How To Be Happy As A Working Mom
Episode 66: How To Be Happy As A Working Mom
Join Dr. Prianca Naik on the Empowering Working Moms Podcast! In this episode, she talks about cultivating inner peace and living a more meaningful life. Dr. Naik invites you to learn about living life as if you were given a second chance and finding happiness in the ordinary things. Tune in for more on this topic.
In this episode, you will learn:
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Life
How To Feel More Fulfilled
How Shifting Your Perspective Enriches Your Life
Practical Tips To Enhance Your Life Experience
To end burnout and exhaustion and get your peace of mind back, check out her free masterclass on 4 steps to overcome burnout, get rid of overwhelm, and get your peace of mind back.
https://program.stresscleansemd.com/4-secrets-to-living-a-life-you-ll-love-podcast
If you want to work with Coach Prianca Naik, MD, go to
www.priancanaikmdcoaching.as.me to book a 30-minute consultation call
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[FULL TRANSCRIPTION]:
You're listening to the empowering working moms podcast episode number 66. Welcome. I'm so happy to have you here today. Thank you so much for tuning in, thinking and assuming that you're back in the rhythm, school has started, and the kiddos are back to school.
I wanted to mention one of my clients, Diana, who is a physician and mother of two small kids, she was telling me how really before coaching with me, she was struggling with feeling like she didn't have enough time, how to balance everything, she felt so much mom guilt. And after coaching with me and going through my program, she really was able to show up as her best self and ditch the mom guilt and truly be present at home with her kids.
And she was actually saying if you feel like you're drowning and want to enjoy your life again, I would recommend Prianca, which is so sweet of her. So this is the work that we're doing inside my life coaching program overcome burnout for good in 90 days or less. As a physician and having my masters in neuroscience, I've really created easy, implementable tools, including my three N methods and other processes that really help cultivate peace of mind, balance mindfulness without a ton of time.
And to learn more about the work I do inside my program join my free on demand masterclass four steps to overcoming burnout, overwhelm, and truly getting your peace of mind back, the link will be in the show notes.
Today, I want to talk about really shifting your mindset for a happier, more enriched life. And I did actually talk about perspective shifts in Episode 44, about what your 80 year old self would think about something and putting on that lens, really transposing that lens to the current moment. And that allows us to not take insignificant things too seriously. So definitely listen to that episode, Episode 44 first, if you have not, before you listen to this one.
Because this episode today, I'm going to expand on this concept. We're going to talk about having a second chance at life without though having a near death experience. So there are people who have beat cancer, or they do have near death experiences, and they come back, they face their life really living differently, probably better. So what if we could do the same without having to die? That sounds pretty good, right?
So before I get into the exercise, and really the couple of ways you can look at this and how to approach it, I want to talk about a Anita Moorjani's book Dying To Be Me. And I read this a few years ago, and it's really a memoir that talks about her journey from being on the verge of death to a miraculous recovery.
She had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, and at that time, when she had this cancer, she was living a life really for others, out of alignment with who she was, who she wanted to be. And this near death experience, also abbreviated NDE really changed her sense of her life and healing and it transformed her, she felt a sense of interconnectedness. And she talks about how she made an active choice to not die and to return to life.
Now, of course, this story is going to challenge conventional beliefs about illness and recovery. And some people might think it's woowoo. Regardless, I think it's just important to see that she had this message of coming back from NDE to embrace a newfound lease on life.
And I actually am getting chills as I talk about this because I think this work is so powerful. And her memoir really offers us an example of life's challenges and how they can be a true catalyst for change and a deeper connection to who we really are and connecting to who you are.
And if you don't know what that is, the work that we do inside my program, we really dive deeply into that. But if you don't have a sense of yourself, right, then you're kind of living all over the place. And when we do that, we're out of integrity.
Once we can truly get to know ourselves, our values, and how we want to live, and we can live in alignment with that, then we can be at peace and have the balance and end the burnout that really ails so many women.
