Mom burnout runs rampant in today’s anxious world. Society offers many temporary band aids for easing a stressed, exhausted and tired mom’s mind – so called “self-care” solutions that come with a price tag. I’m here to recommend a different solution, a more long-term solution – God’s comfort.
With God’s comfort, we can not only survive but thrive in motherhood.
Motherhood requires daily sacrifice. Often, we give so much of ourselves to meet the needs of others. Before we realize it, we drift into the deep end of mom burnout. It is during these times that the waves of anxiety, stress, and anger run rampant and erode our mental well-being.
If we center ourselves in God and use His strength, we will be better equipped to navigate the challenging waves of motherhood. He will infuse our spirit with an unmatchable inner strength.
So how do we keep God at the center of our life? Is it only a matter of going to church and praying? Not quite. We have to open our hearts to God and let him hydrate the dry and empty places of our soul.
Faith is not a switch that you just turn on one day. Faith is about taking steps everyday to walk beside and towards God. In his book, The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser states “spirituality is not about serenely picking or rationally choosing certain spiritual activities like going to church, praying or meditating, reading spiritual books, or setting off on some explicit spiritual quest. It is far more basic than that.”
Rolheiser states that our habits and disciplines, regardless of whether they have an explicit religious dimension, can either strengthen or deteriorate our relationship to God.
Here are six simple ways to stay grounded in God’s comfort and build a more personal relationship with God in this ever-anxious world.
1. Accept Yourself as Imperfect
Connecting with God is easier when you learn to accept yourself as imperfect.
I used to feel inferior sitting in the church pew on Sunday thinking, “I’m not as religious as all of these other people sitting around me. How does God see me?”
I now know that God sees my heart not my shortcomings. He doesn’t count my missteps or love me any less for them. He is a God that meets me where I am, baggage and all.
God loves the beautiful mess of all of our lives. He enters our hearts through the gaps of imperfection. For if we were perfect, where would there be room for Him?
2. Let Go and Let God
As moms we tend to be “fixers.” When something goes wrong, we do whatever we can to control the situation and fix it. Especially when our children are struggling. Those are the moments our faith is challenged the most.
The problem is that when you are suffering from mom burnout, you are tired, stressed and exhausted. Your tank is empty and you have nothing left for anyone else. Anxious thoughts are likely to run rampant in your weakened mental state.
“You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
St. Augustine of Hippo
When my second child was sick at six months old, I was sleepless for nights listening to her every breath. I had no control over the situation. As much as I wanted to, there was nothing I could do to fix it.
I realized that the situation was entirely in God’s hands. One night I let go of my anxious thoughts and sent them up to God. That night I fell asleep with my grandmother’s rosary in my hand as I prayed to God.
I was overcome with a sense of peace knowing that God would take over from there. God meets us at the point of our limitations. He takes over at the intersection of “I can’t do this on my own” and “What do I do now?” Let Him. Rest in his sturdy hand knowing that He will carry you in those moments.
3. Find God in Nature
The fastest route to God is through our littleness. When we recognize our place on this Earth as a small component of the larger whole, our sense of connection to all of God’s creation becomes stronger.
God’s voice can become muted in the chaos and noise of the daily grind. But when you are surrounded by nature, God’s voice becomes louder. Connecting with nature is connecting with God.
We all yearn for a sense of awe and wonder, even if we don’t know it. That wonder emerges when we feel small against God’s creation. We feel it most in nature – when we sit in front of the crashing waves of the ocean, when we look up at the sunlight peeking through the trees above us, when we close our eyes and listen to a bird’s song in the morning….
In his book, Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness, Qing Li suggests that “forest bathing” or slowly walking through a forest and taking in the atmosphere has healing powers. It can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and anger.
Basking in nature is self-care at its best. When you feel overwhelmed, take some time to press pause, unplug and bathe in nature. It is in nature that your mind will be free to breathe in its healing power and feel God’s arms around you.
4. Shed the Noise
We certainly can’t sit in the forest or at the beach all day. So how do we find the peace that nature gifts us without basking in its presence every day? Shed the noise.
Moms are perfect targets for sensory overload. Our days are filled with the constant noise of others demanding our attention. We sometimes make the mistake of turning to social media as a release. We look to what I call “junk food” for the mind. Without even knowing it, we fill our minds with other people’s thoughts by scrolling facebook or instagram.
When we scroll social media as soon as we get out of bed in the morning, we let other people’s thoughts control our day. We read a friend’s post and immediately ponder elements of their life instead of our own. Instead of reaching for your phone, try reading a few verses from the Bible each morning. Let God’s words set the tone for the day.
God calls us to simplify our lives. Social media, reality television, celebrity gossip – these are all worldly traps that hijack our thoughts. They focus our minds on the wrong things and always leave us wanting more. Instead, if we intentionally fill our minds with the things that bring us closest to God, we will feel more grounded in Him.
5. Listen to God’s Nudge
The more we shed the noise, the better we can hear God’s voice. Throughout our lives, God nudges us to touch the lives of others. A simple smile or kind word can turn someone’s day around. God nudged me just the other day at the grocery stores. As a man picked just one lemon from the produce stand, a barrage of other lemons came crashing down.
I bent down, helped him to pick them up and said, “I guess you picked the wrong lemon.” He cracked a smile in his moment of irritation. This was by no means some grand gesture but we both felt the power of human kindness in that moment.
Jesus lives within each of us. Ronald Rolheiser captures this in the Holy Longing, when he states, “the challenge is not to establish religious television networks to make Jesus known, or even to try to baptize everyone into Christianity, the task is to radiate the compassion and love of God, as manifest in Jesus, in our faces and our actions.”
We keep Jesus alive within us through these simple moments of kindness, not just grand gestures to connect with one another. When we intentionally connect with others, we are also connecting with God.
6. Prioritize Prayer
Wherever you are in your faith journey, even if you are just scratching the surface, God wants to hear from you. Prayer is what builds your personal relationship with God.
As a young girl, I was shy and introverted. While I wasn’t brave enough to express my emotions to my family or friends, I could always kneel in prayer and turn to God. Prayer has been the one constant in my life. It has grounded me during times I didn’t know where else to turn.
Even when I don’t have the words to express how I feel, I know that if I just kneel with God in silence, he will know what is in my heart. It is in prayer where God gifts me with the strength to face any challenge.
Prayer binds us to God. Making prayer a priority keeps God close to our hearts and strengthens our resolve. He may not always answer our prayers exactly the way we expect or want, but He always gives us His arms to fall upon for comfort.
Walk with God
A healthy spirit is shaped by our actions. These six behaviors will strengthen your spirit and help you to navigate the chaos of motherhood with God by your side. God is everywhere, if you just take the time to notice.
[1] Rolheiser, Ronald. “What is Spirituality?” The Holy Longing: the Search for a Christian Spirituality, edited by x, publisher x, year published x, p. 5.
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