Battery-Life Preservation Mode

June 2009

I hope this finds you and your family well. I'm sorry that you haven't heard from me in a while. I've been in "battery-life preservation mode" for about the past month. I'm sure this must happen to you, too. For us moms, it seems to happen at the beginning of the school year, before the December holidays, and at the end of the school year.

For me, it went like this:

• Traveled to Korea in early May with husband and children for brother's wedding; stayed there for a week
• Jetlagged at first but managing to adjust quickly; had a great time with relatives
• Had trouble getting online but did find out that Google would be discontinuing service I use to host my website; however, couldn't get online often enough to start to fix this problem
• Boarded plane, threw up three times, couldn't drink water, became dehydrated, got major headache, and as a result had terrible flight even though the children did great on the plane
• Came home to find that everyone had a bad case of jet lag and the youngest and I had caught colds
• Got over jet lag after a week, but my cold induced very mild case of asthma; woke up coughing in middle of the night for a week
• End-of-school-year festivities began: school fair, field trips, picnics, good-bye parties, etc.
• Fell terribly behind in every area of life and as a result got bad case of "momsomnia": Fell asleep on couch, exhausted, after putting children down. Hubby woke me up at 11. Got into bed but couldn't sleep, thinking of all the things I needed to do. Got out of bed, did some work/housework, caught up on email. Finally got back into bed at 3 AM, only to be awakened by older child at 6 AM. Then spent the day as a caffeinated zombie, only to do it all again that night.

Sound familiar? What do you do when this happens?

When this happened to me, I naturally began to feel very overwhelmed. I hate to admit it, but I started to snap at my husband, and the punishment I meted out to my children was more severe than their actual crimes.

That led to my feeling very guilty.

As I became more and more physically and emotionally drained, I was forced to go into battery-life preservation mode: I did what I could to preserve what little energy I had and slowly started to feel better. More specifically, I tried to apply the same principles that work best for my clients:

1. Take baby steps. Start with very small tasks that will help you get through the day or the next hour. For example, even though my kitchen was nearly bare, I told myself, "I'll deal with the food shopping later; right now I need to make a doctor's appointment and then just lie down for 20 minutes."
2. Remain fully present. When low on reserves, it becomes even more important to focus on only the task at hand. It wasn't easy, but I really tried to avoid multitasking. Continuing with the example above, I resisted the temptation to check email while on hold with the doctor's office, because I knew that doing so would prevent me from being able to take the short nap I really needed.
3. Lower standards for less important matters. This requires that you both prioritize and avoid becoming a perfectionist. When I started to feel overwhelmed by the sight of unpacked bags and toys scattered across the floor, I tried to ask myself, Which is more important, getting over jet lag or having a neat house?
4. Recite a calming, encouraging mantra. Women have a tendency to send themselves too many negative messages, which only serve to drain us of energy. When I started to feel overwhelmed and utterly exhausted, I tried to remind myself, "This too shall pass."

How a mom applies these general principles really depends on her own situation, personality, and resources. It also involves a bit of trial and error.

As for me, I'm not quite ready to re-enter "normal battery mode" just yet, let alone "better performance mode." I feel I've only begun to recharge my batteries this week. There are a number of tasks still falling through the cracks. (My new website, while uploaded on a new web host, contains quite a bit of old text that I had really wanted to completely revise. My mother is probably furious with me for not calling. My brother and new sister-in-law still haven't received my wedding gift to them. My children need new water shoes that fit ....) But I know the important things will eventually get done, and in the meantime, I'm just doing the best I can.

Oh, and one more thing: a belated Happy Mother's Day! It's never too late to celebrate and honor all that we do for our children.

Stacy

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