Working Parent Resource

Today’s episode is close to my heart, because I went through my own experience with Adrenal Fatigue and it was ruining my life.  I just thought I was tired and burned out, so I kept trying to come up with more ways to be productive, to get more done in less time.  But it turns out that was just perpetuating my symptoms. 

There are a lot of things I’ve changed in my life to become happier and healthier over the years.  Today I’m not going to cover surface stuff, like exercising and eating healthier or getting a better job or moving.  All of those things have at times definitely improved my life at times, but today I want to talk more about the FUNDAMENTAL shifts I’ve made in the way I operate my life that have had a profound impact on my happiness.

Guilt is a topic that tends to come up all the time among high-achieving moms and dads, especially these days when work is more demanding than ever and the standards of “good parenting” are as high as they’ve ever been.  I’ve heard so many people say that there’s no way to avoid guilt as a working parent, or even as a parent in general.  I think the guilt has gotten out of control, and I hope today’s episode has helped you release at least a little of that unnecessary guilt. 

A big theme on this podcast is balancing our lives as parents along with our lives as professionals. This is one of those topics that really will never have a “right” answer.  Striking the right balance between an engaged family life and a fulfilling professional life is something that we all have to figure out for ourselves based on our own unique situations, and it’s also something we’ll also need to re-evaluate and tweak as time goes on. 

We’re back!  I am so excited to be here chatting with you again after our little hiatus.  I hope you’ve been enjoying your Summer so far!  I’ve had a pretty busy couple of months, and I can’t wait to catch up with you a bit in this episode.  Today I have a couple of announcements for you, one big one related to my personal life, and a couple of others related to the Working Parent Resource. 

So today’s show is going to be a little different than my others.  I think a lot of you already know that my husband Joey and I are expecting our second little boy here any day now.  And now that his due date is approaching, I have a couple of announcements about the podcast and about the Working Parent Resource in general that I wanted to share with you.

We all know how hard it can be to make our marriage a priority when a new baby joins the family.  A baby puts so much pressure on a relationship, and it's not uncommon for our marriage to take a backseat when we're dealing with the everyday demands of juggling parenthood and work and everything else you have going on in your life. 

Today's show is all about helping our kids with their speech and language development.  We talk a lot about what's normal, but we also chat about what to do if your child is or seems to be delayed in their speech.  Carrie is so helpful in breaking down what we should know as parents when it comes to helping our kids with both their pre-verbal and verbal communication.

One of the things I hear most from working parents is that they feel a tremendous amount of guilt because they aren’t around their kids all week.  They feel like “bad parents” because they’ve been led to believe that simply being physically present with their kids is what makes someone a good parent.  I think logically we know this isn’t true, but it can absolutely FEEL true when you have very limited time with your kids.

I really think facing tragedy in our lives can be a transformative process, but that “messy middle” period can really be debilitating if we don’t feel like we have the support we need or if we feel really alone.  So I hope you find some useful tips and helpful insights in this episode if you’re someone you know is going through an emotional time.

Our guest today has designed an app that I think can really be a game-changer for a lot of working parents.  We talk a lot about it on the podcast so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I’ve been trying this app out recently, and it has seriously cut down on so much preparation time and has allowed me to stop re-inventing the wheel for everything I do to manage my home.  Right now the app is a free resource on iTunes, but that may change in the future so I encourage you to check it out.

Today my guest, Robin Kegerise, and I talk about how we both went through some pretty intense experiences as new working moms, and how we were able to climb out of that black hole of burnout.  Robin is so thoughtful and honest, and I think the advice and insights she shares in this episode will really hit home for a lot of you.

And after we have kids, being an overachiever can get tricky really fast.  So today I’m going to be talking about how to manage your inner-overachiever so you can find some peace in your life.  I don’t necessarily think you need to abandon that inner-drive you have.  But I do think there’s a way to manage it so it doesn’t drive you to unhealthy levels of stress and burnout.  And that's what we'll talk about today.

It takes a lot to stay healthy, and trying to fit in healthy meals, fitness, sleep, and all of those other things that keep our bodies moving seems to take up precious time, right?  We all know it’s important, and even more than that, we all know our health is critical to keeping up the pace in our busy lives.  But for some reason, these seem to be the areas where it’s easiest to cut corners. 

In this episode, Sunit shares with us her 5 Pillars of Parenthood, which include the five main areas that she helps new and expecting parents go through to avoid that feeling of new parent overwhelm and burnout.  This is just a wonderful framework that will help both moms and dads discover what their true values are as a family, and how to align their actions so they can feel fulfilled, prepared, and on track as a parent.