By Rebecca Rodskog, Rodskog Change Consulting

Ugh…
…I can’t believe I said that to him.
…I screwed up that presentation.
…I didn’t work out all week.
…I fed him chicken nuggets again.
…I should have called.

Are the voices in your head constantly running down a list of things that you didn’t do quite as well as you were hoping (or what you think others were expecting)? Then you fall into the great, great category of moms who are way too hard on themselves.

You might think this is no big deal – it makes you perform better the next time, right? Well, no, it does not, and it IS a big deal. Constantly focusing on the negative buries you in guilt and negativity and brings more of it your way. In addition, it actually creates barriers for you to accomplish all that you might if you had a more positive, supportive attitude. And let us not forget that the state of constant stress you put yourself in by never being “good enough” is a surefire way to do actual harm to you mentally and physically, in ways we are just beginning to understand.

Sadly, it’s become almost fashionable to be self-deprecating. In a world where performance appraisals focus on the negative/needs to improve more than the “praise” part, we get used to pointing out our faults. We feel it makes others more comfortable around us, and that modesty is a virtue. This is true, but many moms take it too far.

I grew up a (good) Catholic girl, learning that Forgiveness is the key to living a spiritually enlightened life. However, they never taught us that the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. And that we are the hardest on that person!

Have you ever done the exercise where you take all the things you say to yourself and imagine saying them to your child? You would never, right? Well the same concept applies here – we would never hold a grudge like we do with ourselves if it was our children who committed those mistakes, would we? “It’s okay! No one’s perfect!” we would say to the child who makes a mistake, or doesn’t perform as well as he’d like.

Holding on to the things you did wrong (whether real, semi-real or imagined) can stop you dead in your tracks on any road to success. It’s like throwing a big anchor on your ankle and trying to run. You won’t get very far.

10 Quick Ways to LET IT GO!
1.Tune into your thoughts. Keep a notebook with you and try to write down each negative one you have for a day.

2. Once you’ve become more aware of your thoughts, try to say it out loud, as if you were talking to yourself at 5 years old. Hopefully your tone will start to change.

3. Tell friends and significant others what you are trying to do. Tell them you will give them a dollar for each negative, self-deprecating thing you say about yourself.

4. If you are reviewing your performance after something (a presentation, a phone call, a play date), go ahead and write out the pros and cons instead of just running through the negative stuff in your head. For the stuff that you were not happy with, make a mini-improvement plan for the next time and then let it go. Try to end with the things you did well, like “kept my mouth shut when the other mom started gossiping!”

5. Work it out. Go on a walk or a run and really listen to your thoughts. Ask yourself “is this feedback real, or imaginary, or somewhere in between”. Sometimes we don’t even realize that things we are saying to ourselves.

6. Talk to your spouse or best friend about something in particular that you’re upset with. Usually, once said aloud, the thing we are beating ourselves up about becomes much smaller, and your friend may even have a similar story to share which makes you both feel better!

7. Write a list of the things that make you awesome (my one client calls it “My Awesomeness”). When you are having a particularly brutal feedback session with yourself, pull it out and remind yourself of how awesome you are.

8. Call your mom, dad, or someone else who loves you for all your faults. Try to see yourself through their eyes.

9. Eat ice cream. I don’t know, it just always makes me feel better. But then don’t beat yourself up about it, okay?

10. Laugh. Fake it at first, and then watch it catch….it is hard to be mean to yourself when you’re laughing!

Forgive yourself for all your blunders, and love yourself because of them.

How do forgive yourself? Tell us how you let it go?

Rebecca Rodskog is a NYC based personal life coach, change management consultant, actress and mom. She has worked with corporations and individuals for over 15 years helping them grow through change in the workplace and at home.

Check out her latest project, a mind/body retreat for NYC moms on Saturday, September 26th. Learn how to Put Mom First.

A couple of days ago, I watched in wonder as a friend used the simplest, yet most ingenious technique to disrupt her daughter’s mounting tantrum. It was about 5PM. The kid was tired and hungry and just as she started to lose it, the mom said, “Yoga breath!”

All of the sudden, her preschooler let out what sounded like a giant joyful sigh.  And when I looked over, she was smiling.  She and her mom inhaled and exhaled together about three or four times and this formerly grouchy child transformed before my eyes to serene and happy.  I’m not saying this is a panacea for everyone.  But I was amazed and it got me thinking about how often I’m about to lose my cool and forget to just breathe (like the time my little darlings decided to decorate their faces when I turned my back to check my email for like 5 seconds. See photo below)

Physical therapist Christina Attiken says moms often hold their breath and don’t even realize it.

