As mothers, we are the timekeepers, the peacekeepers, the secret and memory keepers, and the keepers of the fruit snacks.

As the internal metronome of our entire family’s clock—we are the only ones responsible for pressing the pause button. Our reality is such that we will often only recognize our own burnout by the time it’s too late—the most ineffective means of a recharge or a reset is when we’ve already tapped out.

We cannot pour from an empty cup as they say.

Before I became a mom and a writer, I was a special education teacher and would spend my career writing support plans for children with dangerous, worrisome, or maladaptive behaviors. The most effective means to mapping out a plan to create an appropriate alternative response had to do with understanding and recognizing a child’s antecedent behaviors prior to the explosive one as well as the function or the need that that behavior served for the child.

There was a formula that went (A) Antecedent + (B) Behavior= (C) Consequence

Let’s apply this same logic to our current lives.

A relatable example: The Sunday Scaries: where we spend the hours of 6pm-8pm every Sunday evening raging, drinking, and disappointed that the weekend wasn’t actually a reset at all but a shitshow of sports, laundry, and children’s birthday parties. Now it’s almost Monday again, and someone has to make the lunches and wash the backpacks that smell like rotting bananas. A+B=C

Why do my Thursday days run the most smoothly out of any other day during the week? Because I know I have this to look forward to in the evenings, and therefore my mood is better, my mothering is more patient… I have plenty to pour out over my family because I have plenty for myself. The Body Well Program is so effective because it serves to change our patterns to make sure our wellness is being prioritized.

The nature of modern motherhood is such that essentially our lives our just one never-ending-antecedent behavior to the explosive behavior. Therefore, the only predictor of not feeling overwhelmed is to make sure our own cups are always full.

There I solved all of our problems with words.

Except you know as well as I do that actions are what counts and that, my dear friends, only you are the keepers of.