This is one of the toughest articles I’ve ever written. It confronted me with a reality that I couldn’t see, or better said, I didn't want to see. It has made me face uncomfortable questions like, am I enjoying motherhood? And I don’t want to be dramatic or say I’m living a nightmare, not at all. It’s just that sometimes I feel I spend my days just going through a never-ending list of to-dos and end up feeling tremendously frustrated when the night comes, and I realize I didn’t have the time to do or say what was really important.

Sometimes I feel detached to my family, I feel that my only role as a mom is to organize my kid’s agendas, serve them, and order the environment they live in so that they can develop to their full potential. I fall into that game of wanting to control all the pieces of my family’s life puzzle to then just realize that despite spending all day with my kids physically, I’m not really being with them. Sometimes, I navigate like an absent being who only cleans, cooks, and manages their activities knowing that soon I will probably regret not spending more quality time with them.

I live my life kidnapped and manipulated by an evil agenda that saturates my mind all day with things to do and takes me through an emotional rollercoaster where I don’t even recognize myself.

I spend my days with a single goal, to put a checkmark on as many tasks as possible, thinking that the more activities I finish, the better I’m going to feel.

Do the laundry, check.

Volunteer in the school’s committee, check.

Edit the photos for a blog post, check.

Finish an Instagram campaign for a brand, check.

Take my kids to their after-school classes, check.

Zoom call for a new project, check.

Finish preparing the podcast episode, check.

Make dinner and set the table, check.

Attend the media preview for that new exhibit, check.

It feels endless, because it is, it never stops, there’s always something new. Just by writing about it, I feel the anxiety starting to rise again, as it usually does many times during my day. An anxiety that I’m familiar with and that I tackle by going out for a run, which usually does the trick, if my evil and mean agenda lets me do it, of course.

Then, when I’m finally winding down and about to go to bed, I remember that I’m supposed to do an 8-step face cleansing routine I read about on Goop and how if I don’t start now, I’ll regret it when I turn 60. Now, if this is supposed to be my “self-care” moment, why does it feel like a punch in the stomach, like another thing I need to check off my list but it’s not making me feel better.

My loving and wonderful husband always offers his help anytime he senses I’m overwhelmed, especially now that he works from home and can now see first-hand how some days seem impossible to manage. There’s that horrible word again, “manage”. However, my perfectionism makes it very difficult to delegate certain things that I mistakenly think I’m the only one that can do them.

And just when I get my head on my pillow the endless list of to do’s kicks in again and I wonder if I missed something, and shoot, yes! I forgot to call my mom and place my groceries’ order for next-day curbside pickup, so there will be no food in the fridge tomorrow, awesome! Some days I honestly think I’m going to miss attending one of my kids’ graduation just because of how busy and overwhelmed I feel sometimes, I’m not kidding.

It’s right then when I remember my grandmother’s wise words: “if you don’t take care of yourself, nobody else will” and yes, I know I have to do so, but my grandmother died several years ago and I never got the chance to have a conversation with her, mom-to-mom about this stage of my life. She never explained to me in detail how taking care of myself was supposed to look like in my everyday life.

Then, just when I’m about to fall asleep I go to my happy place and I dream about that trip I’ve always wanted to make. To go by myself to a nice Mediterranean beach just to write, swim in the ocean, run, nap under a palm tree, and write again. This is a beautiful dream until that awful feeling of guilt arrives uninvited, unannounced. I can’t go by myself. I couldn’t possibly leave my kids and husband behind, could I?

So, I’m burned out, I feel exhausted, drained, and mentally saturated, but isn’t every single mom in the world burned out as well? So, what should I do, cancel new work projects to have more time for my family, even though I love doing them so much? Manage my week better?

It was right at that moment, when the universe handed me a wonderful article published on the New York Times written by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin called How Society Has Turned Its Back on Mothers.

In the article she analyzes how during this last year, structures have failed moms and how burnout exonerates the system and puts the burden of change on the individual instead of the system.

