Redefining Balance in Motherhood: Its Easier Than You Think

Hey Mamas! How's it going?

Are you feeling balanced? Are you prioritizing your wellness? Have you been drinking your water? Are you keeping your boundaries bold and firm? Are you doing all the things that will enable you to have balance and motherhood? I hope the answer is yes. And if not, this is exactly where you need to be.

I really am truly so passionate about balance in motherhood because I do believe it's possible. But I have grown up to experience many mothers and women struggling with balancing motherhood. And that's why we're here. Balanced Working Mama was essentially created, for one, because I needed to believe and to truly live a life that included balance in motherhood. I needed this for myself. And when I felt like I had to have the grasp and the hang of it, I set out to do it for other women and other mothers. So let's talk about balance because I think the thing I want to communicate today is that balance in motherhood is easier than you're thinking. But it requires us to redefine what balance in motherhood means at this point. 

Storytime! I told you all I'm a Psychologist and a Motherhood Wellness Consultant. The other part of this is that I'm a mom. I've got two very little children. And we all know when your kids are little, they require a lot. Honestly, even your big kids require a lot okay, but my little kids require a lot from me right now. I have a two-year-old, his name is Cedric. We call him C3. And currently my baby girl is 10 weeks old, so I have a two-month-old. She will be three months very soon! Her name is Eden. Motherhood is not easy, y'all. And we all know this. The one thing I really want the new moms to know is that this is not me trying to put a rose-colored spin on motherhood. There is no such a thing. Because motherhood is not easy. It is challenging and hard. But I want us to find ways to live a life where motherhood doesn't take all of us. 

I don't want motherhood to be the end of our life. I don't want motherhood to be the end of our joy. I don't want motherhood to be the end of our wellness. I don't want motherhood to be the end of any of that. I've truly believed that we can experience motherhood and all the joys and all the challenges and still take care of ourselves, still prioritize our needs or desires. Still start those businesses that we've been putting off for forever, still start that passion project, still go work out every day and still be the center of our lives and have these beautiful babies and beautiful children and love them or raise them and take good care of them. We can do that and still take good care of ourselves. That is what I truly needed to believe when I became a mother. 

But let's backtrack, because there was a time I did not want to be a mom. I was really scared that motherhood would really deplete me and would take away all the things that I had come to enjoy in my life prior to become a mom…because those are the things that people tell you, right? How many of you all have heard someone say, ‘once you have that baby, it's not about you anymore, so get ready!’ Or say something like, ‘enjoy this time now, because when your baby gets here, you won't have it for a very long time.’ We get those messages from society. And we also get those messages from people that we love and that love us - that we no longer matter once we have children. And, you know, the unfortunate part is that when people say these things to us, they're not trying to hurt our feelings. They're not trying to scare us, they're not trying to make us feel bad. But implicitly, that's what happens. We get these messages encoded into our brain, into our systems and into the ways that we live our lives, and we are then starting to believe ‘I mattered less, my children matter more, my partner matters more, this job matters more, these people matter more, I matter less than everyone else.’ That is what happens with a lot of women as they become moms, we believe that we don't matter as much. But then also that everything else around us is more important.

 I just wanted to take a moment of silence for that, because I think it's so unfortunate. It's so sad that we have these experiences that tell us implicitly but also sometimes explicitly that we don't matter anymore, because we are now mothers. That's not okay. That is not the truth and that is not what I believe. And so that is why I was afraid of becoming a mom, because that's what I thought would happen. That's what I had been told. That's also what I had seen. Growing up, I never really saw a woman who was a mother that took time for herself. I never really saw a mom do something nice for herself. I never really saw a lot of women in my life who were mothers set boundaries that were bold and clear and firm. I never really saw anyone explicitly put themselves first. And so now I feel like we're in a place, especially as millennial mamas to do something radical, where we can really redefine what motherhood looks like. And motherhood now can include all those things. And that is exactly how I am choosing to embrace my experience of motherhood. And that's what I'm hoping to help other moms do as well. 

