In-between career and motherhood, and the myriad of small and big demands that make up a day, who’s got the time to turn their love, care, and attention to the one person who needs it most? That’s right…yourself.
It’s the night before the start of a new school year. Thing 1 dramatically flops on her bed while announcing; “This year, I want to be fashionable!” I give her my blessing. I even offer to help. She looks at me a little flabbergasted and inquires; “Mommy, were you ever fashionable?” Thing 1 does not recall a time when her mom was fashionable. For the record, I used to be fashionable.
In fact, I used to be many things I am not. For instance, I used to be fit; I had shapely arms, a flat stomach and toned legs which I used to successfully finish the grueling five-day Otter Trail hike, while looking fashionable, I might add. She only recalls outdated and worn out me who can’t imagine where she will fit in the 10 000 daily steps demanded by the tyrannical Fitbit on my wrist. Forget doing it stylishly!
A few years ago I felt increasingly tired, then I got sick, then I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, so eventually I went to go see a doctor. He confirmed that I am sick from being tired, except he called it Adrenal Fatigue. The good doctor prescribed a lifestyle change. I was stumped by the prescription as I don’t have much of a lifestyle to change. Lifestyle sounds very deliberate to me.
My life is too reactive to qualify as a lifestyle. It is shaped by a list of demands I can’t seem to vanquish, like the monstrous Hydra, whenever I slay one head it is immediately replaced by two. There is no lifestyle here, just hurtling from one item on my to-do list to another. Let’s not forget all those demands that gatecrash my days without the decency of ever having been on the to-do list.
Apparently significantly more women than men suffer from Adrenal Fatigue. No doubt in part because we are socialised to view self-sacrifice in women as a virtue. A mere five years ago I penned a bestselling book, with an entire chapter sharing the importance of putting yourself first as a woman. So how does a self-care advocate like me end up being sick from being tired?
I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve concluded that it is due to a gender design “flaw”. Women have diffused awareness, men have focused awareness. It’s like the difference between a floodlight (women) and a laser (men). For example, when a man goes an entire day without calling because he was focused on something, it is not code for “what I was doing was more important than you”. He literally was thinking only about that one thing he was doing.
Women have the opposite problem; we struggle to focus on just one thing. This is necessary for the survival of the species. Women’s evolutionary role is to tend to the young (and restless) so no one can afford us being too absorbed by any one task, lest the children stray out of the cave, and off a cliff while mommy is super focused on making wooly mammoth lasagna. I bet Dodos could’ve used more diffused awareness.
I read a study demonstrating that children can actually sense when their mothers have shifted from diffused to focused awareness. They get edgy, cry or seek you out. Basically they find a way to secure your attention away from whatever is absorbing you to the detriment of their “survival”. Women can’t help but be constantly aware of what is going on with everything in their environment. This is the reason why women we multitask. Multitasking is not a skill, it is a response.
We multitask because we find it exceptionally hard to commit to a linear list of priorities, as our attention automatically goes to the “loudest” thing in our environment. If the loudest thing in our awareness is a deadline, we deal with that first. If a whiny kid surpasses the annoyance factor of the deadline, we stop and tend to the child. Then the phone rings, it’s our best friend who is going through a messy divorce, so we attempt to do all three at once.
It takes a will of steel to force yourself to discern and fulfill your own needs with all this noise going on. It doesn’t help that we are rewarded for being self-sacrificing and selfless. Supposedly a good woman is one who puts the needs of her family and tribe before her own.
I remember when I first read Audre Lorde’s declaration; “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” I thought it a tad dramatic. Now I agree with her whole-heartedly.
You have to go against your own wiring, the needs, wants and expectations of your tribe and society as a whole to tend to yourself first. My new mantras is: “Kagiso, you more than anyone else, deserves your own love, care and attention.” If anyone falls off a cliff while I am doing it, sorry for them.
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