The boxes are starting to stack up in our house as we prepare to move back home to California – hooray! Despite the excitement, there is plenty of uneasiness and worry. Our move is a blend of planned effort and faith – circumstances are not exactly perfect. Truth is, even if they were I’d still find something to worry about. Change makes me uneasy – still.

Change is an interesting process. There’s the euphoric beginning when the idea of a new future inspires and motivates you. Of course, the end is similar as you happily achieve your vision. But the worst part of the change process is the space between the beginning and the end – the dreadful middle. The middle stinks. It’s the place where challenges are presented, fears are faced and decisions are made. I’ve found that the middle is the place where I choose success or failure.

Recently, I came across a blog post written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, that perfectly described my middle experiences. She writes,

“Problems tempt people to give up, forget it, and chase the next enticing rainbow. But stop the effort too soon, and by definition it is a failure. Stay with it through its hurdles, make appropriate adjustments, and you could be on the way to success.”

So, as I sit in my home office surrounded by boxes and a mile-long moving checklist, I do my best to ease into the flow of this change. It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. It’s exhausting. There’s a teeny tiny temptation lurking inside me that says, “Just unpack it all. You’re not that far along. It’ll be easier to just stay. Unchanged.”

Yet despite the discomfort, I persist and persevere. And I take time to celebrate every time I cross something off that mile-long moving checklist because it represents progress in the right direction. I’m goin’ back to Cali and the idea of that is enough to see me through.

image credit:Carsten Reisinger – Fotolia.com

Success or failure happens in the middle is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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In its simplest terms, honor is the degree of value, worth and importance you place on a relationship. It is granting another person a position of value in your life.

Reflect for a moment: Do you honor your relationships?

How do I show my children that I honor them?

Do I talk with my children eye to eye?

Do I share their exuberance when they show me their schoolwork?

Do I make their lunches based on what’s quick or do I buy food that will keep them healthy, and that they in turn like?

Do I take phone calls in my car when I am with my children?

Do we make an effort to sit down to family breakfast and dinner?

Do I attend my children’s sporting events and pay attention to them, or do I take calls on my cell phone while my children are doing their best on the playing field?

Do I involve my children in the tasks of everyday life such as cleaning, cooking and caring for our home? Or do I tell them “I’ll do it” because that is easier than working through the process with them or dealing with pending messes?

Do I take the time to genuinely learn about my child’s interests?

Do I schedule my work hours when the children are at school or do I work at home all hours of the night when they are home and need me?

Do I focus on what my children do right rather than what my children do wrong?

No one is perfect, but when we strive to be mindful about how we honor our family, it builds trust, respect and love. There are four main attachment styles in a parent-child relationship: Secure, Avoidant, Ambivalent, and Disorganized (Bowlby, 1969; Ainsworth, 1978; Main and Solomon 1986).

Parents who encourage secure attachments are attuned to their children’s needs. They read their children’s cues and respond to each child as a unique individual. Over time, a securely attached child has learned that he can rely on special adults to be there for him. There are some steps to developing a secure relationship with your child:

1. Be consistent with your children.
2. Be attuned to their individual needs.
3. Respond to your children by getting off the couch, computer or phone and going to them. Proximity matters when you are communicating with your children.
4. Take your child’s concerns seriously. This means acknowledging their feelings. Do not mock or tease your children. Sarcasm is painful and it cuts deeply.
5. Match your child’s exuberance and excitement by sharing whole-heartedly in their joy.
6. Give your children your undivided attention in the moments they need you.

Your children learn to honor their relationships from you. Honor, love and enjoy!

image credit: Julie Eydman – Fotolia.com

Honor your child and your child will honor you is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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1. Get back to the family dinner table
2. New Year aspirations for parents

As many of you know, I live in Phoenix, but my heart (and the place I really call, “home”) is in San Diego. So whenever we get a chance, we pack up the SUV and make the relatively short drive (5.5 hours) from the desert to the coast. Last week my kids were out of school for Spring Break, so where did we go? San Diego!