“When you work out, trainers will remind you to breathe when you lift heavy weights or are pushing hard in a cardio class.  When you’re doing yoga, the instructor will make sure that you’re breathing well.  But, no one reminds you to breathe going through your typical day as a mom,”  the owner of Momeez PT in Orange County, CA explains.

“Being a mom is a lot of physical work. By remembering to breathe, you can take tension off your muscles and get stronger instead of feeling strained.  You can move through your day feeling more centered and balanced when you become aware of your breath,” she says.

Here are Attiken’s 3 tips to relax your body and your mind in less than ten seconds:

1. Stick out your tongue for 2 seconds. This will help relax your jaw.

2. Relax your shoulders: Think of carrying a lot of weight on your shoulders and then, let everything go.  You should feel weightless and light.

3. Allow a gentle inhale starting from your belly and then slowly exhale.

All together now….Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Doesn’t that feel better?

How do you let go? Do you have any quick fixes? Tell us!

Mom, look what we did! The perfect time for a deep breath.

By Carol Kaufmann, Mama Tricks

I stood in front of an upright ironing board, glaring at the basket load of button-downs, clean but wrinkled. Mother of toddlers, working professional, schooled and world-traveled, a credit card holder, a second-time homeowner.  And I am… ironing my husband’s shirts?

This is not who I am.

Like many 30-somethings who entered the work world during the age of excess, I formed a certain ideal of what life would be like once my career was on a roll. I saw examples of the good life flourishing in the D.C. metro area: Manicured lawns done by gardeners, regular help cleaning the house, spiky, animal-skinned shoes, lunches on white tablecloths, black-tie charity events, and vacations at places with names like Guanacaste and Essaouira.  I heard the stories. Sometimes I even had a taste of them myself.

But last fall as the national depression sank in and sparked our fears, my American dream spiraled down the potty along with the country’s economic outlook. Now, I’m happy to have a job, given the front-page Post stories of massive layoffs, spiking unemployment and two-parent households with not a job between them.

I know my job and my husband’s are guaranteed only by the thinnest wisp of commitment from our companies. These days, we’re very replaceable—at least that’s how our employers think.  The reality is if our jobs go, we’re a few missed mortgage payments away from financial Armaggedon.  Every month, our bank account creeps dangerously close to negative numbers, thanks to a preschool deposit, a sink that backs up on a Sunday, a spot on my arm that needed removing or any variety of home/child/health crises.

Yes, when it comes to money, control seemed just beyond my grasp—except what lurks within the four walls around me. And within this lair, I find opportunities to save bucks everywhere and  battened down our hatches.

Hubby, who’s up first, makes bag lunches so we don’t waste cash at our favorite sandwich haunts. We’ve weaned our addiction to lattes. I learned to like natural-colored nails instead of manicured ones, eliminated most dinners out, and now think of vacation not as a trip to the beach but as absence of work.  I even enjoyed my frugality, now in full force. Doing more with less has become a game, an exercise in creativity to find the best deal, amass the most effective combination of coupons.

But ironing?

Shall I also don an apron while I assume the classic position of a 50s housewife?  Watching the hyper-inflated suffocating predicaments of every female character on the 1960s-based drama Mad Men is enough to drive me screaming down the block. Now, I felt like one of them, a slave to the times. (Only not as nattily dressed.)

It’s not as if I’m a spoiled, holier-than-thou princess (OK, maybe a little) who doesn’t know how to roll up her sleeves and do the hard work. But my work, I thought, was to use my brain to create content and read Beginner’s Dr. Seuss, not pushing metal to and fro over seemingly permanent wrinkles.

I remember so well watching my mother, a child of parents who saved pieces of aluminum foil and reused jars during the Depression, diligently pulling out the ironing board, creaking the lever into an upright X, and tackling the laundry basket of Dad’s work shirts. Even before age 10, I realized Mom was enduring a necessary evil.

As I grew, Mom continued to iron. She’d drive right on by the fairly convenient dry cleaner, even though she was as busy as all get-out raising kids, teaching school, volunteering for this and that, taking covered dishes to new neighbors and shut-ins. I’d ask why she didn’t just drop off the laundry and save herself a little time? “Because I can do it myself,” she’d tell me. “Why waste the money?”

The more I learn to discern the fragile moment between a perfect crease and an iron imprint, the more I understand her question. Why spend the money, indeed, when times call for using it for more important purchases—quality fruits and veggies, college accounts, credit-card debt reduction—and in these days especially, a few bucks for someone who could really use it.

