On (the myth of) having it all

I was speaking with a coaching client last week (on International Women’s Day in fact) as she was on a much-needed sunny holiday. The start of this year has been kinda a lot like last year, so many of us are dying for a little sun and self care. (I’m holding out for my Greece retreat late May!) As a fellow dog momma, she joked (I think it was a joke?!?) that taking a leave from her pups may make her a bad mom. We laughed.. cuz us dog parents can take that role oh..so..seriously. But as I hung up the phone, I was thinking about how often I hear something similar to this from the many women I work with. Or the women who want to come on retreat with me, but think that they can’t.

On this month of appreciation for the woman - old ones, young ones, mommas, those with careers and without careers, and those of us who care for others (human or animal), I wonder out loud, when are we going to stop trying to be everything for everyone else?

As a feminist since my teens (with a degree in Feminist Studies to boot), the opportunities for women has been an issue near and dear to my heart for oh so many years. When I think of how feminism is viewed from the outside, the image of Rosie the Riveter comes to mind with her,“We Can Do It,” slogan. We. Can. Do. It. It being all the things. We can work with our hands or our minds. In offices or in the army. Choose to have kids or choose to not.

Because, hey, women can have it all, right? And we don’t need to give anything up.

To be honest, I call bullshit on that idea. For sure, I think women can be awesome at all.the.things. But not ALL at the same time (the same applies to men of course, but this our month, so I focus on women). The women I see who are trying to juggle all these things at the same time (and trying to be perfect at them all) are internally falling apart.. These are the women I see in my coaching who struggle with things like insomnia, chronic migraines, anxiety or depression, burnout or autoimmune disorders.

We live in a culture that glorifies busyness, over-scheduling and martyrdom. Especially for women. A culture that claims that women and men are equal legally and culturally speaking, but expects that women will do both their work role as good as men, and still be as good a mom as the stay-at-home-parent (Hello lockdown statistics on this one). A culture that tells women they should put everyone else before themselves. A culture that tells us that we can have everything, at the same time, and we don’t have to give anything up.

That’s a load of BS.

An image of a dinner plate comes to mind. Imagine a buffet bar of all the choices you can add to build your beautiful life - work things, hobby things, sport things, keeping-up-appearance things, friendship things, extended family things, child and caretaking things. That’s a lot of options! But plates also have boundaries. And things will topple off the plate if it is too overloaded. Or it will break :) So, we have to choose. Knowing that whenever we put something on the plate, something has to come off of it too, or, said overflow will happen. And that creates a big old mess.

My big wish on this month of the Woman, is for us to stop overloading our plates. To question the idea that we have to have it all. To question whether we need to take on not only the traditional roles of women, but also the traditional roles and jobs applied to men. To question whether we want to continue perpetuating this superwoman/superfrau idea to the next generation of women. Or rather accept that there are times to be a superwoman in the board room and times to be a superwoman at home. To ask for help. Admit we can’t do everything on our own. And outsource. No one can provide help you don’t ask for.

So lady readers, we can have it all, just not all at the same time. :) You matter and your needs matter at least as much as those you care for do. Let’s do the inner “work” to reflect that.

xx

Kari