It was an awesome trip…

Hanging out at Balboa Park

A fun pic snapped by my 8 year old

Swung over to Extraordinary Desserts on 5th Ave in Downtown San Diego

We demolished that dessert - YUM!

Romped around Belmont Park

Enjoyed the vistas overlooking La Jolla at Mt Soledad

It was a terrific week of fun, relaxation and just enjoying time together. For me, it felt different than any other trip we’ve taken to San Diego. I really enjoyed it…more than I normally do.

As we settled into our drive back to Phoenix, I thought about what made the week so special. After all, we didn’t do anything that we hadn’t done plenty of times before. Then I realized the key difference was me.

As a work-at-home mompreneur, I feel obligated to work – constantly. Unfortunately, that perspective has driven me to exhaustion and takes me away from the main reason I left corporate employment back in 2003 – to have a flexible work schedule so I could enjoy raising my family.

So last week, I was intentional about doing things differently. It’s been a gradual process really, as I slowly disengage from the virtual tethers that wreak havoc on my work-life.

Still, I brought along my laptop because it’s like a security blanket now…if I don’t have it within reach, I feel naked. Though, I surprised myself. I didn’t crack it open until Friday, a full five days after our trip had begun! But the the true test came earlier in the week, when I received notifications on my iPhone that I had voicemails waiting on my business line.

Ah, the urge to work was overwhelming!! And I gave in…but just a little. I checked my messages. Yippee!! There were people responding to some advertising I’d done on Google Adwords. Oh man…I was fired up then and ready to dive into new projects and work, work, work!

But, I caught myself. Regained my focus – enjoy time off with my family – and decided the best thing to do was to call people back just to let them know I’m on vacation and, “Would you like to set up some time next week to talk?” The calls took less than 15 minutes. Every client and prospect was fine with waiting to speak with me until the following week (some actually commented that they wished they had the discipline to put off work while on vacation).

In this economy, it’s hard to say “no” to any work that comes my way. There is always the fear that turning down or deferring work for later will mean the work will evaporate. So last week was a true test of my ability to overcome those fears, and I’m happy to report that all is well. I enjoyed a wonderful vacation with my family and we created memories that are worth far more than any paycheck. Best of all, I came home refreshed and ready to serve my clients’ needs.

What more can I ask for?

Take a break – for real is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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I woke up to the gentle sounds of rain this morning. Groggily, I turned to my alarm clock – 4:30 a.m. “Thank God it’s raining,” I muttered quietly and rolled back to sleep – grateful for a break from my usual 4-mile run, but knowing I’d feel guilty about missing it later.

And so my workweek begins, albeit slowly.

I like Mondays. I especially like rainy ones. I call Monday my “reset day” – the day when I can start fresh with a whole seven days to accomplish everything on my to-do list. If I missed something last week, Monday offers me the freedom to believe, “I can try again this week.”

But not everyone wakes up to Mondays with the same appreciation as I do. In fact, Mondays can be dreary for many working moms, even if the weather isn’t grey and rainy. Mondays remind them of the endless responsibilities that await. The anticipation of a stressful workweek ahead hangs over them. Working moms are tired and the agony of repeating last week’s cycle of busyness…again…is just about unbearable.

Regardless of your Monday morning disposition, there is one thing that encourages every working mom to press on: affirmation, or confirmation of a job well done.

There are no real rules in working motherhood. Often, we make up the plays as we go along, hoping that we’re getting it right. It’s only through affirmation that we know that we’re on the right track. Affirmation can take many forms:

• Words: For example, “You’re a great mom.”
• Actions: For example, a daughter who wakes on her own and prepares her own bowl of cereal, completely unassisted.

But, if you’re too busy, too distracted, or too stressed, you might not notice the affirmation that surrounds you all day long. Instead, you’ll notice what you don’t have and focus on everything that you’re missing: time, peace, enjoyment, etc.

