Hey Reader,

Picture this:

You’re sitting on the floor with your child, building a unicorn castle or a racetrack for monster trucks together, when your mind begins to drift.

You promised your little one some special one-on-one time playing together, you put aside the to-do list so you could connect, but now that you’re here, you can’t help but feel… restless.

You feel the pull of the laundry piled on the dining room table waiting to be folded, the email that needs to be sent…

So you take your phone out — just to check the time, how long have you been playing, anyway? — and next thing you know, you’ve opened Instagram and are scrolling through reels.

“Mummy, DO IT!” Their little eyes are staring up at you, and you realise you’ve haven’t even heard whatever they said before.

Cue the guilt.

“Why am I even on my phone? Can’t I be present for 10 minutes?”

“They deserve my attention. What’s wrong with me that I can’t just enjoy being with them?”

Here’s the thing: a nervous stressed-out system struggles to slow down.

It isn’t that you don’t care enough to give them your undivided attention (of course you do!) but rather that slowing down feels unsafe to your body right now.

You’ve been running the treadmill of tasks for so long now, always keeping busy, making every minute productive, that standing still feels deeply uncomfortable, and your body naturally tries to find a way to escape it (by scrolling, for example).

And the longer that keep-moving energy stays in the driver’s seat, the harder that identity you never chose (of you as the one who gets things done but rarely plays or has fun) feels to shake.

But there’s an ache that won’t go away: because what you really want is to soften into your child’s world, to move fluidly between the doing and being, to be the present and connected mum you always imagined.

When you turn your focus to building your resilience, that’s what you’ll unlock — the ability feel at peace with slowing down to your little one’s pace every now and then.

Building your resilience helps creates more spaciousness in your nervous system, so you aren’t compelled to keep moving.

A nervous system in fight-or-flight is agitated. A relaxed nervous system is at peace.

The bonus is that as slowing down feels more comfortable to you, those moments playing with your children become a moment of rest for your body and mind, protecting you from burnout. ​
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And as your connection with your little one deepens through more presence, parenting will flow smoother too.

In support of you,

Kirsti

Mum of two | Coaching Psychologist (MAPPCP)

In my world

As my husband and I weigh our decision of whether to move country or not next year, we’ve been talking a lot about what feels important to us as a family when it comes to how we spend our time. It’s had me reflecting on how important it is to have these discussions, to get clear on the ideal lifestyle you hope to create for your family. Although you may not have the ability to make major changes to bring your exact vision to life (I’m aware what a privilege it is that we can even consider moving), sometimes getting closer to that desired life looks like smaller steps like spending more time outdoors, protecting some family time at weekends, or negotiating for more flexibility at work. But it all starts with a vision of what we want: something to inspire us to move towards.