The Work-Life-Emotional Balance
I began my journalism career when I was 26, two years after my son was born. To say balancing it all was tough is an understatement. Writing was something I did in little pockets of the day that weren’t filled with parenting and running a wedding photography business (something I managed to do successfully for 10 years). It took time, but eventually I established a kind of work-life balance that worked for me—mostly.
Now that I’m several years down the road and that same toddler is well into his teen years, I’ve had the space to reassess work-life balance and what it means to me. I’ve realized that a critical element has been missing, and for me, it’s really all about work-life-emotion balance. Years ago, I might have felt a twinge of embarrassment by admitting that balancing my emotions is just as important (and sometimes just as difficult) as balancing work and the rest of my life. However, these days, I’m unbothered. Instead of feeling like a stereotype, I’m entirely comfortable admitting the truth: I’m a woman, a mom, a self-employed journalist, and yes, I’m emotional.
Making space for my emotional being has been a process. I’ve been aided, of course, by therapy, and I have realized that finding the right person you genuinely connect with in that space is key. My therapist has helped me connect with myself in a way that I don’t think I ever have. As a mom, I’ve found external validation over the years through how others receive and experience my son or us as a mom-son duo; in relationships, I’ve found external validation through how I show up to accomplish tasks or what my partner reflects back at me.
These days, I’ve begun to find my own validation—and my self-worth—from what is already inside me. As a result, I’m able to keep my emotions, and specifically my propensity for overthinking, in check. I used to believe that having my own back would mean I’d become too hyper-independent, but now I understand that having my own back is the first crucial requirement for anyone else to have it, too.
Getting here has been a journey that has included establishing firm boundaries across the board. If I’m not actively working, I don’t answer work emails or calls. As a freelance journalist, I am in charge of when I’m on and when I’m not, so I’ve had to become disciplined at this (and I’m still working on that) because I don’t have a consistent start-and-finish work time to guide me.
Boundaries have extended to the “life” part of this balancing act, too. This means taking advantage of the pockets of time I have carved out in which nothing is required of me—no work, no chores, no needs from anyone—and the boundaries in place are often made for me by me. For example, instead of jumping on my laptop to look around for story ideas an hour after doing the same thing, my partner and I often make a point to take a walk, visit a bookstore, or watch a movie. This isn’t groundbreaking stuff, but the discipline to not give in to the impulse to work work work is.
The impact on my emotional self has been profound. Establishing lines for myself and sticking to them has been encouraging; I’ve found security in knowing that I actually do have the discipline to walk away from work when I want to and to hit the ground running when it’s time to get something done. I spent most of my late 20s and early 30s in a state of semi-chaos: raising a child, running a business, pitching stories, being married, and getting divorced were all a lot. Continuing to operate at that level was what I now believe has contributed to emotional turbulence the most; taking a breath and reminding myself that I am ultimately responsible for myself has helped.
Some of this may be due to age. At 39, I’m getting ready to happily greet my 40s as a decade of strength, growth, happiness, love, and curiosity. My son will become an adult, and I’ll witness what he decides to do with his life. I’ve started to believe it’s not about waiting for life to click into place—it’s about putting the puzzle pieces together for yourself in the first place.