So today, my encouragement for you is to take a moment to slow down, open your eyes and notice how the words and actions surrounding you are affirming everything you do (like the 4-year-old who whines, “Mo-m-m-m-m-m-y!” and longs for a hug, affirming you as an important person in his life). Then, take it one step further and affirm someone else today. Imagine being the sunshine in someone’s dreary Monday that affirms in them, “Well done.”

image credit: Sean Prior

The gift of affirmation is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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1. Pee-yew! Your thinkin’ stinks!

Please welcome new guest contributor Nancy Shohet West, a working mom and freelance writer who ponders an aching question many of us have, “When is enough, enough?”

I was talking earlier today with an acquaintance who is a Realtor. She told me she was leaving for a week-long vacation in Florida because she really needed some time to relax. “But of course, if anything happens with any of my listings during the week, I can work from Florida,” she said.

Of course. Although I’ve never before thought about any similarities between being a real estate agent and being a freelance writer, as she said that, I knew exactly what she meant. I’ve been the same way recently: if work comes my way, I’ll do it. Never mind relaxing or visiting Florida. Those of us not in salaried positions don’t turn work opportunities down.

I remember what it felt like to be a salaried employee with paid vacations. Yes, it’s true that we all put in a certain amount of desk time – or phone time or email time – while away from the office, but there was still always that certain smugness, that sense of “I earned this time off. I work my 49 weeks a year so that I get three weeks like this one, when I’m in effect getting paid for not working.” It was a concept that my husband could hardly fathom when we were just out of college and he started his first salaried position shortly before Labor Day weekend. “Look at me – I’m at the beach, but I’m still getting paid!” he crowed on that first-ever paid holiday. “Look at me now: I’m sitting around eating hamburgers, but I’m still getting paid ‘cause it’s Labor Day!” And so on. New to the corporate world after a young adulthood of manual labor and hourly pay, he loved the idea that the meter was running even on a holiday.

I gave up that comfort when I became a freelancer, and like my Realtor friend, I’ve been finding it impossible to walk away from any kind of work opportunity lately. The fact is that right now – like as of the past two weeks or so – I have more work than I ever dreamed possible when I contemplated a freelance career. All my clients and publications seem to be coming through for me at once this week: I have assignments here and there and everywhere, far more than I ever imagined I’d have. It’s as if everyone who ever said to me “I might have some work for you in the future” sent me a contract – and a deadline – over the weekend. In some ways I’ve achieved the point in my career that I always hoped to reach: my day is full from start to finish with paid writing assignments.

The problem, not surprisingly, is that the day doesn’t really reach that finish. There’s always a little more I could get done. When I was working for a corporate employer, when the work day ended, it ended. Now it never seems to end. The sooner I file this story, the sooner I’ll get offered the next one – and paid for it. Can’t slow down now.

But at some point I can’t help wondering how I’ll know when enough is enough. There’s no way to put a number on it, to say when I’ve earned this much for the week I’ll be all set. There’s always more I could be giving to charity, more I could be saving. It’s not a matter of greed; it’s more the fact that it’s hard to declare an upper limit on the amount of money you could put to good use. Now, because the work is available, I’m writing while the kids do their after-school activities, writing after they go to bed, writing during the late-evening hours when I used to read novels or sections of the Sunday New York Times. File one more story before going to bed? Sure – maybe that editor will be burning the midnight oil as well, and I’ll wake in the morning to an email with the always welcome news that no further revisions are needed on it.

When Tim was about five years old, he and I were walking through a small empty parking lot outside a closed car wash when we chanced across a peculiar sight: coins strewn across the pavement. It wasn’t hundreds of dollars, but it was a considerable number of nickels and dimes. Yet it wasn’t enough to seem like someone had dropped a coin bag on the way to the bank or anything like that. More just like someone had opened their car door, caused a lot of change to spill out, and not had time to pick it up. Tim asked if he could take some. I said yes. He gathered about six coins, handed them to me for safekeeping, and then said “Okay, that’s enough.”

