By Viviana Diaz, LPC

“Filling Your Mom Cup”, refers to the ability to create space for yourself mentally. This allows you to provide your children and families with the love and care they need from your cup. An imbalance and emptying of your cup occurs when women become overwhelmed by the different roles they must fill and the demands they face daily. Not being able to meet your own emotional and physical needs adversely affects how you show up at home for your children and impacts your overall mental and physical health.

Why Is Your Cup Becoming Empty?

As the pandemic persists in 2021, many women struggle financially as solo bread winners of their households. Others work inconsistent hours and fluid schedules. Managing and overseeing remote and in person learning is difficult, especially for mothers with younger age children. Unfortunately, many women have lost their jobs. They struggle with the anxiety of how to survive the day to day financial challenges. Many women take on the responsibility of taking care of elderly parents. Unfortunately, immediate family members or mothers themselves have become ill with Covid 19. The amount of challenges and level of uncertainty women are handling today seems monumental. Regardless of where you come from as a stay at home mother and/or working professional, the pandemic has added a level of complexity and chaos that accumulates stress for mothers around the country and the world.

Physical

Stay in place orders, closing of entertainment events, theaters and outside sport activities impacts your ability to move around freely. The outlets that you and your families used to engage in to cope with stress are closed. You are left without activities that once recharged you, energized you and provided space for a physical outlet.

Emotional

The emotional toll on women during this pandemic is undeniable. You are isolated from coworkers, friends, and family members. Uncertainty causes an increase in anxiety and depression. You spend most of your time at home. However, home is not just home, but home, school and your workplace. You may feel guilty about the inability to separate your role as a mother as you spend all day with your children and taking care of everyone else’s needs. In more difficult experiences, spending more time with significant others may increase conflict. Tensions may increase negative coping behaviors such as substance abuse and domestic violence. Unstable home environments for women and children are emotionally damaging.

Six Ways To REFILL your Mom Cup: