balance

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther
when the wheels are in perfect alignment,
 you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

~Brian Tracy

I find it hard to find balance.

I am work Jen.

I am wife, Jen

I am mom, Jen

I am friend, Jen

I am community member, Jen.

I am selfish, all about me, Jen.

I love each role. I find enjoyment within each "position."

I need each role. 

Yet it is hard to find balance.

Lately, friend, Jen and community Jen have been winning out over mom, Jen

and it was time to shift the balance back to where it needs to be.

Sometimes it is hard to admit that mom, Jen isn't always at the top. 

That is when mom guilt tends to peak and tilt the scales back the other way.

But I am hoping that even when I feel like mom, Jen has taken a back seat, my kids see me volunteering for our community or helping a friend in need,

and in those moments, despite how I feel,

maybe mom, Jen is still front and center sort of, 

demonstrating how to give back to the community

and to those we love.

That even when the attention is not on them directly

they are absorbing the lesson that

sometimes in life its not about them,

or me,

but about something bigger.

I had a brief conversation today about raising kids.

How does a person raise kids who are "well rounded?" 

What is well rounded? 

How do I teach my children to value family above "things?"

How do you teach your children to be successful yet generous and caring? 

How do you teach your children to work hard, yet enjoy the life they have been given?

How do you teach your children right from wrong when the world is often grey? 

It is scary because I will not know if I have done my job as a mom until it's too late to do it differently.

So the goal of our long weekend was for mom, Jen to win out above the "others."

I have to do some self talking for mom, Jen to stay on top

because it is so easy for one of the "others" to take over!

There are these unwritten, unobtainable, mom rules that seem to exist inside.

They never really go away

and they can create quite a stirring of mom guilt at times. 

I did my best this weekend to calm the stirring inside and close the book of unobtainable mom rules. 

We are writing our own chapter.

Again.