I wondered then, and still sometimes wonder, what in him decided that was enough. There were still plenty of coins remaining. And it wasn’t like he was ethically opposed to taking any at all. Nor was he concerned about having to carry the coins: he dropped them in my purse. Something in him just said “Finding money is good, but I know how much is enough for me,” though I have no idea how he found that line.

I think of that image now: Tim finding the small amount of money and deciding he could take a little of it but not a whole lot. I wish I could draw a similar line in the sand with my work; I wish I knew what was enough, and be able to tell myself at 3:00 when the kids get home from school or even 8:00 after they’re in bed that it’s time to stop working. But for now, I’m still looking at all those silvery coins, sparkling in the sun against the dark asphalt, not sure where to begin scooping them up and even less sure of where to stop.

Hard to say when enough is enough is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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Today kicks off a month-long focus on “spring cleaning” and the first dusty closet most working moms must clean up is the dreary recesses of our minds.

Every morning, I receive Google alerts that update me on the buzz on working moms and work-life balance. Often, I delete the alerts without clicking on the links because so many of them have titles that are just plain negative. I’d rather start my day with something uplifting, than commiserate with (or read about) the generally unhappy and discontent working moms out there.

Don’t get me wrong, my life isn’t the perfect picture of positivity (How’s that for an alliteration?) 100% of the time. In fact, I spent a good amount of time in 2009 complaining my heart out about how hard it is to be a working mom. But at the turn of the year, I committed to changing my perspective because all the whining wasn’t making my work-life any better.

So, let’s just get it out of the way: Being a working mom is hard. Got it. Let’s move on.

One of my greatest challenges as a mother isn’t in juggling all my responsibilities or raising confident, kind children. It’s not in advancing my career while raising a family. It’s not in maintaining a loving relationship with my husband who often gets the left over pieces of me. No – those don’t even come close to my greatest challenge as a working mom.

My greatest challenge, and one that I suspect most working moms struggle with, is my thinking.

Guilt is #1. Countless words have been spoken or written about “mom guilt” and it all centers around our thinking. We buy into an image of what a working mom should do and be, and if we don’t meet up to that image, we feel guilty. Over time the creep of inadequacy fills us as we wonder, “How is she doing it all?”

And that’s why I’ve stopped reading those Google alerts in the morning. Before I lift my head from my pillow, I’m already assaulted by leftover thoughts from the previous day’s to-do list with tasks left undone or the angry outburst that roared out of me when my child spilled milk on my cell phone. So filling it up with more banter about the difficulties of working motherhood doesn’t help.

Instead, I take a deep breath (OK…maybe like 10 deep breaths), roll out of bed, and groggily brew a cup of coffee. With the cadence of my coffee percolating and the blissful snores of my family in the distant background, I sit at the kitchen table to soak in the silence. And I just breathe…again…because I know that once the day really begins I might not enjoy a full breath until the next morning.

Then, I begin to silently pray. I’m not begging God to change my life though. My prayers are filled with gratitude as I silently name every thing that I am thankful for at the moment.

Coffee is done. I grab my notebook and jot down the lingering thoughts racing through my mind. Sometimes I write senseless phrases and words – “so tired,” “pancake mix,” “call”. Other times, I make a to-do list for the day. Occasionally, I’ll draft an entire article or be inspired to write copy for a client.

Not long after, I’m lacing up my running shoes and heading out the door to meet my friend for a run. On the drive to our meet up spot, I think quietly about the day and throw in a few affirmations for good measure, “I am a creative, productive and profitable writer.” We run 4 miles, though I usually want to walk after 3½. Either way, the run helps clear my head a bit and though I may feel physically tired (by now it’s only 6:30 am), my mind is alert and ready to go.

From there, I rely on the powerful belief of Viktor Frankel, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” I choose to think differently. And on some days, I’m making those choices every minute just to get through the day.

