Balancing Work, Parenting and Change
I chat to Erika - an ocean lover, marine ecologist and cartographer, committed wife, optimist and fun-loving mother of two adventurous boys (as well as several beloved pets). Also my sweet friend! Erika is happiest in a fluid environment and talks us through some of the shifts, changes and behind-the-scenes of her life in that. Erika approaches life with a deep appreciation for growth, laughter and wonder which flows out of her in this conversation and everywhere she goes.
Prefer to listen to the conversation click here Surfing the Waves of Work and Parenting where we talk through the below and so much more:
- intentionally choosing where to put our time and focus
- context switching and adaptability
- household nitty gritty and support
- a frame you can use at home and in teams around work ownership and allocation
- resting and supporting our bodies and energy in the middle of busy/busy/busy
We go behind the scenes with Erika, who is an ocean lover. She works in the fields of marine ecology and cartographer, has been married for many, many years and has two adventurous boys in their kind of tween, teen years, as well as several pets. She lives a coastal life on many, many levels. We talk about context switching, fluid environments, shifting and changing, which is such a beautiful metaphor for both life and the tides and sea.
I think you're going to get so much value from listening to how Erika and her family do time, do chores, do finances, do philosophy around life, do boundaries. There are so many nuggets here for us all to listen into and think about. I've provided a few notes here and there about places where you might want to reflect a little bit deeper themes that I see come up in the coaching that I do around burnout prevention and leadership.
I'm hoping it's going to be a really useful conversation to you. Let's dive in.
Hey, lovely. I'm so happy to be here having this conversation, I know who you are but could you briefly introduce yourself, where in the world you are, what your work is, and what your family situation is?
Hello, everyone. My name is Erika Brown. And I live in Kommetjie, Cape Town, South Africa. I am a marine ecologist and GIS specialist. I work in marine science and science to policy kind of space. I am married for many years, I think 15 now and in long term relationship, 19 going on 20 years. I have two young-ish children. I have a 10 year old and a 13 year old, two boys, Sylvan and Tyler.
And your current working is it full time, part time? What would you say in terms of hours?
At present, I work part time in my job.
So talk us through how you hold a week where you're working, you have a partner that works, you have two kind of tween teen children and everything else that a house and dogs and a life involves. What does that look like in a regular week?
It looks like complete chaos. Hence the part time work. So I worked full time for all of my life, actually, until the last two years. And I've only recently shifted into part time work. Because I feel like one, I was really adamant about trying to earn more and less time so that I could be there more to support my family and my children's needs and all of the admin that happens with everyday, modern day living. And, and it's busy, it looks like I get up early and do time for myself before my kids wake up. And then also time to just do a bit of admin work. And then I have time sectioned out for my children before they go off to school. Then I sit down to work and intermixed in that is any number of things.
When my kids come home from school, I step back into that space. My husband and I share a lot of the kind of responsibilities with kids and admin, but there's obviously a different balance in there. Depending on the year and what kind of work we're doing, we're both freelance workers.
We both work for ourselves, ultimately, and have clients and that can change from month to month and year to year, depending on what we have going on in the working space. So we very much adapt to what the needs are, who can give to what, and work in that space.
It’s a very fluid space, I would say, with my husband and I, because neither of us are fantastic long-term planners, or I think one of our strengths is actually that we're so adaptable, and you can kind of adjust on the fly and as needed in time.
It sounds like a lot of context switching in a day, being different things at different times in the day, and then throughout the week. And it also sounds like a flow in that over time of where focus and attention is between you and your partner. When you think about this intentional change of how you're sectioning time for work and family, was there something that led to that decision? Or was it a feeling? Talk us through where that came from.
I think there were a number of factors. And there was a period of time where I was contracted for a year and a half to only work part time. So in that, and that was kind of an unexpected thing. But in that space, I got a taste for what it was like to work just part time. It was just made life feel a little more spacious, and give me just a little more for myself, for my kids, for my husband, all of that. Then the next few years I was back at it, this is something that I tend to do quite often as I pull more and more onto my plate.
Welcome to the family, you're definitely not alone. Most of my one-on-one work centres around this.