“I don't want motherhood to be the end of our life. I don't want motherhood to be the end of our joy. I don't want motherhood to be the end of our wellness. I don't want motherhood to be the end of any of that. I've truly believed that we can experience motherhood and all the joys and all the challenges and still take care of ourselves, still prioritize our needs or desires.”

So, let's talk about balance. There is this belief that there's no such thing as balance in motherhood, and it is because we have been conditioned to believe that we don't matter as much. So when you don't think you matter, you tend to do things and operate in that way. Now this is me, the psychologist talking to you. I'm trying to talk about social conditioning and all this stuff. When you don't think you matter, sometimes you don't ask for help. Sometimes you overcompensate to feel like you matter. Sometimes you don't speak up. Sometimes you don't believe that you're valuable. And it leads us to have a lot of big expectations for ourselves when it comes to being a mom. But also, what happens is that society and people around us are telling us we don't matter as much. But then they pile on all these expectations for us. Remember when I said if you don't think that you matter, you don't ask for help, or you don't speak up. You're not as assertive. You're afraid to set boundaries when people pile on all these expectations and expect us to do all the things because we are women and mothers.

But then when we're also giving the message that we don't matter as much, it's hard to balance life because we're not doing the things to properly balance life, right? People have been taught to believe that balance in motherhood looks like juggling all the things. And when I say this, I always envision this woman holding all these boxes that have labels on it, like my kids stuff, all my spouses and partnership, all my family stuff. We believe that balance in motherhood means juggling all the things all the time, never dropping a box, never dropping a ball, and doing it all on your own and never asking for help. But within our community of Balanced Working Mama, what we now know is that we have to redefine what balance looks like in order to actually have balance in motherhood. For my old school mamas who have been listening and following along for a long time, you know that we have redefined balance. I call it an acronym, but I don't know if it's really an acronym. Basically, what we have done is taken the word Balanced. And with each letter in that word, there is something that you need to do in order to have balance in motherhood. Now we have talked about this before in the past, but in this moment, right now, I want to go through them quickly so that you know that it is possible to have balance and motherhood is easier than you think. You just have to look at it differently. 

It’s easier than what I thought, and it feels better too. If you are someone who takes notes, get out your pencil, your notepad, get out your note app, whatever it is, and really write these things down. Because I want you all to understand why it is easy to have balance in motherhood. And the other part of this is that to have balance in motherhood, you really do have to do the work. No one else is going to do this for you, YOU must put in the work to ensure that you have balance in motherhood. But this is also why Balanced Working Mama as a community exists. Because we can support one another, we can encourage one another, we can hold each other accountable. We have other moms that we can kind of look to when we feel like we've lost our way. This is why community is important because you have to do the work in order to have the balance. But doing the work sometimes it's hard. But I want you to know you don't have to do it alone. 

In order to have balance in motherhood, you have to have bold and firm boundaries. That is what the B stands for. Bold and firm boundaries in all areas of your life, with your children, with your partner with your family, with your in laws, with your job. Whatever it is, if your boundaries are not bold and firm, you won't have balance, because people will always run over you. People will always try to get you to do things you don't want to do. A stands for Always prioritizing your wellness. My question for you is are you prioritizing your wellness? For a lot of mamas, the answer is no. And again, it's because we have been conditioned to believe that we don't matter as much, and when you don't think you matter, you're not going to prioritize things like your wellness. One thing I love about what we've got going on at Balanced Working Mama is that we have a motherhood wellness assessment. If you don't even know what you need in your wellness, we got an assessment for that girl! So go to the Balanced Working Mama website, select motherhood Wellness Assessment, and you can read all about it and take it there. 

The next one is L. L is to Live fully in all your identities. For me what that means is that when we become mothers, that’s not all we are. We become moms, Yes. But we're still all the other things that we were before we were mothers. We have to continue to live fully in all the identities that pleases us and bring us joy. For me, I am a mother. I do have an identity as a mom, but I also am a wife. I'm a psychologist, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter, I'm all these other things that are important to me, and I have to continue to live fully in all of that.

Want to learn how you can became a Balanced Working Mama?