And why do all important lessons seem to come from our mothers?

As it turns out, I like seeing a line of freshly pressed shirts hanging along our furniture, a visible, tangible reminded of a job I can do. My husband, who takes his turns at the board, is tickled—even thinks it’s hot, for some odd reason—when I press the shirts and pants he’ll wear that week.

I had grown too big for my britches, as Mom would say. I had forgotten a basic tenet of good living that my hubby and I swore in our wedding vows we wouldn’t lose sight of—that it’s the simple things, after all, that provide a quick jolt of peace. So I iron because I can.

Hard times purify. They force those of us who think we’re above little details, to get over ourselves and put some muscle back into work.  They remind us that being able to take care of ourselves because we’re capable of doing so is a gift.

Copyright 2009 Carol Kaufmann

Carol Kaufmann regularly shares her “Mama Tricks” with The Well Mom. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and in the anthology A Woman’s Europe. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband, toddler, newborn, and two obese rescue cats.

The Tower of Terror

The platform loomed 65 feet above my head. I knew if I didn’t make the climb, my team might not stay on course. We had a clear objective, the 11 of us. Now, as eyes turned to me and I clipped my harness to the cable and checked one last time that it was secure, I took a deep breath and nodded my head.

“Ready?” they asked.

“Ready!” I heard myself say while wondering if it was really true.

With my heart pumping, I stepped on to the first rung and craned my neck back to absorb how high I needed to go to reach my target. The women loosening the slack on my cables watched me tentatively move up one foot, steady myself and then slowly bring up the other until suddenly, I developed a rhythm. No looking down for me. I had one goal – to make it to the top.

It was mid-July in the picturesque hills of western New York. I had decided that for a summer break, I would enroll in a weeklong course to reconnect with nature and potentially, myself. I had just relocated my family from one coast to the other for the second time in three years. Moving three-year-old twins, my husband and myself from LA back to New York City had taken its toll. I needed a great big exhale and I figured communing with Mother Earth might be just what the doctor ordered.

Still, when I met the other brave souls enrolled in Wilderness Adventures for Women through Cornell University’s Team Leadership Center, I honestly wondered how I might find clarity in my crazy life among strangers. Our resumes were as varied as our personal lives. Among us, we had a toxicologist, a paralegal, a marketing exec, a healthcare IT whiz and a landscape architect, to name a few. And then, there was me: a former TV reporter and exhausted mother trying to figure what to do with my life after yet another big transition.

Some of the “Wild Women” were moms, too. A few were happily married. Others were recently divorced. We had empty nesters, single gals and two sets of long time partners in our midst.

But from our first full day attempting to master the ropes course near Cornell’s sprawling campus, the 11 of us started to feel a bond. Faraway from the tug of technology and family commitments, we could focus on the mission.  We were there to push our bodies and our minds without interruption from the outside world. As we started to climb and balance and lean on other through a series of introductory exercises, we learned we would need to work together as a unit to get through the week.

Each day unfolded with meditative hikes through state forest trails, occasional journaling, picnic lunches and my favorite…yoga. We lugged along mats in our backpacks so we could take a break to stretch and breathe and fully experience our surroundings. Attempting Tree Pose amid the trees invigorated the spirit in more ways than one.

In those first few days, each of us faced inner challenges – a fear of meeting new people, hesitation about public speaking, anxieties about how far we’d hike each day. But on those long walks, some of the most outgoing people grew quiet and some of the more reticent women felt comfortable to share.  As we tackled steep hills and sloshed through cold streams, natural leaders followed the pack and typical followers took the lead.  It was energizing and liberating all at the same time. The precious time away from our smart phones, families and jobs gave way to some internal shift that allowed each of us to venture out of our personal comfort zones and experiment.

By the fourth day, it was time to face what is known as the high elements challenge course back at Cornell. That’s where I found myself hanging on those rungs moving my legs as fast as I could to the top of the bell tower.

Rappelling down was much more fun.

When I did reach the top, it was as if I had climbed my own Everest – conquering a life long fear of heights all in the name of team work and….well, to be honest, lunch. A picnic among the treetops awaited the Wild Women if all of us made it up.

Yes, you might think that all it took was the promise of a turkey sandwich and a cookie to get my butt up a tower as tall as a telephone pole. But the beauty of the exercise is that it was truly my fellow Wild Women who motivated me to put my fears aside and as they say, breathe into the moment.

Have you ever gone on an adventure retreat or wanted to?  Tell us about it!!