Work Parent Happy
Working as a parent can be such a place of stress and overwhelm and sometimes guilt. With more and more parents having the opportunity or necessity to work whilst bringing up children, finding that happy place of joy and inspiration can be really difficult when our nervous systems are shot and good deep sleep is elusive.
Staying grounded or staying afloat, whatever you as an individual or family needs often calls for some good solid evidence-based sessions that work with both the mind and the body. It is my belief and feeling as a hypnotherapist that nervous systems learn to adapt to lifestyles of “rush”. But we have all seen someone we love or ourselves come crashing down when it all gets too much. We might see this when waking up, feeling wired before we even get out of bed, and just craving for some nurture in the form of hugs, good food, time out or exercise, but how to get that when so many demands.
In the next few weeks I will be introducing a tool box of tips and food for thought that might help parents nourish their happy place both at home and at work inspired by my hypnotherapy studies and tool boxes.
If this sounds like something you might be interested in, this is the first of a series of tips that can be looked at week by week – see which tips resonate with you, or maybe all of them might.
Dr Libby Weaver in her 2011 book Rushing Woman’s Syndrome says that the need to rush in our current times, and the adrenaline hormone required for that rush, is of course compromising our health and relationships. It’s only fairly recent in the history of humans that the level of adrenaline in our systems is higher than ever. Both raising children and having a career means have a never ending list of tasks to tick off. When the tasks pile up we might be denied the pleasure of “closure”. The completion of a task completed often gives us a Happy Place Hormone, called Dopamine. When tasks mount up on top of each other – we are without the reward of this happy hormone. This will be talked about later.
Even though some parents have the support of extended family, child care infrastructure, teachers, and family members to help that parent have a fulfilling career or income earning potential, the demands or working and parenting together can feel relentless. As one of my hypnotherapy clients said “There are so overlapping many tasks my boss gives me that I never feel like I’m completing anything, and then because I’m not feeling like I’ve done a good day’s work - I can’t easily go to sleep .” This is one of the reasons insomnia is hard to beat.
Then Covid came along, and it was a time when those of us lucky enough to remain working watched many supports crumble around us, such as schooling, family visits, transport problems.
Even though we must lobby for better support and funding with these infrastructures, and overcome injustices and inequality, could it be a consideration to allow the way we think about this situation to evolve and enrich us? This reminds me of the beautiful time in hypnosis where we get to feel some space between our thoughts, to settle and see things in a new way.
The psychologist Viktor Frankl who had been through the incredible trauma of the concentration camp, wrote:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This suggests what I believe that we often assume that problems exist solely outside of our bodies and our minds and hearts. It is critical that we push for better workplaces, equity in the home, and self-determination. But whilst these outside changes take shape or not, there is power in shifting our thoughts and our approach to the juggling act of work and parenthood.
Parents who work require vast amounts of resources – attention, care, time, money, and often those demands come from totally different directions. This applies also to caring for aging parents or people with illnesses whilst working – there will be some unpleasant days and some great rewards as well.
The discomfort of being a human … it’s hard. There will always be times when we feel like we hate our roles and even others around us. This is human. Accepting this truth and not panicking when we feel like we are losing it completely, lets us appreciate the gifts of caring for any loved one, especially our children.
Book here for hypnotherapy and mindfulness for parents with Natasha of Shine Therapies.