The second A in balanced is for Assertiveness and communicating your needs and asking for help. This is important because we cannot do all the things all by ourselves. There's absolutely no way. But we have been conditioned to believe that being a good mom means that you can do all the things all by yourself and that you don't need help. Many of us feel guilty or feel ashamed when we need to ask for help. And that is something that I hope that we can discontinue, we absolutely need to ask for help. So assertiveness and seeking help and asking for help communicating your needs. N is for Never be afraid of change. This one is especially for me because I am someone who often resists change, I don't enjoy new things I don't enjoy when they shift, especially when it's abrupt or sudden. It gives me anxiety, it makes me worry. And I tend to love to just do the same thing repeatedly, or do what's familiar, do what's comfortable. But what I've learned as a mom is that things are constantly changing in motherhood. And it's because our kids are always changing. Our experience of motherhood is always changing but we are changing too. I'm not the same person that I was three years ago before I had children. So we have to be in a place where we are okay with embracing the changes that are happening around us and being open to it, not resisting it. Because the more we resist these changes that happen in ourselves, and our partners and our family and our children - we will have a negative experience in this motherhood journey and balance won't happen. You absolutely need to really try to never be afraid of change.

C is for Community in motherhood. If you don't have a community, get one, get one today, get one right now. I invite you to join the Balanced Working Mama community because this is why we're here. We know that community in motherhood is so important. It's so important to have other women and other mothers who can see you. See your struggle, see your challenges, see that you're trying, see all the things and not judge you for it or make you feel ashamed, not make you feel guilty, actually validate you and affirm you, normalize some of the things for you. We know that is so powerful. And if you don't have that, you need to know that there is no balance without community in motherhood. I am so happy and so proud of our community of Balanced Working Mama, and I'm also excited for what the community will look like in the future because it will continue to grow, it will continue to thrive and is going to look a little different.

E is for Effective management of anxiety and guilt. This is important because in motherhood there are a lot of things but there's definitely heavy doses of guilt and anxiety for many of us. Guilt comes whenever we feel like we want to do something for ourselves. Guilt comes whenever we feel like we're not doing a good job. Guilt comes whenever you say no to your children and to your family, guilt is just always creeping around the corner looking at you, telling you you’re a bad mom. I want to tell you today, right now, the whole purpose of guilt is to lie to you and make you feel bad. Especially in motherhood. And within balanced working Mama, we do teach you how to manage guilt. Next is anxiety. Anxiety often comes and tells us that, hey, you should worry about this, hey, you're not doing a good job, hey, you need to do that better, hey, other moms are doing a much better job. Anxiety will just continue to flood your brain with all these things to make you worry, but also to make you feel less confident to make you feel self-conscious and to make you feel insecure about yourself as a mom. And again, we don't need that in this experience! I need you all to really find ways to effectively manage guilt and anxiety. We have a few podcast episodes about that by the way. There's no balance without effective management of our guilt and our anxiety.

Lastly, is D. D is one of my favorites and it stands for Delegate and collaborate. Because girl, guess what, you can't do all these things by yourself. Motherhood requires a lot of us. But the thing is, we don't have to do it all alone. We don't have to do it all by ourselves. There are so many ways that we can delegate and collaborate with the people around us. There are possibly people within your home that you can start delegating things to or collaborating with to get all the things done. For instance, if you have a partner, tell them ‘look, this is a collaborative effort having these kids, we are a team.’ If you have family members in the area that can help delegate and collaborate or if you are able to hire people to help, DO IT. Hire someone for laundry, hire someone for meals. Delegate and collaborate in as many ways as you can. You don't have to do them all. But pick one way that you can start to delegate and collaborate a little bit more and see if it brings you more balance in motherhood. I really hope that this helped you out to see that balance in motherhood is easier than you're thinking. And the key is that we must redefine it. It's not juggling all the things by yourself without dropping any of the balls. It is these other things that we have just talked about. I hope this was helpful and informative and it really got some of you to think about balance in motherhood a little bit differently.

Hi there! I’m Dr. Amber Thornton.

I’m a Clinical Psychologist, Motherhood Wellness Consultant, wife, and mama to 2 amazing little ones.

My mission is simple: to help working mothers balance work, motherhood, and wellness. I want to completely change the narrative of what is possible for working mothers.

Learn more about how we can work together!