And so I was back into full time working and obligations. What got me to back into part time was two things. One was a challenging situation with a contract or not even a contract by that stage. I'll say a colleague and work, my employer, and my client, and I just kept noticing how much that situation wasn't serving me in my life, and was bringing me a lot more stress than it was doing great for me. So I wanted to pull out of that, in which case I would only be working part time. So it was maybe not a conscious decision, but it wasn't necessarily a conscious decision, like, Oh, I would like to open up more space for these other things.
I think in that decision, and the final decision, it was like, if I make that shift, then it will open up more in that space. And I can give to these other things that I am finding right now. One, there's needs for, and two, I really enjoy giving time to my family.
I really enjoy giving time to myself outside of work. It made a lot of sense. My husband also was in a very intense space for this past year and a half, he's been in more demand to work to work full time plus, and currently is actually away for the first time in over a decade for a long period of time.
So it just made a lot of sense for us in our family setup and in our finances at the moment. It was doable, I should say, you know, I didn't have to stay in that full time position in order for us to make ends meet. So I guess in another sense, really fortunate situation.
I wanted to take a moment to pause here with Erika's intentional decision to work part time at the stage of where she's at in her career and her parenting. And two things here. Number one, I think it can be so useful to acknowledge the time and energy that we want to give to things and to recognise that our capacity is finite.
And we need to use our time accordingly. I think sometimes we have this fantasy of being able to be in all places and do all things at all times and getting realistic about hours in the day, energy, capacity, and where we are putting our time and focus can be so, so useful. Erika shared with me after this conversation, actually, just as we hung up that one of the things that she was reflecting on, as part of this is coming at it from the position of having children in her late 30s, early 40s, so being maybe slightly older than some of her colleagues and peers, and thinking about really wanting to make time to be present with family and making choices from that point of view where she was able to do that.
And I think there's also something really useful here about having that long view. A lot of my clients are in times of their lives where they are very busy and very stretched. And sometimes when we are in that mindset, in that context, in that environment with small children or pressures at work, we can feel like it's going to be forever.
We can feel like it's never going to stop. And there's that saying around parenting, the days are long, but the years are short. And I think sometimes when we are in the middle of it, it can feel like it will stretch out.
So coming to it with that long view of this is a phase and the phase will change and my time and energy will open up and be different. I may have more to give here, I may have less commitment here, I may have more responsibility there. But holding on to that vision of length is something that I think we don't do enough of in the now, now, now.
And it can be challenging to hold the both. So every now and then pausing and looking at the possibility of working for another 30 to 40 years or parenting for another, 30 to 40 years or longer, what we see in statistics is that life expectancy and health is going up. A lot of people who are in their 30s and 40s now, and in relatively privileged environments will be living until they're in their late 80s, mid 90s.
And so sometimes seeing these years that we're in or these lists of to do's as being for right now, and us being able to be in different phases with different skills and different responsibilities can be so helpful. So some of my reflections and what I see in my practice when I think about making intentional choices around time, and I just wanted to share that with you before we carry on with this conversation.
One of the things that you've talked about a couple of times is time for yourself outside of work and I know that's something that can be such a struggle when there's so many things to be pouring into or so many things to be crossing off a to do list. How do you carve that out? How are you really intentional about that? How do you protect that? What do you do? Give us all the goodness that we can absorb and take into our own lives.
I was thinking about this the other day. I've been reading this book called Atomic Habits. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I only got wind of it a few weeks ago. And something that I've realised in my entirety of my life is I've always given time for myself. It's something that I found from my late teens, early 20s, that I needed to do from a mental health point of view. Strictly a healthy body, healthy mind point of view. And if I look back over the course of my life, I'm 50 now, one of the things that I have had the most consistency with in my life, I would say is carving out time to give to myself and my physical being. And therefore, I think my spiritual being as time has gone past.
Lately, I carve time out by simply putting it in my digital diary. That seems to be the most effective. If I map it out a month ahead of time, then suddenly, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, my boss tells me I have to go to yoga at this time. And there's no questions asked.
