What a whirlwind of a summer it has been for me and my family. For me, Summer brings extra income (in the form of a seasonal biennial job), the celebration of my husband and I birthdays, vacation time, camp time for the kiddo, and of course everything else that has to be managed any other time of the year! Just thinking about all that stuff is making me tired all over again. It has been one heck of a Summer. And I guess, Summer will always be a busy but wonderful time for me, and I think I am ok with that. As I continue on in this journey called life, and on this road of trauma recovery, I find that work/life balance means so much more to me than it ever has before. Pursuing my business was initially a pursuit in having better work/life balance so I could be home more. Unfortunately, it hasn’t proven to add balance to my life at all, yet. The stresses of starting a business, still being full-time employed, and being mom, wife, aunt, etc, is proving to be so much more difficult that I ever imagined. I essentially had three jobs this summer. While I was able to successfully do all three of these jobs, it was evitable that something was left undone. If you are guessing what was left undone, you win if you said anything related to my home life. My house recently looked like a tornado ran through it, without the rain damage, and there are some rooms in my house that I am still working on. The reality is that multi-tasking isn’t real. Our brains do not have the ability to complete more than one task at a time; however, they can jump quickly from task to task. Even as I type, I am thinking of what I have left to do in this day, and it is messing up the accuracy of my typing skills. We are sacrificing the quality of something when we try to multitask. The truth is that the quality of the cleanliness of my house suffers, when work takes over my life. And when I focus more on my home life, the quality of my work suffers. When I started doing these blogs, I wanted to make sure that I would have them out by the first week of the month. It is literally the day before the last day of the month, and I am just now sitting down to write this blog. It looks like for the last few months of this year, this blog will now be at the the end of the month to try to have some consistency, and give me time before the next blog comes out. Life in general has proven to be a big delicate balancing act. Every day we make choices that sway the balance. Yesterday, I decided to take a sick day from work. Even though I still answered work emails from home, I was able to attend a funeral to support a life-long friend, spend some time with my mother, and ended the day playing board games and watching TV with my husband and son. It was a beautiful day. The biggest problem with yesterday is that I didn’t do anything for my business. I didn’t do anything to support my dream of working for myself. Here’s the thing: On Saturday, I had a virtual Mental Health First Aid training all day from 9am to 5pm. I woke up by 6am to make sure that I was ready. On Sunday, I went to church with my husband and son, actually cleaned up some and cooked dinner, and then relaxed by binge watching a show while my husband played upstairs with my son. In the big picture of the weekend, I would say that I nailed work/life balance. In the critical review of self, in the trauma response of my self-worth, I say things to myself like I should have done more with cleaning up my house, or I could have spent more quality time with my mom, or I could have wrote this blog way sooner than now. All of the “coulda, shoulda, woulda’s” take over my brain. There is a song by Brian McKnight that is called, “Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda,” and I connect with part of the chorus so much because that is the narrative in my brain. The part I always hear is,

“I coulda done this, I coulda done that
But I know I can't go back
Cause now it's just too late
I'm sayin' shoulda woulda coulda, yeah”

While Brian McKnight was singing about a woman leaving him, that is not my context. My context is that I think like this all too often about all kinds of things. I “coulda” worked out this week, or I “shoulda” done this promotion for my business, or I “woulda” spent more quality time with my husband, if I had time. The reality is that there are not enough hours in the day, and all of these “coulda, shoulda, woulda’s” are a trauma response. When I think about my life, it is the trauma that taught me that I wasn’t worthy enough or that I had to prove myself to others. It was the trauma that taught me that I should question all of my decisions, and that I didn’t make the right decisions in this life. As I grow I had to un-learn all of those negative things. I had to learn that emotions are trying to tell me something, and my reaction to them is what matters in this world. While the trauma of my past wants me to question all of my life choices, and make me doubt my self-worth, my trauma recovery journey will no longer allow this type of talk in my life. My trauma recovery journey teaches me to have grace with myself in all the decisions that I make, to be confident in my choices, to learn from the past but look toward the future. There are many more sayings, but I will stop there. While the trauma thoughts will seep in at times, the important part is noticing that they are even present, and being able to re-direct my thoughts in a different direction. I will honor all the things that did this weekend that were beautiful. I will not feel bad for taking a “mental health day.” I will stop and enjoy the moments that matter, like spending quality time laughing with my husband and son. And even when I am at a funeral, I can appreciate being able to worship God with friends again. There are so many nuances to this thing called Life. I hope that I always find ways to strike the delicate balance of it all.