After a great day in clinic yesterday, I was up until nearly 2am this morning tidying my email inbox, meeting some deadlines, and readying for a talk tonight on work and life and finding balance. The timing of this talk bleeds irony, I know. I also acknowledge I’ve already used up my one night allowance of sleeplessness this week– if you’re keeping score (see my most recent blog post).
Tonight, I’m presenting on behalf of PEPS about finding balance in our transitions back into work outside of our homes and finding peace with the juggle between caring and loving our children while finding meaning in our work. I’ll talk about disobeying the rhetoric/rules that others share about “work life balance.” I’ll talk about my experiences as a working mom, I’ll share lessons I learn from my patients, I’ll share some research, and I’ll discuss some tools you can use to improve behavior change.
If you want to hear a bit of my thoughts– or better– if you’d like to school me on how to make this all work, please join me. Tell me what you think and know. I expect, like so many experiences in my life, I’ll get a lot more out of this than I’m able to give. I’m told there will be milk and cookies, too. Incentive enough?
RSVP: PEPS Parent Talk Lecture Series
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Eleanor says
Great talk tonight — thank you for your honesty, humor, and insights. While not the silver bullet I always seek to the work / life dilemma, nice to be reminded that it’s a struggle for many and ultimately we each need to find our individual balance and make peace with our decisions. I hope you are catching up on your sleep deficit and and won’t see this until tomorrow.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Thanks, Eleanor. I’m so glad it was useful. I did catch up on sleep last night and didn’t see this until this morning—got over 7 hours of sleep to reverse the debt. I’m patting myself on the back 🙂
Be well and thanks for the conversation and, of course, for attending last night!
Jennifer says
I used to live in Seattle and now I live in Austin, Texas. I loved the PEPS program and still miss my the friendships made there. I’ll be sure to send my Seattle parent friends your way! Will you post the transcript of your talk online?
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Jennifer,
No transcript but I’ll be giving another talk in the spring about finding balance, maintaining health and parenting in the 21st century. The talk is with ParentMap and will be on March 21st. Maybe join us then if you’re in the Seattle area–or send your friends? 🙂
Thekla Richter says
I absolutely loved your talk last night. Lots of insights for me as I begin to ramp up the hours I spend on my coaching business while also still caring for my adored 16-month-old son who is now in part-time daycare.
I especially enjoyed learning about the Fogg Behavior Model… some great ideas there for future reading and maybe some blog posts of my own!
Melanie says
I also attended the lecture and really enjoyed being reminded again to be mindful about how I choose to spend my time each day with my family. So many things you spoke about resonated with me, especially how parenting can brings out just about every emotion in the book!
As a big follower of Ann Keppler’s local parenting group First Weeks / Next Months I remember her saying, “if you feel at least 70% certain about a parenting decisions in your life you are off to a great start.” There’s so much grey area with parenting and work/life balance we really need to just check in with ourselves and say, how does this feel? We are all different people and need to relearn to trust our gut, even when that gut feeling sometimes differs from person to person, that is okay!
Thank you for your dedication and sharing your personal ups and downs, what a “real” model you are!