You Are Not A Failure
Hi, it’s me, here with a pep talk for you this week. Maybe you have been stressed and overwhelmed lately. Maybe your child’s behavior has been more dysregulated than usual and you are out of solutions. Maybe you are trying to balance work, parenting, your relationship, your friendships, and a global pandemic, and you feel like you are doing all of it poorly. Here’s the deal: you are not a failure.
You are not a bad parent, a bad partner, a bad friend, or a bad coworker. You are surviving, and you are doing the best you can do right now. If we all had boundless energy and time and resources we could all slay a presentation at work AND pack our children beautifully balanced bento box lunches AND bake cookies for the class party AND plan a romantic date night with our partner AND show up for book club with our friends. Not one of us is this kind of superhuman.
Just a general public service announcement: if you are scrolling through Instagram and it seems like that influencer you follow or even Sally Jo from high school has it figured out, THEY DON’T. Close the social media, back away from the phone, and stick your face in the freezer for ten seconds. No one is actually that easy breezy in real life.
Almost every parent I work with has at some point expressed feeling like they are failing as a parent for some reason or another. Maybe they can’t consistently spend one on one time with their child, or their child keeps getting into trouble at school, or their child comes home and unleashes all of THEIR stress and anxiety on them. Maybe they worry about allowing too much screen time or not sitting down together for dinner enough.
I beg of you, sweet parent...please give yourself a break. Stop beating yourself up. Children are resilient, and as long as they know you love them unconditionally, they will be okay. Did you tell them you loved them even when they were on your last nerve? Do you try and start each day with your child with a clean slate? What you have to give can be enough. YOU are enough. The mistakes you made today can be repaired tomorrow.
The saying “this too shall pass” can feel like an empty platitude sometimes, but at its core is something valuable. This is the idea that this moment, this feeling, this situation, this life are all temporary. You may feel overwhelmed now, but then another feeling will come along and you’ll experience that. You may feel joyful and ebullient now, but that isn’t forever. This moment feels eternal and weighty, but it is a blip in a series of moments you will experience in your lifetime.
Also, dear reader, you are not alone. You have a support system, whether it consists of friends, family, colleagues, your therapist, your doctor, your pastor...you are an integral part of a village. Use your village. Ask for help. There is no shame in admitting you can’t do it all and you need an assist, and I feel sure that if you are reading this, you have given many an assist to others. It’s time to put on your own oxygen mask first.
Give yourself grace. Be the friend to yourself that you want to be for others. Mother yourself the way you want to mother your child. And, when things are better (and they WILL get better) you can pay it forward and shine your joy on others who may need it. So, if you read this and only absorb one thing, I’ll say it again for the seats in the back…
YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE.
