As I sit and type this, my hair in a messy bun, dining room table covered in toys, mugs and slips, H puts a punnet of grapes in front of me and says ‘eat’ after rewarding me with a kiss. I can hear a tired Sarah blowing bubbles with her spit and rubbing the contents on the kitchen floor, while H attempts to make breakfast after nearly breaking his neck tripping over the ice bucket, which Sarah has just pulled out the cupboard and is now attempting to climb inside.

This is the first time I have sat down to attempt to write a blog post, or 5, in a long while. I love blogging – it’s my me time, I love to get my thoughts onto paper, to share them with the world and then receive messages about others who’s stories, life events or learning’s resonate with mine. But the truth is, that balancing being a mom to a very busy 1 year old, running a coaching practice, speaking at corporates every 3^rd day, lecturing, trying to fit in exercise and of course friends, launching an exciting new pregnancy fitness brand and now carrying an 18-week old baby boy in my womb, has proven to be less of a balancing act and more of a survival one.

And the problem with surviving is 3 fold. Firstly, it means that your cortisol levels are abnormally high as you rarely feel the privilege of having ‘nothing to stress about’. Secondly, surviving brings with it the tendency to live in fight or flight, and our brains can only last there for so long before reaching what’s called ‘psychological burnout’ – and so yes at least once a week, I have a good cry before moving on. And thirdly, surviving rarely means thriving – which means that while you are managing to keep your head above the water, you’re sure-as-hell not swimming downstream, let alone upstream.

Those who know me well, may even be thrown by the above as I seem to cope so well. And I know that. I’m a good ‘cope-er’, I was born to ‘just get on with life’. But the truth is, that sometimes coping isn’t enough. It’s not enough to be okay with jumping from one thing to the next, even if many of these time-consumers are the very things that light you up inside.

In February, I merely survived. If that. And so my goal for March was to slow down. That’s it. Just to slow down. I’m a dreamer at heart. I love to dream big, and then to act. I love to make the life I envisioned a reality, and in many ways I’ve managed to do that. But what I’ve realized this year (all 3 months of it) is that even the pursuit of dreams can be too much. And so I went from doing 11 talks on mostly different topics in Feb to only signing for 5 talks in March. I turned personal coaching clients down and focused wholeheartedly on those I already have. I took Thursdays off work and spent the day with my darling Sarah. And I can honestly say slowly, very slowly I’m managing to see the light. This balancing act of being a mom while running a company, is no joke, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE to do both well. I know it. And daily, I’m attempting to move closer to mastering this balancing act… Until such time as baby no 2 arrives 🙂