Finding the Peace Within (For Parents)

Take just one moment for yourself, to allow space for the silence, even if it’s for a minute. It doesn’t have to be long.

This is an especially difficult time to be a parent. Before COVID-19, parents, living far from in-laws and friends who could help with childcare, faced few options for quality care. Many companies provide little to no benefits for parents. An on-site daycare, even at a large corporation, is a scarce luxury. And then, there are parents who live in childcare deserts, with a hugely limited number of seats per child. Then, with COVID-19, companies demanded that parents complete full-time jobs while watching their children and educating them. Parents are in a double-bind, not enough time to spend with their children and few resources available when they need to be away to earn money to feed, clothe and educate them. 

We put so much on the shoulders of parents, too much for anyone. 

Even those of you who scraped by and managed to juggle it all without going over the edge are in the privileged position of having a place to sleep and food to give your children. So many parents in this country even send their children to school hungry. So many parents faced a year where they were able to provide no education to their child, because while their school attempted to do remote schooling (or worse was not able to put a plan in place at all), their child had no wifi or internet.  Imagine the shame and the pain of that. 

I can’t offer a solution to the stress and pain you’ve been under. I can’t tell you to just figure it out. 

That would be incredibly naive and presumptuous.

What I want to offer is a little piece of advice that helps me when I’ve hit rock bottom, when I have no money, no friends and no self-respect. I can’t figure out anything when I neglect to take care of myself.

So even if I think I don’t have one free second, I try to stop. 

I take one minute, and it’s ok if only one minute exists, to stop. 

To sit.

To take a walk. 

To breathe. 

To get away for one moment and give some space for silence. 

Even if you have kids you are raising on your own, you can find this moment, at the crack of dawn, when they finally all sleep, or finding a friend to give you just 30 minutes or an hour of childcare. Someone will, I promise if you open yourself to the possibilities .

And in this peace, when you’re not trying to figure it, out just sitting or walking or giving some attention to the silence, something will happen.

Maybe an insight will arise. Maybe it won’t.

But for sure, from this moment of stopping, from giving yourself just a moment in the chaos, clarity will start to emerge. 

And it will be better than before.

Maybe your mind will open to possibilities you hadn’t thought of before. Maybe you’ll just see yourself and be yourself for the first time in a long time, and get to feel how good that is, a little sweetness of life.

But for sure, you’ll be clearer from this foundation of silence and self-care, when you were just running.

So take a minute today for yourself, for the silence, to stop and breathe and give yourself a moment to just be. 

You never know what miracles can arise from that.