Eight Tips for Yourself for Mother’s Day

By Stacy DeBroff

On Mother’s Day, most Moms get a much needed day’s break from the swirling midst of crazed schedules and competing demands on their time. In taking some hours off, they realize how often they run on empty while trying to keep up with the demands of children, home, and relationships, not to mention when work is thrown in the mix. Moms often find themselves caught between the role models of June Cleaver and Gloria Steinham, unsure of how to blend their energies, passions, and ambitions with the nurturing and time-intensity needed to raise a family. The tips below will help any Mom carve out a little time to replenish her energy, often the first thing that gets moved to the bottom of the to-do list. 

In addition to substantial work or volunteer responsibilities, most moms still bear the primary responsibilities at home. When it comes time to make dinner, ensure the refrigerator is stocked, buy new clothes for the kids and take care of all the other detailed, routine and often undesired minutiae of raising a family—moms are primarily in charge. Moms are still the parent who stay at home when children are sick or when school is closed; the ones who write out the grocery lists, set up playdates with friends, pick a child up from daycare providers; pull dinner together. They are the "comforters" and emotional touchstone of the family; the boo-boo kissers; and the social life arranger (a modern day Julie McCoy of the Love Boat). 

So what’s a frazzled mom to do? It’s important to take time out for yourself. If you’re stressed, your family will notice and it might be affecting everyone more than you think. 

8 Top Tips for a Mom’s Revival on Mother’s Day

A ROADMAP TO RENEWAL

"The soul has an absolute, unforgiving need for regular excursions into enchantment. It requires them like the body needs food and the mind needs thought."

—Thomas Moore 

AVOID NEGATIVITY

1. Surround yourself with energized friends. Find people with whom you feel refreshed and inspired, and who make you laugh. Energy is contagious, both positive and negative. Identify those people who primarily act as energy-vampires or are toxic for you to be around, and get rid of them from your life. The same goes for toxic colleagues and friends. 

2. Let go of perfectionism. Give up the ideal of having a spotless house. 

3. Give up hoping to have a body that leaps straight off the pages of a fashion magazine. Unless you’ve inherited amazing genes or do yourself the disservice of eating too little, you will likely find yourself consumed by a very demanding part-time job of losing weight. Your scale, bathroom mirror, and smallest jeans should not become the arbiters of your happiness. 

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

4. Finagle lunch with a favorite friend. Call up or drop an e-mail to a long-distance friend you haven’t been in touch with in awhile. Reconnect, catch up on life, and laugh. Make staying in touch with friends a priority. Friends will reciprocate the gesture, making you feel connected to and cared about by others. 

SPICE IT UP!

5. Expand your mind. Treat yourself to a class at a local community college or center: an hour of pottery or oil painting or dancing. Get an adult education catalog and see what catches your eye. You sign your kids up for lessons on everything under the sun, why not try something new for yourself? Try a cooking class, start a garden in the backyard, go for an afternoon of golf with that friend who keeps offering to teach you, or try a yoga, tai chi or even karate lesson. 


INDULGE YOURSELF

6. Are you sleep-deprived? It’s so tempting to steal hours from either end of our days, to get that final load of laundry folded or to curl up with a novel, that you wind up getting less than the optimal seven or eight hours of sleep your body needs. Keep a sleep log for a week: are you getting at least 7 hours a night? 

FREE UP YOUR TIME

7. Buy a week’s supply of paper plates, cups, and plastic silverware, and give up doing the dishes. Instead, go on an after-dinner walk or bike ride with your family. 

8. Just do that thing hanging over your head! Thinking about doing something often requires more energy than actually doing it. Every time you pass by that growing pile of bills it drains your energy. Don’t think about organizing your desk, just do it. Don’t think about taking the pile of clothes to the dry cleaners, just do it! The weight that will be lifted by getting something off your to-do list will be well worth the one-time spurt of energy it takes to tackle the task.