The Unconventional Solution for Busy Burned Out Moms
Here’s a clip from a recent interview I did with Parent Herald. I hope you’ll click below to read the entire article!
By David Thompson , Parent HeraldYou asked for it, so we've reached out to mental health expert, Sarah Slater Snyder, to weigh in on the top 3 questions we get asked regarding self-care for busy moms. Sarah is a Licensed Therapist (LCSW) that specializes in working with teen girls and young adult women within her private therapy practice in Hawaii. With over 20 years of experience counseling, educating, and supporting children, teens, and families to achieve sustainable mental health and wellness, we knew she was the perfect expert to interview to help our community answer these commonly asked questions.
Let's get right to it, what is the biggest challenge you see busy moms facing today?
Sarah: Balance. Within my private therapy practice, I see the same pattern again and again with mamas who are struggling with clinical anxiety, depression, insomnia, self-esteem, body image, etc. What I realized is that most of these women share similar traits of perfectionism, codependency, people pleasing, difficulty with boundary setting, and often a history of trauma, all of which are rooted in nervous system dysregulation and limiting "not enough" beliefs. As a result, they all benefited from a more holistic approach to healing.
In your professional opinion, why are so many working mamas feeling burned out?
Sarah: Perfectionism and pressure to please others. The reality for so many women is that it doesn't matter how much we do or how well we do it, we are conditioned by society and constantly plagued with the same belief over and over again of not feeling enough. I hear from my clients all the time that they believe they are not pretty enough, not smart enough, not skinny enough, not talented enough, not rich enough, not perfect enough, and the list goes on. This only leads them to overworking, over-committing, and over-giving rather than simply slowing down and recognizing that they are already enough by just being exactly who they are.
And this is why high performing women are wired to burnout and why so many women are daydreaming about a luxury escape to paradise. Our culture teaches us that happiness and success as a woman means doing it all, being it all, and juggling it all perfectly while putting everyone else's needs before ours. We become a "yes woman" to everyone and everything but ourselves, filling our day with more - more PTA meetings, more self-help books, more yoga classes, more acupuncture, more supplements, more spa days, etc.- searching for someone or something to transform us into zen supermamas but internally we feel like a stressed out, crispy, hot reactive mess. And so we (as women) tend to burn out, numb out, or opt out of living our best life because we are anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted and we don't know what else to do to achieve optimal health and wellness.
What do you think prevents so many mamas from achieving optimal health and wellness?
Sarah: We are stuck in fight and flight mode 24/7. Most women, especially busy mamas who are trying to do, be, and juggle it all, get stuck in autopilot survival mode while trying to fix the "problem" day after day with temporary bandaid solutions, like caffeine, alcohol, sex, shopping, social media scrolling, buying a fancy new car, home renovations, and planning luxury vacations to paradise. But these expensive and often mind numbing, addictive external solutions do not sustainably resolve our exhaustion or overwhelm and just keep us stuck in an autopilot cycle of exhausted reactivity because we keep trying to do more while telling ourselves "I'll be happy when..."
And this is why so many mamas burn out - we are carrying massive mental, emotional, and physical loads, which cause us to operate in fight or flight survival mode 24/7 (often unconsciously). When we walk around in this anxious state of nervous system dysregulation, we are perpetually unhappy, ungrounded, and not present in our lives because we're hyper focused on the false belief that happiness, perfection, and love exists outside of us. So we are constantly striving for external validation, which keeps us stuck in a cycle of emotional dysregulation, which is at the root of most mental health issues, like anxiety, insomnia, depression, PTSD, executive functioning challenges, low self-esteem, etc.
Our nervous systems have become dysregulated to the point that we literally can't calm ourselves down. So we over react and lose our marbles with our loved ones, when what we really want is to feel deeply connected to those we care about. But the problem is that so many mamas have lost their connection to themselves, which is why you may often feel like you're running on an empty tank. It's practically impossible to regulate your emotional responses when your tank is empty.