It's also become a habit, and therefore something that I know, I feel if I don't do it, that I need it. And so I guess the thing I would say that has changed in that over time is just shifting in what, whatever that thing is that I'm giving to myself, what that actually is changes as I grow older, and can move through that. Then the other part in that is just from a time point of view, obviously, I find in the summertime months, it's easier because daylight and day length is a little longer.Winter with shorter days and just different energy flow happening. There's an adaptation to that as well, and what that might be and what that might look like. And I think the other part in that is with kids and work and long term partnership, something else I've recently noticed, maybe not recently noticed, but noticed again, in his absence, is that my partner gives me a lot of freedom.
He is the first person outside of myself to say yes to me, giving time to myself. That kind of support is, maybe sometimes I even have taken it for granted. It's something that really helps if you don't have someone there, that's your long term partner, almost competing for that kind of support and freedom, then it can be tricky, whereas he's always like, Yes, of course, please do. That's quite a special thing. That helps.
It sounds like when you were in your late teens, early 20s, you really saw the impact that being physical, being active, being in nature, whatever it is, that is that time for yourself changes the way you use your energy or the way you feel in yourself and in your body.
And that's been a really common thread. And so where you pull the time from, whether it's early mornings, or the middle of the day, maybe has shifted what you use the time for, whether it's yoga, mountain biking, or whatever it is has shifted, but that thread has remained really constant.
So when you think about your challenges, kind of the things that feel really crunchy or difficult, what would you say your biggest challenges are in holding all the things that you hold, if there are any and full invitation for there not to be any?
No, I think my my current biggest challenge is not adding too many different things into the day. Time management. That would be my biggest challenge. I think it's a challenge for me. I like to wear a lot of different hats. Sometimes that can get overly chaotic and full. And then I get to the end of the day, and I'm like, Oh, but there was this, this, this and this that I have going on? Is it practical? Does it make sense? Do you really think you're going to do all those things and either like whittle that down a bit? Or, or drop a few things. And I also know this.
It's the end of the year. And this time of year is particularly frenetic and can feel, I've noticed myself feeling overwhelmed on multiple occasions. And it's that kind of stepping back and saying, OK, well, what is the priority? What are the priorities? What's really important? And also knowing that there are going to be a few things that get dropped and being OK with that.Taking some of the pressure off, taking some of the expectations, maybe lowering them a little bit. Also just trying to build in space to what is achievable in a day, in a moment, in an hour, all of that kind of stuff. So I think time management is probably, honestly, my biggest challenge.
I would add to that finances, because, that's something that's been ongoing in my life, too, where I think both my husband and I, for most of our working life, we have worked for ourselves, or at least in, billing that kind of thing. I think we're very purpose driven, well, I'm very purpose driven. My husband's in a creative space, so I think we always have had financial struggles. That can impact on the way you manage things and how you move through your life. Connected to that, I was thinking about some of the discussion points that were going to be happening today. I noticed that, we're very adaptable people. We're quite both of us. Our comfort zones are maybe bigger than your average person, it's like what we can be comfortable in extends further than than maybe your average person.
It's almost enabled a life for us that can be a little more unpredictable, or more spontaneous, or, and we just roll with it. And like, okay, cool. Well, today, we'll make do with this and tomorrow, like feast of famine kind of scenarios, and be all right with it.
What are the positives? What are the silver linings in the way that we operate and the way that we either quote unquote, manage or plan or just trying to check that out a little more, and maybe look at it a little differently. So I'm hearing in terms of challenges, like putting things into time, is what you mean by time management is putting too many things into time. And there are more moments now where you're stopping and reflecting on what are those things? Is that realistic? Can I drop anything and allowing yourself to drop them, which is often the hardest part? Allowing them to be less than perfect or allowing yourself to say no.
As you think through challenges, you're thinking through finances and the flow of that. And then it sounds like there's also the flip side of when one is able to flow with time or finances, there's a window of tolerance or an ability to be with discomfort or an ability to be with different things that is also a superpower on the other side.
There is this flux and this change and adaptability, which she calls a superpower or this skill that both her and her partner and family are leaning into. This comes up in coaching conversations with other people. And I think it's really important to be able to say, okay, I'm going to do this.
I think there's a lot of questions that I have with clients in a view of self as adaptable and resilient and able to take on a lot. And I wanted to just also mention, sometimes the trade off of that can be a level of fatigue around decision making, because we're making decisions about do I do this with my time? Do I do that? Do I put my focus here? Do I put my focus there? And almost every attribute that we have also has maybe a shadow side or a trade off, a consequence on the other side. So seeing adaptability as something that is really a skill and a resource and a strength, and also seeing, well, what does it mean for me? It may mean that I need to take breaks in between, or it may mean like Erika says, every now and then I have to just watch myself and be conscious of what I, what have I put on my plate? And is there something that I need to remove? Is there some space that I need to make? So when we think about our strengths, it can be really useful.
And this is actually something that I do in my leadership program is to think about the strengths and values that we have, and then think about what might be their flip side, or as I call them sometimes in my course, the shadow, right? What's the other side of that? And how can we be with ourselves and both of those, so celebrating the strength, and also making space for the consequence or the trade off or the shadow of that value of that strength. The other little piece that I wanted to mention here is around boundaries, also a huge topic in the coaching work that I do both in the leadership program, and in my one on one work, and boundaries, particularly when we are able to say yes. So sometimes it's much easier for the humans that I work with to say no to people when there is a hard and fast reason, an external reason that they cannot do that, they can't make that because there is a conflict, or they can't do that, because they don't have time for it, because they're doing this other thing already.
But boundaries can feel much more challenging when in theory, we could do it, there's nothing standing in the way apart from our needs, our desires, and our wants or our health. And so we're often very willing to brush over those or pressure ourselves there, when we quote, unquote, can. And so I wanted here just to pause with that.
Number one, acknowledge it. So there's something here around protecting boundaries, when it comes to our health, our time, our needs. And also to think back, and maybe you've listened to that conversation about burnout phases of there's something here around sliding into patterns where we are negating our own baseline health in service to others or in service to other commitments.
That can be a tricky area to play. And obviously, we may go there every now and then we're making a decision to prioritise something, rather than our sleep or prioritise showing up for something rather than going for a run. But if we're doing that consistently, we're often moving to a different level of physical baseline health and emotional health, which is sliding into kind of phase four of burnout phase.
What's required for us to still hold the protection of our health as we move forward.
So leading into money, because this is such a hot topic for so many couples that are co earning dual parenting relationships. How do you do finances together?
That's our biggest challenge. That's our biggest pain point. But interestingly, I earn money, and it's my money, and Gareth earns money, and it's his money. I was also thinking, Gareth earns money, and it's our money, and I earn money, and it's my money. And I'm just joking. But again, we're quite different people. And we think about money differently. And we have a different past with money individually. So it is a real challenge and a real struggle for us to come eye to eye on how to do finances as a couple. What I've noticed, we've done so much work in and, well, I've done a lot of work individually, and we have done work as a couple. I wouldn't say so much work, but we're together 20 odd years. So we've obviously done quite a lot of work. Finances for us, is just, we just approach it differently. The way that we make it work is, I make decisions about finances for us and for our children. And I go and I chat to Gareth and check that it's okay. And we have a conversation around it. And if it's not okay, then we kind of step back and reassess, and maybe talk about it again. And we just move through it in that space. We're not people that have like a joint account.
We're not people that have spreadsheets that stretch for days, even though in my dream world, we would have that, because I like to work with spreadsheets, but we don't do that as a couple. So I would say we operate financially as individuals. And where we need to operate as a couple, we just have conversations about it, make decisions, and then execute those decisions. That's how we do finances.
And in terms of execution, then is that also a discussion of I'll pay for this, and you pay for that? Or this is the account that it's going to come out of?
Yes, this is all changing for us at the moment, we're actually shifting into a new space. But also, I'll just speak to how it has been up till now. We make those kinds of decisions, and then execute them. And that changes with, so we kind of align who's paying for what, based on who's earning what and do we even have the money for it? I can give an example to make it more tangible for your audience. Competitive surfing requires quite a lot of money, and we're not the kind of people that have a lot of money, and yet we've got a child who is excelling in the sport, and we want to support him in that. Sometimes that's come at a great cost, and that's an area where we can, I would say, we definitely check in. We check in with one another, but we might not always see eye to eye on that, and that has come up, that's something where maybe I don't check myself enough. It's like, oh, I just want to give that to my child. I want to do these things, and the shortfall will be what it will be, and we'll scrimp and save and stretch and all the above.
To highlight, because I think there's often a money conversation and maybe a set of values, and then there's a children conversation and set of values, and how do they interplay with each other? I feel like there's so much there around what we want to give and what we want to do, and then what's sustainable and what choices we're making as a family and trade offs for each other. So thank you very much for sharing that, if you think about the nitty gritty, like the day to day laundry and dishes and snacks and making beds and all the things I can see your tongue hanging out. How does that get done in a life where you know both people are working and the housework is relentless, the never ending household chores and discussions.
So before Erica answers this and gives us a snapshot of what they do in their family and in their home, and what they've tried. I wanted to just speak here about something that Erica mentioned as we hung up the call around working to strengths, which is such a useful thing to think about in both teams and a professional context, and in a team at home when we're thinking about taking care of a house or a lifestyle, and that is for us to surface the things that need to get done, so the tasks that are required, or the activities that are required, and then think about what we might be particularly good at or what is easy for us, and letting that drive the way forward. So sometimes we get, particularly in the domestic arena, but sometimes also in a professional capacity, we get bogged down in the granular and in the fairness, and that can be really difficult to evaluate. Is it based on time? Is it based on challenge? Is it based on frequency? And sometimes looking at tasks in general, and thinking about, what am I good at? What will be easy for me can make things much more efficient, much lighter, much easier to own. Obviously, there may be a few tasks left left over that no one feels like is in their wheelhouse or in their particular set of strengths, and then there's a diving up of that. But Erica mentioned that something that her and her partner do is look at who's good at what, and then outsource or delegate or own the tasks that they are particularly good at and let the other partner drive those tasks that they may be better at, which is such a useful framework to think about Both from a work capacity or a household capacity.
Okay, so two days of the week I have a domestic goddess that comes that I pay, and they are my favourite days of the week and and then all the other days of the week. It just depends on what's happening. I have to be honest, my housekeeping and my level of cleanliness will be the first to drop off the priority list, and I will put many things above that, and yet I still scurry around. I have tried to train my children. I'm still busy with that. My husband does help out. He loves vacuuming, and he doesn't really like mopping or dusting. So I think there's trying to figure out what people tend to do. The dishes are always a thing. Put on some great music and just get on with it, kind of thing, because they have to be done. We have a dishwasher, so that's new in our lives two years ago, and it makes all the difference. In the world, I must say, if you don't have a dishwasher, and you can get one, go out tomorrow and get one because it really saves time.
We kind of wing it. We like cleanliness and a certain level of hygiene, and I will certainly run around and pick up dog poos and wash dishes and make beds and do all the things. But I also have plenty of days where I will let it go. And there's times when my husband will do it. There's times when I wish he would do it every day and not have to be asked. That's a real sticky point. But the thing that I let go of a while back was the thought that I just stopped. Now I say, Please, can you do this? Please, can you do that? Please, can you do this? And get over the fact that I have to say that 20,000 times and and because he always will say, okay, yes. And maybe sometimes, like nine times out of the 10 he'll do it, and that's great to have that help my children. They're starting to do more, especially now with this time of my husband being away, they've kind of stepped up. But also it's like continually have to manage it, which can be exhausting and irritating and like, Who is this person saying all of these things? What's coming out of my mouth right now?
In terms of logistics getting done, there's no structure. It kind of happens as it needs to happen. You've got the the two points in the week where somebody's coming in for a deep clean and in between that you're coping together as a family.
There's a kind of a rhythm. It's like Sunday evening, end of the weekend, there's a family tidy up, and get your ducks in a row for the week so that you're not facing total chaos on Monday morning, and the same thing towards the end of the week. So on a Friday, there'll be an extra level of getting stuff in order, I think so that then the weekend hits and everything can just explode, because that's how it happens in our household. The weekend hits and everybody does all the things, and there's suddenly stuff everywhere and the beds are unmade. It's great. We love it. The curtains don't get pulled back. It's a weekend. Then then we kind of rein in the chaos on a Sunday, and by Tuesday, there's someone coming who really does a much better job than we do.
Sometimes I really love to clean. Sometimes it's so satisfying to clean your own house, and to do that in a way that no one else can do, and it also relieves stress. I've just gone through a huge purge of stuff, and have been working through piles and piles and piles and piles, and I'm almost to the last bits of that, and that also feels really good. So I guess it's also the spin you put on it.
There's a little bit of a difference between that decluttering that can feel so cleansing and so lightening and that I know that also comes up a lot in coaching, that kind of one on one, neatening my space, or beautifying my space. And then there's the everyday drudge, getting things done. For me, those feel like two separate things.
So it sounds like logistically that most of the thinking or planning or organisation rests with you, is that fair?
Yes, and that feels like such a common theme here? Of somebody's planning, somebody's organising, somebody's holding what we now popularly call the mental load, and often that is the female in the partnership. Although there's maybe more willingness than in generations gone by to be in the doing. And I feel like maybe that shift will come with our sons and our children. What are your thoughts on that?
I can certainly agree with all of that, and I'm still hoping there's going to be a shift just with my partner. This whole him being away for two months has been quite a thing to witness, and I've just learned a lot about myself, and then also our dynamic with him being away, and there's very high on my list of conversations to have when he gets back is, I've been playing around with in my mind. It's, how can we shift that mental load a bit more? Yesterday I was thinking, should we each take a child, and you have to do everything for that one child? And I was imagining, of course, me, in the science space, I'm like, What's going to happen to that child with these two different people maintaining their lives?
Then at the same time. Is this fair to the children in one way or another? And so I am busy getting ready to explore in that space of how to get a little of the balance a little different, and I don't know yet what that's going to look like, so maybe we can chat again in a couple of months,
When you think about what you grew up with as generational patterns. Did you both? Do you both come from origin families where both parents are working, or were mothers at home? What did that look like in your family setup?
So my my husband, comes from a very traditional family setup. Parents stayed together. Mom didn't work, Dad did work, and so she was the most exquisite homemaker and mother. For me, she was on a pedestal and that that's how they did life.
My family's situation was my parents divorced when I was three, and remarried not long after that. And I had one set of parents where both parents worked, my stepmother full time, just that type of situation.
My mom worked in the early years, but then at a certain point, she stopped working and became primary homemaker, caregiver, and my stepdad always worked, and so I had quite a nice mix. And I got to see and I'd lived with my four parents, kind of split right down the middle. Spent the first part of my life with my dad and stepmom, the second part of my life with my mom and step dad, and always saw them intermittently.
We helped out a lot in my dad and step mom's household. So my brother and I would do chores, and we would do family grocery shopping, and they had a very organised life, very structured, very organised. Did the grocery shopping every second Thursday for the whole entire two weeks. We had scheduled when you did chores. We had scheduled when you did the garden. Everything was like very scheduled out. My step mom used to wake up at four o'clock in the morning to do her me time and her prayers and then whatever needed for kids, and then go to work and and she very much the carried the mental load, but she was a super stressed out person and and incredibly volatile, and I think it was because she had too much mental load, and I think that sat with me for a long time in my life. I think I've structured a lot of my life almost unconsciously, knowing that I never wanted to be that person.
My mom and stepdad had a different situation, and they had a lot of hired help, but my mom also did so much. She gave so much to her making and supporting her children and her husband. So there was that, and they had a lot of money after a certain point in time, so they had a lot of resources. Were well resourced and even still, my mom struggled with depression and just her her kind of outlook on life, so that also had a huge impact.
I think we're all blends of the environment that we grew up in, and I kind of have a little bit of all of those things. I would say the two, my dad and my stepdad, were very kind of they were committed. They went to work, they did their nine to five jobs, and they had a lot of support by their wives and and for their families with their children. I think they both gave a lot to their kids and they gave a lot to their families, but I think that came across in different ways.
