By Cindy Richman
Don’t you all agree something’s gotta give? In the twenty-first century I really had high hopes for my daughters’ and son’s futures. I anticipated serious discussion and change around work/life balance issues. Instead we have one disaster after another at home or abroad, and ultimately the entire US government is shut down! No time is spent on how we particularly as women go about improving the business of living our everyday lives.
If you are like me, you live like someone is chasing you trying to get everything done on time and fulfill the many roles you play from a mother, to an employee, to a caregiver. Expectations can be unpredictable and change may come in a moment’s notice. Your child has 102 fever and you need to get to the school ASAP. You worked late and the dinner you planned will take too long to cook and everyone is already starving. You have MS and you promised your son you would go watch his game, but you worked all day and have to work again tomorrow and you feel like you can’t take one more step.
“So what’s the solution?”, you ask? The solution is different for everyone, of course. The solution is particularly challenging when you are living with MS or loving and caring for someone who has MS. Living life in America today without a diagnosis or even a short term illness is really over-the-top to begin with and then adding MS into the mix is really signing on to be superwoman! One of the simple things I think we can all do right away is to try and take just a little bit of time for ourselves.
Beware, you will really have to make a thoughtful effort to do this because many women put everyone else’s needs first and completely forget about what they need. Even if the time is only 20 minutes or less to start, just begin practicing getting back in touch with yourself and being present in the moment. It could be as simple as appreciating the scent in a garden or reading a few lines of a poem that speaks to you before you hear the sound of someone’s voice demanding the next thing on the to-do list. The unpredictable life continues…
*Cindy Richman is the Senior Director of Patient and Healthcare Relations for MSAA
