It seems none of us ever really has time for the things we’d love to do. We work our way along from one thing to the next – work, raising kids, appointments with doctors and psychologists, and social obligations.
Taking time for what really matters.
But what really matters?
Everyday life leaves hardly any time
We have to work to make a living. We also have to make sure our kids have friends and sports clubs – for their well-being. And we have to take care of the household and our obligations, too, so that the kids and we can have a good life.
But then a day like that is already completely planned out – from six in the morning until nine at night. After that, like so many other mothers, I’m exhausted.
There’s no time left for anything restful. Not even for a cozy bath.
I fall into bed. Too tired to read. Too tired to see friends. Too tired to watch TV.
When rest doesn’t become recovery
When the kids are visiting their father, there’s still work, the household, the garden and my own therapy appointments. I schedule those on my kid-free days, for example, so that I don’t burden the kids when something new comes up in a session or the EMDR therapy has simply left me completely drained.
When I could sleep in, I wake up early. And when I have some quiet in the evening, the images come, and the memories of what was done to me.
My body and my mind know that the kids have to be protected. That’s probably why it has settled in that flashbacks tend to come exactly when I could actually relax.
I rarely treat myself to anything. Now and then I see a friend for an hour or two. Sometimes I have a phone call with someone special. That’s about it.
I do without everything else.
Except painting
Sometimes I even paint in the middle of the biggest chaos. Between the kids arguing at dinner and leaving everything lying around. Before the dirty dishes are put away, or when I really ought to be doing something more useful.
The kids complain that I’m not a hundred percent available then. Friends complain that I don’t make time, even though the kids are away for once or we had actually planned something.
But I want to let it stand like that, without a guilty conscience.
I take at least a few hours a week or a few minutes a day and do only what I feel like doing and what brings me calm and soothes me.
It isn’t selfish
Through painting, I process my trauma. I strengthen my safe place inside me. I distract myself. I calm my thoughts and forget my trauma.
Just for half an hour.
I’ve earned this.
No one can criticize me for that.
It isn’t selfish.
It’s self-love.
And in the end, everyone else benefits too from the relaxation I give myself.