Your turn. What steps are you taking to clean your mind of the things that normally plague working mom’s thoughts? Please share!

image credit: munchkinmoo – Fotolia.com

Pee-yew! Your thinkin’ stinks! is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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Families today are busy. With after school sports and other activities at the forefront of our lives, a sit down dinner often falls off the “to-do list.” But a family dinner around the table is more than just eating vegetables. Research shows that sitting down to dinner is an important protective factor in maintaining the health and well-being of your children.

Dinnertime is the perfect opportunity to relax, connect and talk about your day. It’s a non-threatening environment that can really help your kids open up to you and tell you what’s going on in their lives. It’s your chance to get to know one another, learn about your likes and dislikes and create life long memories.

There are two steps to getting back to the family dinner table:

1. Establish a set dinner time. By making it part of your routine, it becomes a comforting norm. Dinner is expected and anticipated.
2. Engage your children in activities that extend beyond the dinner hour. Children love doing homework with you at the dinner table. They love playing card games, testing themselves at math facts and bringing new, sometimes even made-up vocabulary words to the table.

Take your time, talk, laugh and talk for hours.

You can even establish a specific theme for each night of the week:

Monday Night is Discovery Night
Bring the “Discovery Box” to the dinner table. Place unique, familiar or fascinating objects in a box and allow each child to pull an object and talk about it. After dinner go on-line or take a trip to your local library to learn more about topics related to the things in your discovery box.

Tuesday Night is Reading Night
Prepare early readers by bringing everyday objects to the table that have words or print on them, such as cereal boxes and other items in your cupboard. Play reading and guessing games using the printed materials. Play games with the words, making silly sentences, tongue twisters and fun stories.

Wednesday Night “You are a STAR”
Play find your “Star Word.” Assign one word to each child. That is the word that makes them A STAR at this meal. Frequently occurring words such as “The, and, it, him, her, she, he” are good beginning words. Then have each child bring a book to the table, choose a page, and name how many times their STAR word appears. That number becomes the child’s “Magic Number” for the night and every time he encounters that number for the rest of the evening he gets to make a wish or discuss his current life dreams and aspirations.

Thursday Night is Show and Tell
Play show and tell at your family table. Have your children bring an object, a piece of art, a song or something to share. Shine the “spot-light” on one child at a time and allow only him or her to share.

Friday Night is Family History Night
Bring family photos, heirlooms or pieces of family history to the table and talk about your family ancestry and historical family members’ life experiences.

Saturday Night is Game Night
Play board games, cards, chess or checkers at the table after dinner to enhance your family experience.

Sunday Night You’re on Broadway!
Put on a show, dance, sing, do a skit. Laugh and “lift each other up” with genuine compliments, enthusiasm and joy.

You will enhance family relationships and help your children develop self-esteem when you extend your family dinner with family fun!

image credit: Fotolia.com-Sean Prior

Get back to the family dinner table is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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Last week, a thought popped into my head that gave me pause. It was a simple thought. In fact, it was a single word – give.

On most days, I have a million thoughts buzzing through my brain so a thought reduced to a single word shouldn’t cause me to stop in my tracks, but this word did. So, I paused. I pondered. I wondered, “God…was that you?”

I’m a faith-driven woman. And call me crazy, but I hold out for the day that God will speak to me in a booming, powerful voice, and maybe send an angel adorned with sparkly attire and a blinding spotlight…just so I know it’s really a God moment. But that has yet to happen. So in these moments, when I receive a single word that so powerfully moves me, I’m reduced to an adolescent girl much like Judy Blume’s well-recognized character in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Give. Give what? For heaven’s sake, most days I feel so depleted as I give of myself over and over again to my family and my work. And surely, He can’t expect me to wring out any more money from a bank account that feels like the Saharah Desert, can He?

What must I give?

Later that day, I found myself typing an email to a group of incredible women who act as a sounding board for business and motherhood. We were talking fees, and somehow I began rambling on about how I’m intentionally changing my perspective in 2010, and I wrote about giving (really without thinking about the possible “God moment” I’d had earlier):

“…not necessarily giving of my time or money, but just opening myself up to others more…last year I kind of holed myself up.”

