Having a too full life will keep you stuck. Time for a change.
After completing my snow/paper challenge, I had a fairly large pile to shred. Luckily, I love my shredder. It was nearing time to pickup my middle school daughter from practice, so I thought, “I’ll just shred a little more. I can get it done.”
But you cannot hurry a shredder. Plodding along at a consistent speed, it will break if you shove too much in it. The shredder bin also has limited capacity and stops when it is full.
What if people had a red button indicating they are too full? We’d all be walking around like stop signs.
The too full light on my shredder couldn’t be denied, but how often do we try to deny being overloaded and deny that our homes and schedules have limits? Let’s fit in one more thing, just for now. We’ll figure it out later.
We don’t figure it out later though. Not until our health fails or we are pushed to make a change by an upcoming event or external pressure. No one thrives under those circumstances, so let’s look at how you can unjam yourself.
First, know your indicators that you are too full.
How do you know if your house is too full? Look around. Are your drawers and closets so packed that you avoid using them? Fighting nightly battles because no one else will pick up dishes, toys, backpacks, coats, shoes, papers, and everything else that comes from having others live with you?
Is your schedule too full? Let’s imagine indicators that you’re doing too much. I have one: feeling like you are losing your mind. You are ten minutes late getting Sarah to dance, meaning Zach will be late for piano. “Why aren’t you ready?” you shout as you pass out granola bars and squeezable applesauce.
Second, accept that everyone has limits, even the moms who serve healthy food in bento boxes.
In fact, those moms may have been able to serve healthy food in cute (clean) bento boxes because they create limits to keep their too full buttons from getting triggered. My point here is not to make anyone feel guilty about bento boxes, it’s to tell you that you can set boundaries that make sense for you and your family.
You can tell Sarah and Zach that they need to chose one activity per quarter. It’s okay to opt out of summer sports and music camps if your little sweetie is more geared towards having fun than trying to be in that very slim minority of professional athletes and musicians.
As a parent of three kids who are close in age, I’ve gotten brain cramps from trying to figure out how to be in multiple places at the same time. Unlike Hermione, I do not have a time-turner. Things are somewhat easier now that I have two kids who drive, except that they share one car, so it’s still complicated.
If you really want to get unstuck, do this.
After noticing you are too full and setting limits that make sense for your family, it is crucial that you build in time for you to slow down. You need time to think without interruption, to reconnect with what you love, and to live with intention because you carved out sacred time where you tune into your values.
This doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you a better parent because you are not marinating in craziment.
If you have little ones and aren’t sleeping at night, that means you hire someone to take care of the babies or exchange the service with another parent, so that you can stay sane. The same applies to school-aged kids. Hire a teen to engage them in active play once or twice a week so you can go to a coffee shop.
Enlist free and paid help wherever you can. Just don’t sit there blinking red and wondering why you can’t function. The benefits of getting unjammed are the only thing you can never be too full with.
If you are feeling a bit lost and need help in the process of rediscovering yourself, I can help. Find out more here.