And I'm sure you can relate with this. So let's talk about how we can really cultivate inner peace and live a more meaningful life. So that is through today's topic, which is what if you had a second chance at life? How would you do things? We're going to really look at this concept in two different ways.
So way number one, so this is really when you have a new beginning. For example, let's say you have a new job or a new relationship or you're moving to a new city. So when you have a new beginning, really ask yourself, what did you learn from your past recent journey, your past job, your past relationship, the way you lived in your past town? And what was good, what worked? What didn't work? And how do you want to improve? And how can you use what you've learned for a better now and a better future?
So let's say you're leaving a job for another one, don't underestimate the significance of these kinds of changes, because you might really have some grief for the loss of a certain job. It's its own death, right? So that's why I bring it up in this episode, how can you take the death of that job, and then have a rebirth with a new job? So how would you show up? Ask yourself that question. And when you can answer that, you take the answer, and you put that answer into action. And that's really how you're going to change your life experience for the better of course.
Similarly, if you're ending a relationship, or you've had a divorce, you're in a divorce, what did you learn? How did you get there? How did you end up there in the end? And what was your role? And knowing all this, once you reflect on this, and take some time to do this, because I'm just kind of rattling these off, but the text will be in the show notes. So you can look at that for further guidance. How can you approach the present and the future differently in the context of all of this?
So actually, in life we do get the chance to be reborn. And that's a little dramatic, right, being reborn. But basically, what I'm saying is we get a fresh start all the time, and maybe you're not realizing it. So I'm just trying to increase awareness for you, become aware of when you get a fresh start, and it can be as simple as okay, September's the new school year, I get a fresh start in this.
Often for me, when the year is ending, I do a lot of reflection exercises and goals for the following year. But that's a reset. And then I do another reset, let's say in the summer, I give myself a fresh start when the summer's starting. And then again, when the school year's starting, I might do like a reset, a rebirth, et cetera. And it really helps us to keep ourselves active in living our lives, and really taking an active role in how we want to live our lives, what we want for our lives instead of letting life live us.
And it's when we let life live us that we get drained, we feel exhausted, we feel unhappy when we're not doing what our heart desires, what we really want to be doing. And the concept that we can't is really something that we've been taught. And it's really not the case. And I did talk about dreams in a different episode. So creating the life of your dreams, check that out. It's a past episode, if you haven't, and that talks much more about this.
But basically, we get to take control of our lives by refreshing ourselves whenever we want. And we can take a new lease on life. A refreshed, rejuvenated a second chance at life at any given moment. You can decide today in fact, you don't need at the end of the year or the times that I've just mentioned, you can create your own rebirth, your own, I'm coming back, I'm reliving my life, I get a second chance at life in this moment, you could do it right now. So that's way number one of the second chance.
Now the way to look at this number two of the second chance is imagine that you are on your deathbed, okay? And someone, let's say an angel, whatever your religious preferences or beliefs are, you can just insert whomever. It could be a loved one who's passed, just someone, comes and tells you that you're not going to die in this moment and you actually get to go back. Beautiful, right?
I mean, I'm sure so many people would love that. So instead of us being on our deathbed, wishing we had more time, let's try and create a life where when we die, we can say I lived a beautiful life, and I'm ready to pass. How beautiful is that? That's so rare, right? But we can create that. So given that you have this second chance at life, how are you going to show up throughout your day, now I'm talking about moment to moment, hour by hour, because now you realize that your time is limited.
And often we behave as though we're not going to die. In my medical practice, I treat a lot of patients at the ends of their lives, and I have seen that family members often behave as though their family is never supposed to die and that it's natural to live forever, though we know it's a fact that we are all going to die. So with this fact, if we face this fact, which is not an easy fact to face, but it's true, then how would you show up moment to moment.
