasons why these comments

a. don’t end up in any action

and

b. can feel quite damaging.

When we become parents, we change. Our entire lives change. We lose passions, hobbies and our sense of who we are.

These comments are meant with all the very best intentions. The people around you want you to have some time and space for yourself and all these things (going to the gym, getting our nails done, a yoga class) all help to get space and balance our emotional states. But, they are not going to fill the void that’s created when we’re grieving the loss of who we were before.

Often we can feel there is only space for us to be a parent, a partner or a professional. But what about being a person?

In order to help develop our new sense of identity, we have to be building, growing, developing and achieving. We constantly set our children up for success, but it is their success, not ours. Where is our success? We have to be curious, we have to have connection and we have to be completing things. Identity is not built on, ‘I’m a Mum, a wife, I go to work and I get my nails done every couple of weeks”.

No no no.

Our identity is linked to our values. And so, the things we do in life need to align with those values.

Examples of values may be:

Creativity

Giving back

Adventure

Community

Courage

Independence

There are hundreds of values. Find a values list and sit and circle the ones which jump out at you. Once you have the values which are important to you, you will then be able to build your time around those values.

Think ‘it’s not enough to eat the cake, we need to bake the cake’, ‘it’s not enough to watch golf, we have to play golf’ and ‘it’s not enough to listen to the podcast, we have to make the podcast’. You may very well not want to host a podcast; it’s just an example! But the point here is that to get the real endorphin and dopamine hits, we need curiosity, connection and completion. We need to complete things, we need to feel...

“I can’t believe I just did that!”

And of course, there are things which are going to be barriers to us feeling we can do this…

1. Identifying what our values are – you may feel out of touch with what is important to you as an individual. Find a list and see what jumps out at you

2. Availability – there will always be something else to do, someone else’s need. So, imagine, just for a moment not attending to their needs immediately. Put little boundaries in little areas, e.g. leaving your partner to do bedtime by themselves.

3. Guilt & shame – you may feel that you’re not really deserving of this time and that you won’t be able to enjoy it because those feelings will ruin it. It feels glutinous if it’s not to do with parenting or work. But think to yourself, ‘what is the cost of me not doing this long-term’. Short-term guilt can cause long-term regret – what could have been.

If you feel lost after becoming a parent, if you have absorbed the message that you are now just a parenting and working machine, I’m here to tell you that you’re not. Find your values, align your time with succeeding and achieving within those values.

And remember, you absolutely have permission to step away from those roles in order to create your own success!

Enjoy!