Women's Issues

There are often themes that many women struggle with, particularly around wearing and maintaining so many hats. So many of us struggle with being the "perfect" mother, wife, sister, daughter, colleague, neighbor, committee member, etc. The list is usually far from short. Commonly, the most challenging part is that the expectations for each of these roles are often unspoken, but we internally feel obligated to tackle each role with perfection always falling short of our ideal goals or expectations. When life is going well, life is challenging. However, as we know, life does not fit into our daily planners as neatly as we hope. This often means that life is more challenging than we may be prepared for. Depression, anxiety, addiction, life transitions and adjustments, and relational and family stressors are just a few elements that can interfere with our ideal model of functioning. This may increase our stress levels as we are still trying to wear all of our hats with perfection.

I have found that it is essential to define ourselves outside of the many roles and hats that we wear. Allowing our many roles to be our only sense of self-definition can leave us feeling defeated, tired, and hopeless because so many of us have a difficult time surrendering the "perfect model" in our minds. By being more mindful about ourselves and our roles, I believe that we can live with a more genuine presence. We learn to give when it feels good and learn to conserve our energies so that we can give whole-heartedly when the "feel good" opportunities come our way. By not giving all of the time may mean that we have to redefine our "perfect model" for ourselves. This will allow us to preserve ourselves instead of always feeling as though we are barely treading water.