Lightening Up That Plate: The Mother Overload

Is anyone shocked to even say the holidays can make you feel overloaded? From all the running around to school parties to making sure you are checking off all those gifts on the list, there is no wonder we feel as if we are losing our minds. Our plates can only carry so much, until it reaches the mother overload. This is when lightening up that plate is necessary.

Lightening up that plate.

My personality has me always saying ‘Yes’. It has always been difficult for me to say ‘no’ when asked to volunteer or help out in any way. I love to help others. It is in my nature to serve others. Let’s just say I was not surprised to learn that my love language is serving others. Go figure.

As much as I love serving others, my plate can only take so much. I constantly pile everything on top like a dinner plate at Thanksgiving.

A little of this can fit here. Might as well just pile it all on. It is all going to the same place, right?

This is not true when it comes to our personal well being. Our bodies and mental health can only take so much. Lightening up that plate is a MUST. If not, it will take away the joy of all the things on your plate that are actually important to you. You know that feeling you get after eating too much food and you wish you hadn’t? That is how I feel when I overload my plate.

How do we lighten up that plate?

For a person that can’t say ‘no’, lightening up the plate is not very easy. How do you chose what to let go of? The most difficult part is deciding on what has to stay and what needs to go. I recently had to make this decision after realizing how stressed I was beginning to feel every day when I couldn’t accomplish what needed to be accomplished due to time.

Thanks to an only 24 hour day, only so much can be fit into it. Maintaining my family as a whole is obviously a priority. Now for the other side dishes: what stays and what goes? This decision depends on what importance you place on all the other things in your life. Keep those things that are more of a must, not a ‘I feel like I need it’.

It is never easy to say ‘no’, but it will make you feel more like a ‘yes’ when it comes to your well being.

For all my ‘yes’ folks, the best thing you can do for yourself is to say ‘no’ when your plate cannot fit any more. Do not make yourself miserable by over stuffing yourself: mother overload. As a mother, this can be difficult to avoid. You have to be proactive about your self care. Self care. Now that is a word that should always be associated with lightening up that plate.