Superwoman Syndrome!

I went to a Deployed Spouses Retreat today in which they talked about:

Superwoman Syndrome: A range of physical, pyschological, and interpersonal stress symptoms experienced by a woman as she attempts perfectly such multiple and conflicting roles as worker or career volunteer, wife, mother, and homemaker.

• Delegate but don't expect it to be perfect...it's not going to be.
• The only person we have control over regarding a person's happiness is ourselves
• Stressors can be life changes, career changes, geographic changes, traumatic events, group of minor changes
• Set realistic expectations: superwoman and supermom are fictional characters
• Ask others to "share the load"
• Prioritize personal and professional responsibilities
• Learn the magic in the simple word NO (*MY FAVORITE*)

Listen to Your Inner Voice --How you react to your life circumstances is crucial. You must first acknowledge your role and ask yourself a few questions: "What can I do to change my situation?" It's important you are honest--if you find yourself saying that there is nothing you can do ("I'm too busy") and others can't or won't help, you may be having trouble relinquishing the Superwoman role.

Beat the Superwoman Syndrome -- First, determine the areas of your life you can streamline and where you can ask for help. Do not expect others to read your mind or just "know" what help you need. You can call a family meeting to discuss how everyone can pitch in to help make the household run more smoothly. Ensure you don't set your standards too high. Avoid excessive criticism of others. Potential helpers might get discouraged and avoid their tasks.

Take a hard look at what activities outside the home contribute to your pressured feelings. Even if you enjoy all of your activities, learn to practice saying no to new activities. Remember, you don't owe anyone an explanation. Simply say, "Thanks for thinking of me but I can't take that on right now."

Finally, in order to feel positive about others, you must feel good about yourself. Find something you enjoy, and carve out the time to do it regularly. Taking care of you physically and emotionally is crucial to being able to care for or about others. If you start telling yourself, "I don't have time," remember this is your Superwoman self speaking! Above all, know you aren't alone. You have the tools to tackle it. Use them!

A Particle of Faith

Does it ever seem that even though you are trying to do your best you are always coming up short? I see a need to work on "A", but then "B" falls by the wayside. I work on "B" and still on "A" but then "C" starts to weaken in me. Okay, to better explain: I am doing really well with keeping my house a house of order. I'm keeping the floors clean, keeping the rooms uncluttered, etc. I then am starting to really hunker down on my school studies bc I want to stay on schedule, but then a lot of Katie Jo's toys end up cluttering the living room where I'm studying. I try to only do school work during the day so that I can still focus on my house and my family. As I'm trying to balance these two sides of my life, I see that I forgot to prepare my lesson for Sunday and it's friday or saturday night. My alarm goes off at 6:30am every morning so that I can take care of my physical and spiritual body...I work out and then read my scriptures while Katie Jo is still in bed and Randy is off to PT. Katie Jo comes downstairs bc she just woke up and is hungry but I'm not done reading or working out. I have to stop one and do the other. :-p

Now, there are easy fixes on all of these...by switching around my schedule...planning better. I'm not saying these situations are what make me frustrated...no, no...these are way too simple. But you can imagine what I'm trying to convey in more complex situations.



That is when I start to bang my head against the wall. I get so frustrated bc I can't do it all.

Yeah, yeah...nobody is perfect, but they tell us try and that is no easy task to do!

"I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it"

"But behold, if ye will awake and around your faculties, even to an experiment
upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more
than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a
manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words" Alma 32:27

I like experimenting with new things. And it seems easy enough...just have a desire to believe. That desire is like a seed that I nourish into stronger faith and then to knowledge. I want to believe that I can master "A", "B", and "C" plus all those other things. Something that I learned recently is that you can't exercise faith while you have fear at the same time. They contradict each other. I just need to let loose of all those fears of failure and exercise that particle of faith that I can do this, that I can try and succeed. Little by little & eventually I can master it.