And this is different for everyone. So I'm going to give you a couple examples of how this shows up for me. And then I will give you some practical tips in case you're feeling lost on ideas of how to do this. Alright, so for me, I practice a lot of mindfulness and I tend to be in the present moment because I've practiced years and years of meditation and I take what I've learned from years of sitting meditating and I apply that to my life, which is a lot of what I teach in my program without the meditation, but I'm able to soak in the moments.
And also when I was young, many astrologers in India, this is definitely a cultural thing, had told my mother that she was going to die in a bad accident at 40. And my family shared this information with me when I was young, which I don't know if they should have, but they did. And so I actually grew up thinking that I was not going to have my mom forever. And that translated to me, even as a teenager, every single conversation with my parents, I would always say, I love you, bye, I love you bye.
And I would always kind of think this could be the last time I see them. So that's my background. And I do tend to live life as though I'm not living forever, or the people that I love are not living forever. So that's sort of how that has shown up in my life till today. Now, today, with my children, and my parents, I really try it to savor the ordinary moments, because with my parents, I know they're getting older, right.
So spending time with them is really critical, because that's not going to last forever. And I acknowledge that. So I will visit them at their home, my dad likes to do a bonfire and do s'mores, and we put on music and we dance and we laugh and we go out to eat. And these are all really ordinary things. But they're actually really extraordinary. At the same time, they're really special. And I try to soak in those moments, because I know they're not going to last forever. And I know that someday all I will have are memories of my parents.
And similarly with my children. They're really young and super precious. And it's sort of the reverse issue that these moments with my children, when they're babies, that's not going to last forever, they're going to turn into adults. So I really try and soak in all of the ordinary moments with them, right. And of course, there are also tough moments that are filled with tantrums because that goes with the age.
So during the happy times, the dancing, the coloring, the shopping at Target, going out to eat, hanging out with them, driving with them, when they're singing in the car or talking I am just in awe of their cuteness, the things they say and the rate at which they're learning new things. It's insane. It's incredible. And this actually brings me to tears a lot. I feel what I feel, what can I say. So I really just am able to be present and enjoy them.
Enjoy the good times, and just the normal moments, which are just so so so so so precious. And I have tremendous gratitude for them too. And that's how I feel, you don't necessarily have to feel that way. But personally, I wanted to be a mother when I was six years old. So for me, my children are the greatest gift that life could have given me and they themselves surpass whatever expectations I had of what my children would be.
So I practice gratitude for them on a very regular basis, probably a few times a week, I am so grateful for them. And actually, I will tell them too. Especially my five year old who understands a little bit more than my two year old might understand, I will literally tell him how grateful I am for him. And I want them to know that, I think that's important.
Conversely, though, I never realized that being a mother meant being woken up multiple times a night for a bad dream or being afraid of the dark. But that is also part of being a mom. And that part is not really fun, right. But with this perspective, I know that just like the cute stuff, and the cute young, adorable time will pass quickly, the negative phases will also pass quickly.
So I get to not give the difficult times a ton of attention. And I can sort of let them go and instead focus on the good. And that's my choice. And what that ends up doing for me is it creates a more positive life experience during which I feel more fulfilled and more gratified. This is all a choice, just like it is for you, you have a choice too.
So if you're feeling a little lost on how to really get that second chance at life, here are some things that you can do to really enhance your life experience. So one thing is practicing gratitude and practicing mindfulness. Gratitude practice is really easy to do, you don't have to journal and I actually have an episode on gratitude practice earlier in this podcast, so check that out. But basically, you can just recite to yourself five things you're grateful for every morning when you're showering.
Mindfulness also, simply saying to yourself, there is a body and focusing on your breath can really help you to just be present in any given moment. Forgiving yourself and others is another great way to approach this second chance at life because really forgiving yourself helps you cultivate inner peace and make peace with your past because none of us is perfect and we do make mistakes.
