Are You Committed to Busyness as a Stay-at-Home Mom?

Are you crazy busy all the time? Do you rush from one thing to the next, never pausing for breath until the kids are asleep and you’ve finally finished cleaning up the chaos in the kitchen? Do you run yourself so ragged that your evenings are spent collapsed on the couch with Netflix and chocolate until you reluctantly drag yourself off to bed, knowing that tomorrow you’ll do the exact same thing all over again?

This was me for over seven years as a stay-at-home mom. My days were spent running around in a mad rush, trying to get everything on my to-do list crossed off, whilst believing I had to simultaneously be everything to my three young daughters. With a pilot for a husband and a family far away in England, I felt like I had no choice but to do it all - often in a state of mild panic - during this particular season of my life.

But when I looked back at the years before I became a mom, I realized things were no different even then. As a teenager, I was chronically late for the school bus - each and every morning involved my increasingly irate father trying resolutely to overtake it, one bus stop at a time, so that I could leap aboard in dramatic style, panting and red-faced. As a young adult, I began my workday with the same breathless apology and tired, insincere promise that I would be on time tomorrow. And as a mom, every day would involve the same stressful sprint to school - the girls tripping over the straps of bags they refused to wear on their backs; the Baby Bjorn holding my youngest jiggling so vigorously that her little legs looked like they might flail right off. 

Could I really be one of those people who are addicted to the drama of being late?

What are you getting out of rushing your way through life?

I first read about this concept in Dr. Libby Weaver’s book ‘Rushing Woman’s Syndrome’ some three years ago, and I had great difficulty accepting that this could possibly apply to me. I was convinced that there was no way I was experiencing any kind of thrilling rush on my desperate daily dash to school - I regretted my yelled attempts to hurry the girls so much that I’d berate myself whether we made it in the nick of time or not. And yet the fact that I was consistently late by just a couple of minutes each day (and not as a result of some interceding circumstance) fit the description of the Rushing Woman perfectly.

I soon realized that my experience of rushing and being late followed the exact same pattern as devouring a bar of chocolate or watching Netflix late into the night - the treats that gave me a rush in the moment did not feel good at all once that rush had faded away. It suddenly made complete sense why I would start each day with the best of intentions, only to find myself wasting precious minutes replying to a text or checking social media right at the point we needed to leave...I obviously was chasing the drama of being late after all!

Just like eating chocolate allowed me to escape whatever I was feeling at that particular moment, rushing and being crazy busy provided me with all the drama and distraction I needed to avoid feeling empty and alone in my life at home. It kept me from having to experience the reality of my situation, which was that I was lonely with my husband gone, particularly on the weekends when my friends were all out enjoying their family time.

I love this quote from Brené Brown, which sums it up perfectly:

“‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us.”

Then the pandemic changed everything

Reading Dr. Weaver’s book meant I now fully understood just how unhealthy it was for me to be constantly rushing my way through life (because our immune systems are, of course, not designed to handle this state of mild panic all the time!), yet I still continued on exactly as I always had.

Until the pandemic changed everything and - overnight - none of us were rushing anywhere at all. When my husband continued to fly around the country, even as everything else shut down around us, I finally allowed myself to fully feel the loneliness, alongside the emptiness that came with believing that I'd put aside my dreams during the last seven years as a stay-at-home mom...and what I realized was that I could feel all of the negative emotions I’d been pushing down for years and actually be ok! Of course it wasn’t fun to fully experience feeling empty and lonely, but it allowed me to process these emotions for the first time and find out exactly what I was thinking to cause them.

And I was finally able to see that I wanted so much more than to focus wholly on my children or, in the words of Dr. Tovah Klein, to “solely define [myself] in relation to another”. I immediately recognized that this feeling had been with me all along; making itself known in the occasional throwaway comment made to my husband about a future where my book stood proudly on the shelves of every bookstore. These “jokes” were clearly rooted in the passion for writing I’d always had, and yet I'd never taken one step towards actually writing anything at all.                                                                 

But once I finally stopped choosing busyness to distract myself from what I was feeling, all the energy that had gone towards rushing my way through my days now went into the dreams I was rapidly creating for myself! 

I started the blog I’d wanted to write for more than 15 years, took a course on how to launch my own business, and I’m now about to start a Life Coach certification program so that I can help other moms with more than just my written words.

The benefits of slowing down

So if you - like me - have been living in a state of busyness and rushing for a longer period of time, try asking yourself if there is something you could be getting out of staying stuck there. Perhaps you absolutely love it and there are no negative consequences for you at all, or, perhaps, by choosing to remain in a state of constant busyness, you’re actually choosing to stay safe in your life and hide. 

What would you do if you found a gentle rhythm as a stay-at-home mom, and felt balanced enough to start to prioritize yourself? It’s possible that you would find something you love so much; something you’re incredibly good at; something that is uniquely you - and that you’d then feel a pull to share your gift to contribute to the world for the benefit of others. Perhaps that feels too scary to you, so you’re more than willing to keep going as you are.

But if you’re feeling a strong desire to find out more about who you really are and what you want from life, I believe the best way to give yourself the nudge you need to slow down enough to explore this is to purposefully plan out time every single day to do something that truly lights you up.

Because when you start to play in this way, you’ll see that your true, authentic self quickly reemerges - you don’t care what you look like, or what anyone else thinks or needs - you’re simply lost in the moment and fully focused on doing that thing you love! And by giving yourself permission to do this for yourself, you’ll have the added bonus of naturally becoming the best mom and partner you can be because you’ll be getting a daily dose of joy that will radiate from you.

This practice of being fully in the moment after years of having the next thing on my to-do list always in sight has enabled me to start appreciating the experience of focusing on one thing at a time, and has even led to me intentionally planning out my days to allow for this. Now I’m not only so much more productive because I no longer waste precious time by constantly switching between tasks, but I’ve also started noticing all of the magical moments happening around me each day - moments that never even used to be on my radar.

Which is exactly what led me to walk into my middle daughter’s room one afternoon, spot her favorite book - “Swatch: The Girl Who Loved Color” - open on the floor and see that she’d plucked a yellow flower from the plant pots on the roof deck to carefully cover a yellow flower of the exact same size right there on the page. I took a moment to read the book’s message about refusing to live life trapped in a jar, high up on a shelf, and in an instant could see just how much I’d gained from finally getting off the hamster wheel of never-ending to-dos and instead embracing a new identity as a woman who has plenty of time for everything she loves in life.

I’d love to know what you think about this so please comment below or email me at: