Tag Archives: burnedout

A mother’s ME time is more expensive than your Chanel, Hermes, & LV Bags altogether

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A mother’s ME time is more expensive than your Chanel, Hermes, & LV Bags altogether. But I would love to have them too because why not! However, if I were to choose between them and my precious ME time, I would choose the latter.

Ever since I became a mom and a wife and a full-time worker – these 3 combination to be exact, I started having anxiety and burn-out moments. Probably it is the carefree soul in me that feels imprisoned and overwhelmed. But unlike my first episode that I mentioned in my previous blog, I am now more aware of it.

Due to this insight/skill unlocked, I know that when the house is too messy and my brain is only telling me either to just be angry, shout or escape, I know already that I need to call it a day, and follow the Italian saying “dolce far niente” (the joy of doing nothing or being idle). We call this in my Visayan dialect “palanay mode”. It translates to melting because you are literally just lying in bed doing nothing, as if your body is melting, sticking to the surface it rests on.

You know where my wishful thinking brings me nowadays, amidst my busy work from home + child-at-home parenting + house manager life? One of my wish is that if I can just go out on my own, anytime whenever I want to the city centre, for example, walking around aimlessly, browsing through shops and resting from time to time in a nice, charming cafe sipping my favourite iced coffee or warm tasty Schokolade, depending on the season, watching people and/or reading an entertaining book or magazine.

I do not have regrets. I love being a mom. I love having a partner who I can share life in all aspects. And for sure, everything is manageable, especially now that a lot is on my plate with these many roles I am performing. I am not sure if it is just me, but do you have this feeling that you wanted to refuse to fully embrace all these roles that at times, you just don’t want to. But I guess that is life. That is just how life operates – like there is no other option but to be tough and be pushy on any of its hurdles.

So this is why reflections are very important, to process the day, to process one’s feelings no matter what they are. Because only then will you be able to see insight amidst the chaos. I am thankful that I can have this exercise. And to you who will be reading this, I wish that you will also take time to take a pause and reflect about whatever you are struggling with nowadays and that such contemplation will also bring you peace.

Until then, adios meine liebe!

Some colours and a lot of silver linings…

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Life is colorful. It can be dark and gloomy. It can also be a fiesta of bright colours. Whatever it is, a mix of all or not, there is a lot silver linings for sure. One just need to seek to find it.

I am happy that creativity tickled my frozen psyche right at this moment. It means that I am slowly breaking into my inner self and process what I am experiencing these days.

It has been weeks since I am trying to get hold of motivation – the one that I used to know, that kind where I feel I can do anything in all aspects of my life. For quiet some time, all I feel is exhaustion – from motherhood, from full-time work (whose future perspective is for quiet awhile absent), from home management, from all other obligations in my life. I have just been pushing and pushing – to accomplish things I need to do. I literally feel doing 3 shifts in a day – from being a mother to full time worker to mother to home manager.

Don’t get me wrong. I want it like that. I want to work full time and be a mom, a wife and at the same time pursue some of my creative passions like writing & photography. I know there are things I cannot do as a result – like having to be able to cook warm meals all the time or have a super orderly home. It is hard, this I know for sure. But when you are inspired, the hardship is bearable, knowing that is gives meaning and fulfilment at the end of each freakin hard & long day.

I have to admit that my struggles at the moment sprung from the fact that work is unstable. There is a restructure and my team is affected. Since that announcement almost a year ago, I have been just managing my emotions. I get depressed from time to time and add to that the hardships and the pressure of the other aspects of my life.

Maybe I have been pushing so hard, to just go on, managing one moment at a time the different pressures and obligations I have, to the point of unconsciously burying issues in my subconscious. I am actually pretty good with self processing and pretty self-aware but this one somehow escaped me until it “surfaced to earth” again, so to say.

But like any other overwhelming situation, I know that I have to break them down into chewable pieces and take things one day at a time. For now, I am happy that I painted which I have not done for a long time. I am happy that I was able to express myself through that. And that’s it for now.