If you are feeling like you are drowning under the demands of everyday life, despite all of your best efforts to finally “fix it” for good, just know that you are not alone. The average working mother is spending part of her mental energy to push off thoughts that she is failing at juggling work and home life, even if she is one of the lucky ones who actually enjoys her job.

As a holistic psychotherapist, I am constantly consuming books and articles and other forms of high quality media that refreshed my knowledge and creativity in my work with clients. The women I see in my practice everyday are highly-capable, highly-visible and frequently overwhelmed by their roles and responsibilities. So my studies tend to center on ways to practically respond to the various stressors they are facing, while also providing the emotion regulation tools and the communication skills that can allow the heavy lift of daily life to feel, well, lighter.

Because I am reading so much of this material from week to week, I will be sharing more insights from these books, etc, here on the blog, so that any woman who stumbles onto these pages can take what she needs and put it into action right away.

So let’s start it off with some core principles. In the 2019 book by Kate Northrup, entitled Do Less: A revolutionary approach to time and energy management for ambitious women she discusses a series of experiments that can help women to minimize the energy drains in their life and give them back more of their limited hours in the day for what they personally value.

Before I continue, I’m curious what you would do if you could get back and extra hour (or 2 or 3?) in your day? Really pause to consider this- how would you choose to spend an extra hour a day if you had the choice?

… if you thought of something, extra bonus points if you actually write that down somewhere. There’s something about writing down something you desire and looking back on it whenever you can that helps to make that wish real*

Okay, so in the experiment I will be highlighting for this article, you will be exploring ways to simplify your life. And by simplify your life, I mean the routines you engage in most days without even thinking about it, or the decisions that are forced to make over and over again because your systems are not yet taking the guess work out of it for you.

Option 1: Simplify Your Meals

The wild thing about eating is that you pretty much need to do it everyday, multiple times of day. So between you and the others in your household, you need to have options for 2-3 square meals a day, snacks, drinks, packable meals, basic nutrition, allergy friendly options, etc.

The amount of time it takes to not only cook these meals, but also plan for and purchase the ingredients for them can take quite a bite out of your available downtime. I’m always quick to suggest that you find as many ways to delegate this so that keeping bodies fed doesn’t leave you want to set your kitchen on fire.

Shoutout to any women reading this who absolutely loves to cook and would change a thing they are doing! I bow to you.

For the rest of us, let’s start with getting real about the amount of meals that actually work for all the preferences and allergy profiles in the home. Consider the core meals you are already making that you can use to simplify your meal prep and dinner/lunch/breakfast schedules.

Which fresh ingredients do you buy for the household that actually get used and eaten by the end of the week?

Which have gotten thrown away in the last couple of months? Do you have a composting bin? (Just kidding about that last one, but some of you- and I do mean me- should actually get one:/ Or maybe just change your aspirational shopping habits.)

If you find meals and meal planning stressful, can you rotate the same 5 to 10 meals, hopefully focusing on ones that can be cooked in 30 minutes or less, instead of trying out new and complicated recipes on busy weeknights? Can you make bigger batches of what you are already cooking and freeze half so you save on cooking time the following week or over the weekend?

In my household, we value plant-based nutrition but we also value time just as much, so we tend to have large batches of rice and beans on hand for lunches and some dinners every week. And fruit, lots and lots of fruit (kids are like vacuum cleaners for fruit- it’s mind boggling).

So batch up what you use repeatedly, including pe-made foods that work for you, and feel free to use online services that help create simple repeatable recipes and shopping lists that you can use on repeat.

As tedious as it might feel, try not to skip over this experiment because a little energy and organization on the front end could save you a lot of effort later on.

Option 2: Simplify Your Kids’ Activities

Now, for those of you who don’t have kids, have kids but they have left the house or have kids who are driving themselves to all their activities, this may not be as relevant right now. But for the rest of you, the ones still working that unpaid job as chauffeur and most dedicated fan in the stands, listen up.

I want you to consider ever season of the past year and the coming year. I want you to write out, by season, which activities your children participated in- or will participate in- during each of these periods. Then include in the additional commuting it requires to have those activities added into the schedule. For extra kicks and giggles, you can add in the additional cost for signing up, uniforms, etc.

Great. Now review what you have down and notice the feelings that arise in your body as you consider how these commitments affect your schedule and energy. For some of you, you may take pride in your travel soccer mom status and look forward to weekends away screaming for your sports prodigy from the sidelines.

For others of you, you might be feeling… a little less excited.

So no matter how much or how little you have written down for each season, I still want you t pay attention to that feeling, because how you feel about it matters. You can either choose to address the circumstances, I.e. less activities, or you can address the feelings. Generally, addressing the actual circumstances can be much more straight forward, but you may have your own reasons for putting up with certain discomforts for a limited period of time. And I respect that.

If you are looking at your list and getting the sense that something has to change, consider having a limit of 1 activity per season, per kid. How does that shift the energy for you?

Whatever your decision, reflect on this:

What is your approach to your children’s activity schedule teaching them about the best use of their time?

What are you showing your children that you value most, or that they should value most?

Do they know that it is a good and valuable thing to rest? Do they see you resting?

Option 3: Simplify Your Relationships

It’s amazing the amount of psychic energy we put into our relationships as women. Even when we have gone too long without seeing some of our closest friends, family members or mentors, that usually doesn’t reflect how much time we spend thinking about, wondering about or worrying about them!

Yet, how often are these relationships actually somewhat balanced, reciprocal or enjoyable? How often are they tense, frayed, life-sucking, cold or just plain confusing?

If the relationships that are taking up the most space in your mind cause you more distress and very limited feeling of true connection, you might be overdue for a relationship audit.

Now, I am not advocating that you go on some sort of rampant cutoff spree where you just start blocking every 3rd number in your contact list and tell your entire immediate family you never want to see or talk to them again. (I’m also not not saying that a few of you reading this may need to do exactly that!) But it can be very eye-opening to examine where your attention is being pulled away from the relationships you have that are worth your time and emotional investment, versus those that take a lot out of you when they deserve to get a lot less.

Where do you see that you can do less in certain relationships?

What would that allow you to offer to other, more intentional relationships?

Well, that is plenty to leave you with for now. If you end up trying out any of these experiments, feel free to shoot me a message and let me know how it went for you. Here’s to lightening your load!

And if you are looking for a therapist who has made it her business to not pathologize her clients, but to help them root their challenges and opportunities in their personal and spiritual and environmental context, be sure to set up a call with me to discuss your counseling needs. I look forward to meeting you.

**About the Author**

Linda Sanderville, LCSW is a psychotherapist with over sixteen years experience in effective trauma treatment and training and supervision of other mental health professionals. Currently, she provides specialty services to adults seeking recovery from stressful life events and those who desire to optimize their wellness and the health of their relationships.

Interested in Working with a Lifestyle Balance Therapist in Arlington VA, Potomac MD or Washington D.C.?

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At Satya Counseling and Yoga, I want to help create a safe space for my clients to start their healing journey individually or as a couple. To help accommodate you in my Northern Virginia practice (along with other locations nationwide), the services I offer in addition to internal family systems therapy include trauma recovery, anxiety relief, and therapy for depression. I also offer a Transformation Therapy Intensive for those looking to seek accelerated progress toward their identified goals and personal growth and Yoga for Therapy to help increase your mental resilience and enhance your emotional state. For more about my practice check out my FAQsand blog!