The next day, purely out of the blue one of best friends called me. I haven’t talked to her since Christmas so it was so good to hear her familiar voice. And like a true friend, she called me out on something and said directly, “You’re so selfish Michele.”

Had it been anyone else or had it been any other moment in time, I might’ve hung up the phone – offended. Instead, I laughed.

She quickly responded, “Wait, wait…let me tell you what I mean.”

I interrupted, “I know exactly what you mean.”

I got it. The meaning of that single, powerful word became crystal clear – give. I wasn’t being asked to give more of my time or my money. I was being asked to give more of myself, and that’s something I’ve kept closely guarded since we moved to Phoenix more than three years ago. My excuse – “I don’t want to really connect or get rooted because we’re moving soon.”

So I held back. I didn’t engage…much. I revealed small pieces of myself to others and often declined invitations that might bring people closer to me. But ultimately, I robbed myself of joy and as my best friend put it, “denied blessings to others,” because I rarely gave of myself – ever.

OK God. I’ll give. Fine. I’ll give.

Last Friday, I went out with some women who invited me out – awesome! Since, I made steps to consciously connect with people locally and virtually – awesome! I gave of myself. And it felt good. I’m smiling and it’s genuine.

But the most incredible part of it all – prayers I’d been lifting up to God for months (OK, years!) started to be answered – nothing earth-shattering or unbelievably mind blowing (No, He didn’t answer the prayer to fill my bank account with a million dollars!). But little things emerged that no one besides me would even notice.

But most overwhelming and surprising is how rich my life has become by the simple act of giving.

The power of the give is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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Please welcome Chrysula Winegar, a new face here at The Integrated Mother. You’ll enjoy her first post, so read on!

My husband and I created a mission statement several years ago. Rather than some inspiring words on a piece of paper that you put on a wall or in a drawer, we wanted something more dynamic and meaningful. To make it live, we had to implement its concepts into our lives, so we established a weekly joint planning meeting. With some tweaking, it can be applied to an individual just as easily as a couple or household. It has literally changed my life and our marriage.

We have an agenda to make sure we hit the important points.

1. Mission statement
2. Goals
3. Focus and priorities for the week
4. Calendar
5. Entertainment
6. Date night
7. Children and extended family
8. Budgets and finance

It is more fluid conversation than the list might suggest. But it’s important to have this framework. We read our mission statement to remind ourselves of our “big picture,” and then review the top two or three family goals and key personal goals. We do these two things first, to make sure that before we dive into the minutia, we have reminded ourselves of who we are, what we are striving for and who we want to become.

Focus and priorities, calendar and entertaining are intertwined, often becoming one discussion. We include our professional and personal roles. I want to know what his big issues are for work so I can be more in tune with his needs. He wants to know what I am working on and about the children’’s activities so he can support me and more easily slot into family rhythms. The calendar is detailed for the week as well as highlights for the coming month. Actions are translated into to-dos or calendar items and recorded on the spot.

Date night is critical. If you are on your own, set aside a date night with yourself each week. For rest, relaxation and dreaming. For couples or singles with children, dates take planning. Often for us it’s dinner and a movie together at home once the children are in bed. We try to make sure that one night a week we are focused on each other. It doesn’’t always happen, but it would happen even less if we didn’’t schedule it.

Have you ever fought over the children? Or some conflict within your extended family? This is the place to talk about it. “I didn’t like how you handled [this] with Mary and this is why,” or “I’ve been trying [this approach] and it’s really working.” Don’t do this when you are both in front of the child and undermining each other. Communicating this way has helped our parenting be more aligned and less contentious. We’ve even found ourselves slipping in praise, “You handled that tantrum with [John] beautifully.” We remind each other whose birthdays are coming up and download information about siblings, parents, nieces and nephews to each other. It is a chance to note, “Annie needs a phone call, Grandma told me she’’s having a really hard time.”

