Reducing anxiety and overwhelm for parents

I just feel so anxious sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with me?

I worry about not doing enough for my kids…

and I worry about doing too much.

I worry about what to say to them and how to help them and worry when I don’t have the answers.

I worry about my parents and how to support them.

I worry about work and how to find the time and headspace to do the work I need to do.

These are things that I hear from mum’s often and I can relate.

This generation of parents with teens is being called the “sandwich generation”.

We have the pressures of caring for children at the same time as caring for our parents and we are sandwiched in the middle.

BUT my observation is that the sandwich is not just a regular sandwich with bread on the top and bottom.

We also get “sandwiched” on the sides.

We need to work more and earn more, and be the emotional support to our friends and partners who are also struggling with middle life illnesses, divorce and other stresses that come at this age.

Add to that the mental health crisis of teens and the technology that invades their space and ours promising ease and respite but often not delivering…

It’s no wonder at times we feel anxious and overwhelmed.

It’s enough to make even the most reluctant camper feel jealous of the photos on social media of families on year long trips around Australia in a campervan.

Research has shown that when parents can show themselves self compassion they are less stressed in their parenting.

What does that mean exactly?

If you look into self compassion (and by all means go ahead if you have time and love to go deep then Kristen Neff’s work is awesome), you will find meditations, questionnaires and journaling practices.

But at the most basic level, self compassion means being kind to ourselves that we are the sandwich generation.

Things are hard.

If we parent from a place of self compassion our thoughts are something like “This is hard, but I can work it out and it will be okay.” v.s. Not compassionate thoughts like “What’s wrong with me? Maybe I am the Problem. I’ve failed.”

Research on anxiety and other emotions has shown that meta beliefs or the beliefs we hold about having emotions affect how distressed we become.

When we are anxious about being anxious, or depressed about being depressed there is a never ending cycle which escalates the emotion.

This is why the most important thing for you to start with in helping you with your anxiety, stress and overwhelm is not the to do list, scheduling, or even the "strategies".

The first place to start is with is accepting your emotions with self compassion. The words below have helped many of the parents I have worked with…

“This is hard, but I can work it out and it will be okay.”

AND

“It is understandable and okay that I am feeling anxious and overwhelmed at times given all that is happening and the way I have been thinking”.

When we shift our thinking our feelings follow and everything feels more manageable.