When we emerge, how will we go forward?
This week we celebrated International Women’s Day.
It’s no coincidence that the way we come into the world plays a big part in who we become, how we cope, how we feel about ourselves and how we navigate challenges as they arise. In this phase of my life a personal passion has been dissecting, understanding, and living the very complicated, messy beautiful life of working full time and raising a young family. I come from a long line of strong, selfless and motivated women. Women that always put their families ahead of themselves and worked full time. I am Greek and Italian, the middle child, Sagittarius, curious, creative, expressive, empathetic, intuitive, and passionate about the paradox of working full time and Motherhood, something that day in and day out makes the world go round. Over the past few years, I’ve found the medium of writing and expressing my thoughts around these topics may heal or vibrate one mom at a time. It could be 3 am in the morning while you are nursing your baby or in a meeting with your boss trying to navigate flexibility.
I was laid off in December and after eight months of personal and professional development I felt it was time to dive into the deep work calling for me to coach young working Moms. I have been unpacking and sifting through the layered process of how Motherhood intersects with our work lives. The challenges. The hopes. The expectations. The dreams. The career choices. The struggles. The mental load. The guilt. The costs. I started my coaching practice just after the new year. My coaching practice emerged in the throws of what I saw is the seed that is ready to be fully cracked open so women can be the best version of themselves at home, at work and in their communities.
I just wrapped up a virtual six week program with a few moms that had their second babies, in a pandemic year in the middle of winter. Having a baby during a pandemic is unprecedented territory, but no one really dreamed up the constraints of worrying while pregnant, then delivering if your partner could be present with you in the hospital. Then not being able leave your home, and the many on-going insurmountable challenges that have presented in this covid year from deciding on childcare, how to keep your family safe and how to take care of yourself as a mom. The immeasurable decision fatigue has been and is still mind boggling.
My idea stemmed from meeting these women where they were at this moment. The good, the bad, the loss, the unattainable, the missed hugs, the lack of interaction of family members meeting their next grandchild. The isolation and the overwhelm. The overwhelming feeling of bringing in another child nearly village-less. The village-less way of life existed prior to covid and it just became exacerbated once we got into this global crisis. So that’s where I came in. I’ve coined myself as @villagecoachmamma but it also has evolved into my deep passion and desire for wanting to support all women to find a way to engage in their joys and work life how it makes sense for them.
Prior to covid, having a baby already has a set of challenges even without the lockdown situation, so we are working with new circumstances and in the midst of a workforce that is and will be changing. What companies are finding is that Wellbeing, Burnout, Mental Health and Health and Wellness will be critical players in retaining and integrating work life integration for the future.
So what does this mean for newly minted parents? I started that conversation in the middle of winter with these women who recently had their second children in a pandemic. Both from different work backgrounds, we began each session by checking in on how they were that day and focusing on how their week was. What were the wins and what were the challenges. At the heart of my coaching sessions, my goal was to hold space for these women as they are transitioning through not only an extremely vulnerable time, but one that should not have to be walked alone. The pillars and key takeaways for my program were;
Support. You are seen.
Validation on Motherhood journey
Acknowledged where you are
Find some wins and challenges
Space and time for you
Ways to support yourself going forwards (Physical, Mental, Emotional)
And this year may never be repeated, but we have so many lessons and takeaways to improve the health of young parents and our overall workforce. If I were to draw a parallel to what we are in this March, we are all still in transition. This is what life is like. We all experience many transitions in our life each decade and we are not static human beings that can just “fit” in a box.
Forty hour work weeks, traditional hours and full time hours were certainly decades worth of the way life had been pre-covid, but the tides are changing. Our generations and our workforce desperately want hope, change, and better balance. And the change that people value touches people’s hearts. People want to feel supported on their journey whether that is becoming a new parent, helping aging parents, supporting your teens, helping your kids decide on college, these are all big transitions. Our lives are not meant to be separate, one influences the other and that has been the biggest lesson of this year. It’s been like the House of Cards. One card gets pulled out of the house and the whole thing falls apart. What a parallel to our structures that we had pre-covid.
We need to make priorities going forward for our Family, our Wellbeing and our Health. And Wellness. If we look back on this year, we gave witness to 500,000 lives taken from this difficult virus, it’s enough to say that each and every person on this planet has experienced deep loss and grief. Our lives are meant to be lived fully. We are humans, connected to our work and purpose, but we are also connected by heart beats. As I continue to delve into the Modern Parent working life, if we want to set up ourselves for success, we need to adapt and create positions, hours, and projects that support your biggest asset, your employees. When we begin to value that, people will be showing up more engaged, more productive and feel supported. I’ve only scraped the surface with my pilot program to begin pretty raw and start small, but I know there is hope on the other side. It’s one woman at a time advocating and supporting another that will begin to change the color and texture of the fabric of our workforce in a way that positively affects us long term. All it takes is one step at a time, holding space, sharing a story, and getting to the root of the issues. That’s how we will develop resilience to bounce back.
Whether it’s big or small, you are not your circumstances and our intentions for change and resiliency can be seen as we navigate the turbulence of this iconic time now to change the conversation about how we work, live, love, engage and pave a “new” way for the next generation. This is how we celebrate women and move them forward.
How will you start to shift the conversation at work? How will you advocate for yourself?
Every time someone asks this question, you are creating a footpath for the next generation. A footpath for more hope, wellbeing, empowerment, equality, and value.
#InternationalWomensDay2021 #workingmoms #worklifeintegration #motherhood #timetochange #houseofcards #covid #flexibility #worklifetransformation #womensupportingwomen #wellbeing #burnout #mentalhealthawareness #maternalmentalhealth #motherload