Finally, the budget. If you can’t talk about money and intimacy with your beloved (or be honest about those things with yourself), you’re on the path to trouble. Here is where talking about money becomes routine and comfortable. You are accountable to each other. There are seasons where we’ve tracked all spending. Other times it’s a general “this is where we are on the budget” conversation. We identify holidays, special events, unplanned expenses and figure out what has to go where. The details are important, but make sure you also take time to rise above and talk about goals like special trips, giving and your big dreams.

Planning gives you the freedom to fly
The mistake is to let the plan become the end game. My mantra: the plan is subject to change without notice, but you’ve got to have one.

You can approach your week with perspective, knowledge and empowerment. If you’re planning with your spouse, it’s a powerful tool in keeping your marriage strong, opening the door to truly understanding what is important to each other. Our planning meeting also helps me stay focused and behave more authentically.

Like you, I have many roles. Evaluating the priorities helps me make sure all of those elements are being touched on, with the focus changing according to need. This framework helps me cast aside the guilt and know that at least one thing is being done in each of the key areas.

image credit: flickr/skiahill

The secret to a strong marriage is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

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3. How to put out life’s fires – part 3

Over the weekend, I drove past the unkempt citrus trees that line a major street in my neighborhood. The trees were dense with faded, dry oranges that weighed the branches down to the point where the trees appeared to be frowning.

I’m not a professional horticulturalist, but I do know that to help fruit trees develop juicy, lip-smackin’ fruit you’ve got to prune. The basic premise is this, fruit trees that are properly pruned will not only yield better fruit (often earlier than usual), but they’ll live much longer too.

“I know how those trees feel,” was all I could think as I felt the weight of everything on my plate turn my usual smile into a weary grimace.

The whole tree metaphor isn’t new for me. I had a “tree epiphany” some time ago and wrote about it in 2007. Even still, I’m like the procrastinating fruit cropper who knows she’s supposed to prune her orchard, but is too busy selling oranges to do it. Eventually, she realizes no one is buying her fruit because they’re sour. But it’ll take another full season, at least, to get the fruit back to optimal health and flavor.

When I take stock of my work-life, there is plenty to prune. People often remark, “How do you do it?” I wake up some days wondering something similar, but it’s more like, “Why am I doing it?” And that’s the question I started with as I pruned my work-life this weekend.

First stop – my work.

I work from home as a writer and editor. The flexibility of my work is one of those blessing or curse types of situations. I’m blessed to have the flexibility to pick up my kids after school, but cursed when I can’t seem to let go of my work once the kids are home. I’m blessed with amazing autonomy, but cursed with distraction and occasional lack of discipline (yes, the DVR or Twitter feed sometimes seem more appealing than doing the work involved to get new clients).

Next stop – my home.

Clutter abounds and so do my commitments outside of work and family. I spent time figuring ways to simplify my life. That meant saying “yes” to saying “no” in an effort to enjoy a less crammed and more free-moving calendar. At the same time, I did also say “yes” to quality commitments that enrich me and support my mission.

Final stop – this blog.

For the last few months, I’ve been spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to maintain the momentum of this blog alongside my other priorities as a writer, mother, wife and more. No matter how I spun it, I kept returning to this: the part of this blog that needs pruning is me.

Now, don’t panic, that doesn’t mean I’m abandoning The Integrated Mother. I’m streamlining. More importantly, I’m opening the community and inviting you to contribute your fresh voice to this blog by way of your personal essays and/or articles. In fact, you can look forward to fresh parenting posts from Lynne Kenney, also known as the Family Coach. Please consider sharing your unique voice here as we journey along working motherhood!

Now that I’ve pruned my tree, I feel a bit naked but there certainly is much more freedom in it all. Even still, I eagerly await for the next season of fruit to develop – oh it will be sweet!

image credit: flickr.com/littlegemtrees

Pruning for better fruit is a post from: The Integrated Mother®

Related posts:

1. It’s a new season