I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Lakshmin, this over-saturation of activities and responsibilities exponentially increased when we lost structure due to the pandemic. However, she also says that structural change can start with personal change.

I had the opportunity to have a Zoom call with Dr. Lakshmin thanks to Responsibility.org. Dr. Lakshmin is a writer and psychiatrist that specializes on women’s mental health. Today I share with all of you six amazing tips she shared with us on that call.

1.- To ignore your feelings is not the solution:

Dr. Lakshmin mentioned that it’s very important to connect with your feelings through unconditional love, auto-compassion, authentic personal relationships, and meaningful friendships. When we feel guilt or hopelessness, we need to learn to coexist with those feelings and adjust our mindset to think they are not the problem, they are the solution. These feelings shouldn’t define us, they should allow us to have a flexible relationship with our mind and question them from a place of love and curiosity.

It’s important to also mention that we need to identify our coping mechanisms when dealing with these feelings. To seek refuge in alcohol or eating disorders is not going to make us feel better and it’s not a behavior we want our kids to have as an example.

2.- How to get rid of that constant manager mode as a parent:

She asked us to consider that if we are feeling like we are in constant manager mode as a parent, we need to be aware that it means we are stuck in our prefrontal cortex, just running through the list of to-dos. We need to access the part of our brain that allows us to feel and connect with our feelings as she mentions above.

3.- How to stop the Maternal Gatekeeping and the martyr role:

Maternal Gatekeeping means to have inflexibility to just let go and to let your partner handle it in their own way. We must understand that as mothers and wives it’s okay to ask for help and to really let go. It’s also important not to expect from the person who is helping us to do it exactly as we would have done it. Each one has a different parental identity and that only enriches and builds a relationship with our kids.

Playing the martyr role of a mother who sacrifices everything for her children is a wrong belief that is often confused with what seems to be a noble activity but at the end of the day it only causes resentment, bitterness, and mental health problems.

4.- The Right Choice Trap:

We will never make a perfect choice, especially during this very difficult pandemic year where a broken system has forced us to believe that we should. Questions like, should I send my kids back to school face-to-face? Should we make that trip? Will it be okay to go visit my mom? are impossible to answer correctly. Thinking that we will find the correct solution to each of the decisions that we must make during the day, gives us an illusion of control. This is where we must identify those thoughts and think: "There goes my mind again telling me that there is a perfect answer." That way it will be easier to identify if those thoughts are realistic or productive.

5.- Self-care is a verb:

Self-care has become the panacea for the exhausted, oversaturated, and workaholic mom. To think that putting on a turmeric mask will make us feel better is false. True self-care is recognizing that only we can permit ourselves to reclaim our time and energy. This may mean having difficult conversations with our partners or bosses about what things are important and what things are going to have to wait.

6.- Set your boundaries and say no:

All of this is reinforced by setting boundaries and learning to say no. Dr. Lakshmin describes it as exercising a muscle, doing it many times until we feel comfortable answering no to activities that we often accept out of shame.

These steps are not magical, in my case, it has been a slow process of applying these tools knowing that some days they work, and others they simply don’t. I always try to practice mindfulness and come back to the present moment feeling every single one of my emotions at that time. I try to identify them and treat them with love and compassion when the future causes me anguish and the past brings me sadness.

I hope that showing my vulnerability and sharing these thoughts with you will help you all as much as they have helped me. I know these things don’t show up on Instagram but they are there within me.

This post is dedicated to a person I love very much who I know is going through a difficult time. I hope she finds comfort, empathy, and affection here.

For you my friend, you know who you are.

April is Alcohol Responsibility Month at Responsiblity.org and this year they are also celebrating 30 years of providing tools and resources to parents to avoid drunk driving and to help us talk to our kids about it.

Thanks to Dr. Pukshmin for that article that opened my eyes and for the incredible conversation we had that helped me so much. Thanks also to responsibility.org, it’s a pleasure to partner up in such a noble cause to share tools and information with parents seeking responsible parenting.