I think about my husband now, and I think he's very much in that traditional role of, he wants to be the bread earner, and he wants to give to his family in that way, and that's his support, and he's very involved with his children, and he does play a role in that, I think he's quite a nice blend, in a way, of like a modern man, but also still has that conservative side to him and traditional role models. He's desperate to see his children right now and can't wait to get back and be involved in the day to day and and just picking his kids up from school or making them dinner. And I think we're very fortunate to have quite a nice mix of all of these different ways of doing life.
It sounds like you've also quite consciously looked back, and maybe that's come later at what worked well and what was the trade off, and what was going on maybe underneath. When we get to the age where we see our parents as humans, or our parents as people with challenges themselves or partnerships themselves, and what were they getting and what was costing them, can be such an interesting space to be in when you're then the age that you remember them being,
For sure.
When you think about the context that you're in now, is it normal? Would you say that your friends and colleagues are holding both work and children? What's that like in your community?
Most of the people that I know, the moms are working, dads are working, and they're balancing that. And there's definitely a slice of folks in this community that one of the parents doesn't have to work. I do have friends that have that scenario, but I think the majority both parents are working in some fashion.
When you think about support that you hire in or that you have in addition to your maybe small, nuclear, single generation family, you've talked about hiring and cleaning support twice a week. Is there anything else that you call in as support for yourself
From time to time we have someone come and help us with the garden. I certainly call on friends to help out with the kids, and also child care in the form of babysitters. To go out for an evening or something like that, and I don't think there's anything else. That's it. We don't have a lot of family. We don't have a huge family network here, which sometimes I really yearn for, but that's where then we call on friends. We've got an extended friend community, lots of really great friends and people that are also in the same boat that we're in. So it's really lovely to have that and we're really fortunate to live in the neighbourhood that we live in that so many people keep an eye out for your kids and that's fantastic.
We also have a bit of a relationship with the ocean, and the ocean has become somewhat of a child minder for my two children. Some people would probably cringe at hearing that.
You talked about being healthy and protecting and being intentional with your time for exercise. What else would you say that you do to keep yourself going and nourished and topped up through all you do and all you hold and all you manage?
Sleep. I'm very precious about sleep, and that will be the number one priority for me. I'll cancel an exercise session if I've had a terrible night's sleep without blinking an eye, and I will lay down in an afternoon because, and this is a new thing for me. I've never been an afternoon Napper, even though I love it, just not something that's in my genetic makeup. But I'm in perimenopause, and I have a whole just energy shift, hormonal shift, going on, and I sometimes just have to lay down. I tell anyone that's around me, I'm gonna lie down for 20 minutes or 45 minutes or I pause all of my phone and laptop things, and I just lie down, or I read for five minutes. Sometimes it's all I need is five minutes. Close my eyes.
I've been recently introduced to yoga nidra, and that's insane. That's like having a 10 hour sleep in like, 20 minutes. So check that out a couple of times. I haven't done it a lot, but I certainly am hoping to. I might build that in a little more, because it's been quite a beautiful experience, quite different for me.
So two things, it sounds like rest or sleep and really prioritising that during the night, but then also permission to rest in the day, when you really feel like your body needs that and you can just shut down a little bit. What has allowed you to protect that or to start that.
Think my kids being older, honestly, there's an understanding if you've have children, you've gone through sleep deprived periods of time in your life, and it's hectic, it's hard, it's hard work and relaxing into the fact that my kids are old enough now, they're independent enough, they're cognisant enough to understand I need a little rest.
It helps them and shows them that they also need to rest. You can't just push yourself all the time and think that you're gonna be a healthy being. So it shows them that there's another way to switch off, especially with everything that we're inundated with, from laptops, social media, all of that stuff. That's a space that we're still figuring out as parents. We're still operating in as parents trying to teach children how to switch off and how to step away from all of that. It's not so easy, especially with highly active boys. I find it very challenging. But when they do it, they get to the other side of it, and they see it, and they're like, Oh, yeah. Like, I really did need that. So I guess, I think just doing it, making it a priority? I think it'll be interesting when Gareth is back, I'm not great when there's other people around at giving myself that time.
