Morning Cup of Calm: This Puppy Is All I Can Manage
the heart of the matter
I was on a phone call with a colleague/new friend. After some work chit chat, we committed to finding time to hang out in person. Then she dropped this limitation on me, “I can’t for at least six weeks. I have a new puppy, and she’s requiring a lot of my attention.”
I’ve never heard anyone schedule pupternity leave before. This friend is a nonprofit executive director and a mom. She knows how to multitask, coordinate, and get shit done. She also knows how to think big picture, and right now her big picture is - this puppy is all I can manage. I’m staying focused and holding boundaries around that.
I was impressed. Her assertion aligned with a phenomenon that I’ve been mulling over: hustle culture ain’t serving us. This is true for all people, but especially for parents, and extraspecially for moms. I’ve written about this before, as have other great writers and journalists that I follow. What I admire in this anecdote is my friend’s clarity and the firmness and transparency of her boundary. I would love for us to celebrate when individuals claim and protect space for their joy or sanity. This won’t transform toxic systems, but it’s a great step in the right direction. In my positive parenting classes and workshops, I often discuss the impact of boundaries on our well-being and the need to prioritize self-care.
I’ve been feeling this need for boundaries and space because I’m suffering. I’m navigating - at least attempting to - a family mental health crisis that has all four of us teetering on our raw edges. I regularly break into sobs - no mean feat with so many milligrams of Zoloft careening through my capillaries. Then just as suddenly, I wipe my face and move forward with my day. I’m trying to be a professional, a strong dad in a crisis, a protector/provider who leads a successful business, gets a nutritious dinner on the table, and cuddles his kids at night. I’m not doing any of these well right now.
In the workshops I run, I talk about the reactions we feel when our parasympathetic nervous system, or lizard brain, takes over.
Image courtesy of Calm meditation app
My default is a fight instinct, but lately I’ve been experiencing so much freeze. I’ve had trouble planning my day. I feel stuck all the time, and my desire to numb feels consuming. I’ve been really pushing myself to be productive, but that has such a physical and emotional cost. As an entrepreneur, there’s a cultural script that tells me I should be hustlin’ 12 hours a day. Right now I’m lucky if I do four. This shovels more shame on my personal pile of negative emotion. I feel inept, defeated, trapped.
Capitalism doesn’t allow us to say, ‘Right now, I just can’t.’ We don’t have easily attainable structures that allow us to slow down or stop when we need to.
During the pandemic, so many of us lost faith in institutions - in the CDC, in the schools that refused to open, in the way that we expected moms to work, keep the household fed and safe, and support their kids in online school. Today, I feel like similar systems - schools, public mental health services, health insurance, and our world of work, aren’t serving anyone in my family right now. How many of us feel like we are chasing too much to no avail.
I wish we could collectively shout:
Hey Capitalism! Hey America! I have a new puppy. A big, taxing, all encompassing puppy. and she’s requiring a lot of my attention. For right now, this puppy is all I can manage.
we’re obsessed with
Get Unmarried. This episode of Modern Love starts off as the journey of a man with autism to become the perfect husband, and turns into a simple manifesto on imperfect, happy, relationships.
I’ve been listening to Dan Harris’s 10% Happier Podcast. This episode provides a wealth of science-backed tools to counter being triggered, anxious, and depressed. The Double Shift. This is the newsletter I linked earlier. Katherine Goldstein writes an excellent weekly Substack on the challenges of modern parenting.
Happy feet. I ain’t talking about penguins. I’m talking about the things we walk on every day. My husband Chris and I have both been experiencing foot pain (yay, age!). It turns out I have plantar fasciitis. At a friend’s recommendation, we went to a good shoe store that specializes in people with foot pain. The first thing I noticed is that they only carried certain brands of sneakers - Brooks, Asics, Hokas… no Nike or Adidas! The next thing I noticed is that the shoe salespeople were true professionals. They spent a lot of time with each customer and measured our feet, watched us from different angles as we walked, and asked about what we do when we spend time on our feet. It turns out I have a wide foot, and that I’m a full size larger than I thought I was. I bought new sneakers. They weren’t cheap. I feel like my feet are breathing deeply and I’m always walking on fresh cut grass. Find a good shoe store near you!
This song and this song by Jon Baptiste are giving me life and help me keep going.
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Ed Center, the founder of The Village Well, is a parenting coach and educator certified in the Triple P method. The Village Well is a community of parents in BIPOC families, focused on attaining more joy, calm, and meaning in family life. We coach parents to prioritize their own healing and wellness, deepen connections with their kids, and learn tools to support better behavior. Services include Parenting workshops, Parenting courses, and community events. Our support is culturally-grounded support and honors your unique family. Ready to stop yelling? Schedule a free consultation with one of our team members.
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