11. How to Keep a Healthy Routine Amid Constant Change

Hey Everyone,

You know how the second you get comfortable in a routine, your child changes in some way, and then everything is back to square one? Well, this happens a lot in the early years of raising a child, which makes it hard to maintain the kind of routine that keeps us healthy in body, mind, and soul. 

The seismic shifts that take place in our childrens’ developing brains have a ripple-effect that extends all the way into our daily lives as parents. In the process of reaching a new developmental milestone, their sleep patterns go haywire and they’re fussier than normal. And while our kids undergo these natural, ultimately positive changes, our lives transform as well. 

Adapting to our child's evolving needs is in the domain of personal growth for us parents. One shift of theirs can bring your routine to a screeching halt, which makes it that much harder to fulfill our needs as Mothers. When you’re in a groove of showering before your kids wake up, or have come to rely on mid-day Yoga during their naptime, it can be a huge bummer when they suddenly start waking up earlier, or they drop their afternoon nap.

This is prime terrain for perspectives that bring us greater serenity, in that we’re tasked with surrendering to the present moment, practicing non-attachment to how and when we do things as adults, and re-establishing a routine that keeps us well in body and mind. This takes fortitude and flexibility, whether we have them, or not. 

A balance between structure and flow that helps us meet our needs as well as our childrens’ is something that Yoga helps us cultivate, both on the mat and in our greater lives.

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Welcome to Yoga for Mom-Life. I’m Susana Jones, and I help Moms who are tired of being so tired, and ready to live more fully as this new version of themselves. With time-friendly yoga practices that counteract the daily grind, you can focus less on how you’re aging, and more on what you’re creating, for yourself, your family and our beautiful world. 

You can start today with a free download at YogaforMomLife.com, and join the waitlist for my upcoming season of mom-centered yoga, with real-time and on-demand classes that help you flow through your days with greater ease and more vitality. +++

So, the balance that I mentioned between structure and flow is a useful concept for Moms. The principles of sthira and sukha, or steadiness and ease, comes to us from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. 

The idea is that all systems in balance have both steadiness and ease in equal measure. Whether it’s the human body having equal parts durability and flexibility, or how we parent our kids, showing them both boundaries and gentleness, every system functions best with sthira and sukha: stability and fluidity.

As Mothers, we want to take good care of ourselves, so when the ever-changing demands of raising a family make that seem impossible, we feel disheartened. And that discouragement, on top of not getting the physical, mental, and emotional boost of the activities we want to be doing, can really make us feel down after a while.

I’m basing that, by the way, on 25 interviews I held with Moms who have kids under 5, which I conducted a year ago to better understand how I can help a group of people who often feel discarded and overwhelmed, and who have been through a LOT of intense change in a short amount of time.

And I’m careful with my wording on this, because there is some unhelpful, rhetoric around Moms self-care that hurts more than it helps. While we are all ultimately responsible for elements of our health and well-being, I’m finding that Moms aren’t so much needing to take better care of themselves, but to have better external supports, which would enable them to do that more consistently.

So, while we work that out at the societal level and in our own families, the concept of structure and flow can help us get our personal needs met now. 

I suggest a framework for allocating our resources, of time, money, and attention, toward the things that directly add to our well-being, both in the immediate and the long term. 

So, while retail therapy, and lavender lattes do sweeten some days where I crave a little pick-me up, the effects of those are fleeting. And they’re expensive, relative to the quick burst of creature comfort they provide.

So, the structural elements of a more life-giving routine that can withstand the changes that constantly come up in young family life will include more impactful, longer-lasting investments of time, money, or attention. And this is so that when you’re kids are a mess in the first week of preschool or kindergarten, you’ll have some “vitality savings”, so to speak, of fortitude that you’ve built up by regularly putting those resources into your well-being.

To give you an example, I have 3 structural elements in place right now, which are…

1. Sweaty workouts, which I aim to do 5 times a week ‘cause I’m ready for that level of regularity - it took a long time to get here. Some of those classes are live in-studio, some I do on-demand at home, and others are outdoors, like boogie boarding, which I loved as a kid, and it’s so fun to be back out there doing it while the family plays on the beach.

2. Therapy 2x/month. This is instrumental for my continued recovery from burnout, depression and anxiety, which really hit a peak for me in 2022. Part of it has included couple’s therapy, which helped my hubby and I understand our dynamic a bit better, and grow in some important ways as a unit.

3. Lastly, for my joy and feeling beautiful, I get my hair blown-out 2x/month, joined a membership to save money on that service which just makes me feel great and saves time taming my hair.

BOOM

So each of these structures serves a different purpose, but they affect more than one area of my life in a positive way. There’s some flexibility with scheduling, which is practical for Mom-life but what might make these most impactful for my well-being, and sustainable as a Mom is that these activities are connected to a weekly or monthly time frame, rather than a daily regimen.

Now, you might really thrive with a daily routine, and Ayurveda, the sister science of Yoga, is huge on daily routine. Personally, I’ve struggled with that big time, which was super-discouraging for me, being a professional in this field. What I’ve found is that a weekly benchmark, like how many times I want to break a sweat, is way more conducive to my life as a Mom, where things come out of left field that I have little control over.

So, if you get down on yourself for not being able to keep a daily routine that checks all the boxes, you capable person you, try on a weekly rotation, or a bi-weekly goal that feels empowering. Getting something in once or twice a week is a thousand times better than getting none of it in, and feeling like junk because of it.

So. Weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, versus daily goals can really help you build momentum in a positive direction.

My weekly goal started as a 1x/week Peloton ride, and after a few months of doing that, and getting the positive feeling that “I can stick to a routine,” then I realized 2x/week would feel better. Now I’ve upped it from there, and I have way less hip pain when I get up from sitting cross-legged, and don’t need a second cup of coffee so much anymore.

So, the kinds of things you might program into your week depend largely on how old our children are, how many kids we have, what our work-life is like, etc. The nature of the structures we integrate into our lives will be unique for all of us, and it will naturally change with time. The point is to have something concrete that you can return to that adds directly to your well-being.

What makes this work one month at a time is flexibility. With this approach, we can let go of the structure for a week, or a couple weeks, and still have something concrete to return to after a chaotic time where we just needed to take care of what was right in front of us. 

Not having some things in place that feed your health in body and mind, and add to your fun-factor can allow you to get swept up in everyone else’s needs for too long to feel good about it. So give yourself some time to consider what activities you can reasonably add to your week or your month, so you can have something solid that balances out the stuff that’s always changing in life. 

As we approach the end of Summer Break, we might find that this is the perfect time to set our sights on some healthy, structured routines for the season, or the school-year ahead, knowing full-well that abandoning that routine when the family’s sick, or re-evaluating it are part of its success. And therefore, part of your success.

To recap, your healthiest routine in any season, and any phase of your family’s life has both stability and fluidity to it. If we’re all structure, the thing will fall apart come cold-season. If you’re all flow, you won’t know what to do or when to do it, which will drain your energy and make an hour of free-time more nerve-wracking than it needs to be. 

With the intention of having both some structure and some flexibility with the things that make you feel your best, you will succeed in maintaining a healthy routine, even when things are constantly changing.

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To experience this week’s perspectives on the yoga mat, join my online studio for the Summer-to-Fall season ahead. Doors re-open August 7, and what’s inside is loved by Moms from coast-to-coast. 

Add your name to the waitlist, and get your free copy of floor yoga poses that you can do while your baby or toddler explores their toys. It’s all there for you, and so am I, at yogaformomlife.com

Thanks for tuning in, and sharing this show with the Moms you love. It’s Yoga for Mom-Life, and it’s about time.