I've got a piece that I want to check. I'm fine to do it if I'm on my own, but if my husband's around, can I sit down on the couch, or can I lie in bed for 20 minutes and like, Be okay with that?
Feel more difficult. Do you think?
I don't know? Maybe because he's really good at it, and I feel like I'm always trying to get him to do more. And so then if I lay down, then are we both just gonna lay down, and then no one's gonna do anything.
Taking another moment here to stop and invite us to reflect about the role models or lack thereof, the archetypes or lack thereof of being well rested women do we have a lot of models in our lives, in our history, in our stories, in our fairy tales of women resting, what does a relaxed woman look like? Feel like? What does she do? Can be so useful to pause and think about that for ourselves. And I love this part of the conversation where Erica and I are talking about allowing ourselves to rest, or building the practice of showing our families that we need a moment we're lying down for a nap, giving them permission to do the same thing. She is the mother of two highly active, adventurous boys. For them to recognise that maybe their moments to rest, to pause, to switch off, to move into a different energy space, for her to allow herself to do that.
When you think about the lineage and parenting that she was brought up with, we can see that there's a whole lot of thinking and feeling and behaving that often comes up for so many of the humans that I work with around resting and allowing that for themselves. We're looking at this in the microcosm of a family or a moment. In an afternoon. But when we extrapolate that to our current socio economic paradigm, our culture of working, of seeing so much value in constant production, on resourcing and efficiency, to listen in to what our energy needs, what our physical health is requiring, what our body needs and allow ourselves to lie down for 15 minutes is, as Trish Hershey calls it, resistance, resistance against all of that narrative and pushing and so thinking for ourselves and maybe this is a journaling prompt to take away what you have grown up learning about resting, what a relaxed woman might look like or feel like, what was role modelled for you? What would you like to have your children witness in a house in a family dynamic around mothering, parenting, being a human, and thinking about that in relation to rest can be such a rich point of reflection, point of internal conflict and challenge, and so useful to interrogate as We also age and our body requires different things.
Those of us in our late 30s, 40s, maybe moving into hormonal changes and cycles, those of us prior to that, may also notice that our body has different needs at different times for our menstrual cycles. Are we able to listen to that and pause soften every now and then. Or are we very stressed out even by that thought? So just noticing what is happening for you around that. What are your thoughts around that? Maybe taking that back into your own intentionality? What would you like to create around resting? How does that look in your family? And how would you like it to look? I know that I had a client once who practiced how to nap by asking her partner to take the children out the house. She locked the house, and then she lay down on her bed with a pillow over her head. And that was her first baby step. It had to be private, it had to be alone, it had to be dark, it had to be no one else witnessing that, and then slowly building that comfort level up, because it can feel really different to rest invisibility, to have other people see us rest and to deal with all the discomfort that that brings up, both in ourselves and in our relationship.
What are you most proud of in yourself, in your life, right now, and everything you haven't do?
I'm most proud of that. I do make time for myself. It's given me so much. It's shown me another level of love that I haven't recognised in a long time. I'm going to get teary and emotional, but it's just come up in this last month of doing a regular yoga practice, and basically was kind of shown that the level of self love one can give for themselves can really fill the space that for the longest time in my life hasn't felt fillable. We yearn to fit in, and we yearn to feel loved, and we yearn for all of these things, and that's been something that I've really struggled with in my life. Just seeing that when you give the time for those types of things, you really can reach a level of satisfaction that, for me hasn't really been achievable or attainable, or it's like elusive on some level. So that's something that I feel is really sacred, and I'm very proud of for doing it and also seeing it for the first time. I don't think I've ever looked at it quite this way before, and it kind of cracked my heart open on another level. Thank you,
Thank you for sharing that, the crack and the love and being in it, and how that can really shift the way we are with ourselves, or the way we think about ourselves, or the way we are in relationship with ourselves and then others. So thank you for sharing that, and thank you for coming and making time in your day.
If you want to connect with Erika you can find her here: