My morning love cafe: shattering the veneer of perfection

I am starting this publication with a disclaimer: life is a bit stressful at the moment. I go through my days and weeks feeling that there are not enough hours in a day, and like I am on the go, go, go most or all of the time. There is definitely not a lot of time for self-care, which these days, means binging on a few Law and Order: SVU shows before going to sleep (yes, I am well aware of my show selection, but what can I say, it is oddly addicting). I look around me at other professionals who also juggle the various areas of their lives, and my observations are that we are all feeling this way to some degree, yet some prefer to showcase the perfect veneer at all times rather than let their vulnerability come through from time to time.

I will attempt to break that veneer today by simply stating that juggling my professional, family and personal lives is hard! There! I have said it.

I have not found any perfect recipe to juggle it all, but I do know that I tend to strive for a work-life integration rather than aiming for work-life balance. Integration to me means that I do not completely separate these various components of my life on a daily basis, but rather try to integrate them into each other. An easy example of this would be responding to work emails while freezing my rear-end on the stands of an arena at a ringette practice. I will not do that at a game, because the focus must solely be on what is happening on the ice, but at a practice, this is a space where I feel it is ok to integrate both to a degree. My morning routine starts early, where I am the first one to get up, have my morning coffee (cannot function without it!) and prepare my day (which means bombarding my team with emails) and clear off my inbox as much as I can or tackle administrative-related tasks. The hour or so that I spend doing that each morning is essential to my daily routine as I can then focus on the family, meaning getting my daughter off to school with a good breakfast in her belly, a good lunch packed, and on good days, being able to throw something in the slow-cooker for a somewhat well-balanced meal for supper. Most often than not, we have given the left-overs to my kids and we are stuck eating the frozen-meals for lunch that are not always that nutritious. There are also many days where all we get to accomplish for meal planning is to get some meat out of the freezer to thaw before leaving the door and we try to feel ok about that.

In short, we do our best on a daily basis, yet at times (or very often), it doesn't feel like it is enough. Where does that feeling come from?

I have come to realize that the pressure that we feel actually stems from within us and from our lived experiences. I recall that two years ago, I had skipped my own Christmas staff party (taking place in Montreal) to be back in time for my daughter's school recital (happening in New Brunswick). I had enough time between my plane's arrival and her recital to get her ready and have supper together. Well, life certainly threw a wrench in those plans when the plane I was on experienced mechanical failure, which led to total chaos (If you want to read about this life and death experience, you can read it here: https://www.lalionnesage.com/home/the-fragility-of-life). My plane landed just as my daughter's class was getting on stage (how infuriating!); my husband streamed the whole thing via FaceTime but still, being so close and not being there in person was soul crushing! I tried to make it up to my daughter, but what do you know, two years later, she still refers to this event in a semi-jokingly manner by stating the dreaded "you missed my Christmas recital", implying that I will miss other important events to her. I have actually stopped explaining the sequence of events of that day to her because obviously, her pre-teen persona is taking over and doesn't want to listen, but that experience has instilled guilt within me. And it is that guilt, among other things, that puts the pressure and the messaging that I am never doing enough as a mother. So yeah, lived experiences sometimes create quite a narrative in our own minds and influence greatly our behaviours.

It is because of those thoughts and that inner pressure that I have decided to write about this topic today. As usual, I have sought help on the matter so that I could go beyond coping and find a healthy and sustainable solution. That solution actually came in my last professional coaching session in the format of a ritual that I will add to my routine: a morning love café (thank you Isabelle!). Yes, I, Nadine Duguay-Lemay, will carve out 10 minutes each day to fill my heart with daily affirmations of self-love while having my coffee. It is amazing how my body reacts to simple messages, such as "you are a great mother"; let's just say that at times, there is resistance and that resistance is disbelief; since I don't always feel like what I do is enough, I therefore have come to believe that I am not a good mother. What I do is not always a reflection of who I am and that is why I have started to add the message "You are more than that" to my daily self-affirmations. I want to remind myself that no matter my daily actions or lack thereof, it is not a reflection of who I am as a human being. I am more than my actions, I am more than my mistakes and I am certainly more than my guilt.

I am on day 3 of adding this morning love cafe and let me tell you, my heart is still feeling as whole as when I did the exercise during my coaching session. It is amazing to have a full heart, because when the heart is full, we do not feel empty. That fullness also has the effect of pushing away our ego or in my case, my brain, which can tend to work overtime. I am aware and convinced that there are many other ways that I can improve my daily routines to carve out time for all areas of my life, including self-care. I will get to those improvements. But right now, that is not my primary need or focus, and that's okay. I honour that and invite you to honour that need with me, even if it doesn't make sense to you.