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Mental Load: This helps against the mom-strain!

Mental load? Not with me!

Have you ever heard of “Mental Load”? The term means as much as mental stress and is currently used mainly to the Invisible, permanent mental stress and permanent exhaustion to describe many mothers are struggling with. Mental load describes the feeling of not being able to switch off because the inner to-do list permanently overflowing – combined with the pressure, have to work so that the entire family construct does not collapse. I, too, know that feeling, but have managed to do so by now hamster wheel to escape. How it worked and which general & practical tips I helped you, I tell you today.

Mental Load: What exactly is that?

Laura from the blog heuteistmusik.de has that in her -> Blog post about mental load pretty well in a nutshell:

“It’s always me that has to get things rolling. I have to delegate, I have to push our projects forward. I have to push that we finally take care of the tax, sell the old cot, sort our documents or plan a vacation. If I do not keep nine balls in the air at the same time, standing for jobs, children, child care, school, household, appointments, free time, health and gifts, but nobody cares, then I have the salad here. “

Is that familiar to you? Anyway, it was very similar to about 4 years ago! When I realized that, I decided to change something!

Mental Load: Problem detected, problem banned?

I’m not really annoyed about problems, but looking for solutions. That’s how I did it about 4 years ago. I thought about what made me quite concretely charged and wondering why I actually own most of it responsibility seen with me, where my husband is also responsible for 50% of our family.

Was I a control freak? The causes of my excessive demands

In retrospect, I can only explain the whole thing in the following way: After the birth of our daughter almost 14 years ago, there must have been a kind autopilot in my head taken control and much of the responsibility just torn! It seems to me like mine maternal instinct in combination with social expectations in my subconscious that led me to one Family Manager mutated, which I actually did not want to be in this form. It was pretty hard at the time, my dear high expectations and it was not easy for me to take responsibility (-> That started with the selection of children‘s clothes …). But I was really in front of the children relaxed person … Somehow crazy!

Ok, maybe as dramatic as it sounds, maybe it was not, but it was already a strange situation where I suddenly, at least subconsciously, from other people or mothers about the state of my household, the quality of early musical education of my children and Define the instagram usability of my cake. The result: I became more and more dissatisfied day by day, because you can not win this 24/7 mothers battle. At least not without being left alone. And certainly not when the job adds another construction site.

My approach was therefore relatively pragmatic: “If I can not win anyway, I can immediately stop trying!” From now on I tried not to keep up with the rest of the world, but instead took care to be happy again. When you’re happy yourself, you radiate that and the rest of the family automatically benefits. At least that was my theory.

7 steps from the mental load trap

Now you may wonder how I got it, this one Mothers-rat to escape gradually. I have once 7 tips written down, which really helped me personally and which I can therefore recommend:

  1. Talk about the things that bother you! The rest of the family can not read your thoughts. Write down what weighs on you in concrete terms and together look for alternative solutions!
  2. Learn to give responsibility and endure the “imperfect”! Stop tearing everything at you. You se >What others think is not your problem! (-> No matter what you do, there is always someone who does not like it!)
  3. Take your needs seriously! It has nothing to do with selfishness if you take your time for YOU. For hobbies, for a break with your partner, for short trips with your girlfriends or just to sleep well. You do not have to work constantly!
  4. Organize yourself better! Having a good organization helps you to make better use of your time! How that can look in detail? For example:

Concrete ideas for a better family organization & less stress

  • Synchronize yours Smartphone calendar with your partner and enter ALL appointments IMMEDIATELY, in order to clear the head and still not forget appointments.
  • Uses Monthly or weekly purchasing plans-> Here is my free print template in combination with the Bring app as a common shopping list!
  • Secure yours passwords in an app (such as Enpass) so you do not have to constantly search or re-request them!
  • Clear out your apartment consistently – that makes it easier to keep order very enormously! -> Here is my experience report!
  • Think about one Support in the household if you are feeling this issue.
  • Uses alternative household helpers, who take your work off (e.g.. robotic vacuum-> There are other alternatives with which your children can learn independently.

With this DIY laundry folding board even small children can fold their own laundry:

In short: Listen to your gut feeling, erase the things (and people) from your life that are stressing you, and do only what is good for you as a family. You do not have to prove anything to anyone and it would be too bad if you really did beautiful and unique time with your children could not enjoy because you are permanently under power.

My conclusion:

Big changes are often associated with a degree of overcoming. Especially when the energy is actually no longer sufficient to face initial conflicts. But it pays to invest exactly this energy! And you really always have the opportunity to start with it! At first we had a lot of discussions under the motto: “But you always did that otherwise” or “You never did that before“. My answer was then someday: “Bad enough. High time to start “. In the meantime, everything has worked out well and I would say that the four of us actually share the tasks of everyday life (household, children, school, etc.) fairly well – with the result that we are now as harmonious as ever, and even though I do so little as never before. So it works pretty well without me! &# 128521; #lifegoal

As always, I’m interested in what you say about this topic. Do you feel more happy and relaxed, or stressed out? Do you have the feeling that most of the responsibility is on your shoulders? Or are the duties and tasks in the household fairly shared among you? I look forward to your comments!

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Christina Cherry
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