Minimalist + Mom + Career
A friend once told me, “Do not try to balance work and home. It cannot be done. Instead find the integration in your life and learn to harmonize.”
I started practicing minimalism almost three years ago out of necessity. I was working long hours, balancing being a wife, mother of a 4 year old, and 32 weeks pregnant with our second son. The thought of being able to handle everything keep me up at night. Well all of that, and the heartburn! I started thinking about streamlining my fast paced career and busy home life. And I quickly became overwhelmed. Contemplating whether I would be able to handle career and home and quickly realizing that it wasn’t going to be possible with my current life style. In my view, there were not enough hours in the day and something I loved would have to go.
Over the next few weeks, my husband and I had numerous conversations. We decided that God, our Marriage, our Children and 2 Full-Time Careers were our top priorities. But we were uncertain on how to change things and make that happen. At this point, we lived in a 2,800 sq foot house and traveled at least 4-5 hours per day round trip to work and activities, active in church on weekends, and held leadership positions on boards and numerous ministries and programs. All of it was important. We made no changes.
Our second son was born in November and the delivery did not go as planned. I was unable to walk unassisted for weeks following due to complications. At this point, change became a need. Out of necessity, we moved our entire living to the first floor of the house as I could not climb stairs. In the following weeks as I slowly regained my ability to move around, to my surprise I noticed that we functioned quite well in half of our house. Did we need a house this size?
From that moment on I began to question my beliefs as a mother and wife. I questioned my view of the “American Dream”. For instance, where did I obtained the belief that my family would only be happy in a large house with unused rooms. I started to change.
This is my life cast. My youngest son is three years old now. My career is even more challenging and I am continuing to stretch in ways I never knew I could. I am on the path to being a leader in behavioral health and an executive in the C-Suite. My husband and I just celebrated ten years of marriage. This blog is about harmony in life. Challenging views and beliefs. And finding that life can be relatively simple with harmonizing work and home through minimalist practices.
What about you? What has you thinking about simplifiying and learning to harmonize?
Drop me a note. Would love to get to know you.
RS