So we get to have compassion for ourselves and really cultivate inner peace by doing that. And in terms of forgiving others really forgiving others is more about us than it is about them. And by forgiving others, we get to let go of any negative energy, negative emotions that we're hanging on to. And that really is liberating. And along with that really letting go of stuff that does not matter. So if something is trivial, if it doesn't matter in the long run, if it's not a do or die issue, which most issues are not, then really being able to let go.
The next tip is to embrace what is going well and put on those rose colored glasses for ourselves. Because we really have a choice on how we see things. And if we can even see our challenges as serving us or testing us, or what are we learning from this, it's so much better than having a victim mentality, because that is much more depressing and sad.
So we can embrace what is happening, and also what we are doing well, because we don't give ourselves enough credit for all the good things that we're doing. And I'm sure you're doing a ton of them. So give yourself a pat on the back. And again, it is great to have other people validate what you're doing. But that really gives our power away. So we get to reclaim our power by validating ourselves and supporting ourselves. And the more we can do that, the more inner strength, resilience, and peace we're going to build.
The next thing you can do is literally figure out what you want out of this life and go after it yesterday. Okay, because time is so short. Somebody was telling me that they wanted to go into politics, and I said to this person, well, then you just need to do it right this minute. Right this moment, get going on it because time is of the essence. And you might as well just do it, don't prolong things that you really want to do.
Another important way to approach our second chance at life is really connecting with those you care about that can be however you see fit via phone call, via FaceTime, an email, seeing them, maybe another way to do this is to write thank you notes. First start with yourself, practice gratitude to yourself and all the wonderful things you're doing. And then thank you notes to other people in your life.
It's funny that I'm doing this episode because I literally wrote a bunch of notes to people last week, a bunch of my friends whom I care about, I wrote them notes the other day and mailed them out. But it really is beautiful to let those people that you know have had an impact on your life or that you care about or care about you that you appreciate them. That way if you die tomorrow, you did make your peace with them. Or if they die tomorrow, you have your sense of okay, I did let them know that I love them.
Another way to approach coming back, having a second chance at life, really ask yourself how would you prioritize your work versus your home life if you got that second chance? What would you change? And this is a critical question because a lot of us are living on autopilot and really don't take the time to think about these things. But taking the time to reflect upon these issues is so important in getting the most out of this beautiful life.
If you had a second chance, what would you do in terms of your physical and mental health? Would you take better care of it? And how? Would you travel more? And if you would, then you need to start booking those flights. Get going, see everything you want to see. Travel more often. And I know people make up a lot of excuses, I can't, but the truth is you actually can.
You get to create what you want for yourself, whatever that means. And the last way to really make the most of the second chance is to celebrate everything. You get to celebrate everything you want. Whatever you want in this life, whatever you think is a time to celebrate. Let's do it. So for me, this shows up as celebrating the first day of school with my son, we got a cake, we lit candles, I FaceTimed a bunch of relatives and we did a little party.
We sang, we danced, my son was running around the house, he was so happy. It was wonderful, what a great memory. And now, it's only September but I got a bunch of Halloween stuff and we're celebrating Halloween for the next six weeks and that's really fun. So whatever it is that you want to celebrate, you get to celebrate yourself, celebrate life, enjoy, and there's really no such thing as enjoying yourself or celebrating too much, meaning within the realm of healthy choices.
So obviously over drinking and doing that isn't okay but you're able to celebrate, right, you can celebrate in a healthy manner and really, really soak it all in. So today I challenge you to create your second chance at life for yourself. Your redo, whatever that means for you. Soaking in the good, letting go of the bad, forgiving yourself, forgiving others, connecting more with those you love, or anything else that you would ever want to do if you had a do-over.
Get to it ASAP because there really is no time to waste. And to really make the most of this precious life, to be more present at home even if you work long hours, to ditch the mom guilt, to finally unplug, to end exhaustion and end burnout for good in 90 days or less, learn my streamlined processes to really heal from the inside out. Book a call and apply to work with me to get started PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will talk to you next week.