Learning to recognize your limits also means saying “yes” to what’s most important. Women tend to find themselves juggling so much — family life, career, relationships, the daily details of life. Not to mention trying to find time for their own self-care.
Leah, married to Mark for 13 years, is an executive at a large company. They have four children from 2 to 12 years old, and she is on the verge of burn-out: “I’m always tired and emotionally on edge. I feel like I’m doing everything halfway. I know my boss would like me to be more available, that my husband feels like he’s married to a blur, and that my children don’t always find their mother listening. I don’t feel I’m living up to all these expectations.”
Indeed, to be available for everyone, totally and all the time, in a perpetual drive for perfection, is a complicated balancing act. How can a woman cope with this daily stress? How can they carry out all these missions, each with its own high level of responsibility?
Dare to take the time to decompress
Knowing how to say “no” is undoubtedly the first decision to make. This requires abandoning our perfectionist tendencies and daring to recognize our limits: “No, I’m not superwoman!”
It will also be a question of setting up, when possible, task sharing in all areas of activity with your spouse and perhaps grandparents or other helpers — as well as with colleagues.
Finally, you have to dare to take some time to relax: praying, walking, reading, listening to your favorite music… having a little quiet time out from the hustle and bustle that sometimes gets crazy busy, will help put everything in its place, and personal relationships will experience renewal. It’s a win-win proposition for everyone involved. “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
Marie-Noël Florant
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5 Saints show us how to balance work and family life
