Do you ever wonder why you are trying to be a superwoman? Why you give and do so much until it wipes you out, but no matter how hard you work or how much you give, it never feels enough?
Or do you have a great life but all you see is what’s going wrong? You feel bad for not being grateful enough and you want to be content but whatever you have, it’s never enough?
And in all of this, you wondered what will make it enough? Make you good enough? When can you finally stop working or trying so hard? And you can finally be happy?
In this article, I am going to address a very important issue that affects many mothers at the very core of their life, their parenting and their inner struggles and yet no one talks about it because we don’t really understand what’s happening and how to address it.
And instead of addressing it, we keeping pushing ourselves to act like a superwoman to the point of burn-out and when others ask us why do you take on so much, you really don’t know the answer. You know the reasons you give yourself but even they stop making sense to you after a while but you just keep going, you can’t stop doing and you can’t stop trying.
The greatest casualty from living like this cycle is first, yourself and second, your children.
So I wanted to address this very topic today because this something that I help the Professional Muslim Mothers that I work with overcome. They go …
- from living a life of burn-out, always feeling exhausted and lashing out at their loved ones because they’re so tired and have so much on, yet they still can’t stop themselves from taking more on,
- to becoming calm, content and living a balanced life where they are not tired anymore but doing what they love and feeling happy that they don’t need to push themselves anymore.
Three Case Studies
I am going to share with you three case studies to demonstrate exactly what lies behind our Superwoman struggles to finally become good enough. You will notice a common theme, that women who push themselves hard normally do this because they hold themselves up to a standard. If they reach it will make them feel like they’re accomplished, good enough, who they should be. Let’s look at this in more detail.
1. The Highly Professional Muslim Mother who can’t say no
The first case study relates to a highly Professional Muslim Mother who is incredibly hardworking and dedicated to her family, to her community, to her parents and her parents in law.
Every week is an extremely busy week for her because every week she pushes herself beyond human limits. This leaves her exhausted and burning out every few months. When asked why does she take on so much? She says she wants to be a productive muslim working for her akhrirah. It’s all good deeds and it would be lazy not to do it.
But what is really going on under the surface when coached is that she is always berating herself for not being good enough, not seeing the good she does and only sees her mistakes and shortcomings. To compensate for how this makes her feel, she does things for other to feel better about herself. They appreciate her and for a few moments, she feels good about herself until she finds another mistake, flaw and shortcoming in herself. No amount of appreciation can outweigh her negative self-talk so she has to keep doing more and more and more just to feel better about herself.
When I coached her even further, what she found was that there was a role model she had in mind, she judged herself up against and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t be like her role model and it left her feeling like she could never be good enough.
2. The Homeschooling Mum who cooks 6 dishes for dinner by 5am oh and also works!
The second case study relates to a supermum who gets up by 5am and has cooked 6 different dishes for her family and in laws before homeschooling her children, supporting her children through their Hifz and Islamic studies journey as well, keeping together her family and her husband’s family, helps everyone with whatever struggles they have, in addition to working and having her own business and is still cheerful and bubbly through it all.
She represents a Modern Day Superwoman. Her friends ask her does she really need to do that much but she can’t stop herself because to her family, it’s how a woman should be. That’s the bar that was set and it breaks her physically to keep pushing herself to such limits. However, even after all of this, she still feels like she can never feeling good enough because a real woman does it all and doesn’t get tired.
3. The over-emotional, too sensitive child
The third case study relates to a woman who was told that she was too emotional growing up, too angry and too challenging. She grew up thinking that she was bad because she couldn’t manage her emotions and was not normal like everyone else.
To compensate for this, she tries so hard not to be herself but to be how she thinks others are; good and in control. Her emotions are what make her normal but she has been shamed to believe she shouldn’t feel them.
So now she has switched off from her husband and children for fear of being too emotional, spends her time trying to suppress her thoughts and feelings and unable to enjoy the blessings in her life because when you suppress the negative emotions, you suppress the positive ones too. Now you can’t feel love as well as pain, or happiness as well as sadness, or accomplished as well as struggling.
The more she tries not to be emotional, the more heightened her emotions become when they do erupt. This whole process is exhausting and a vicious cycle. No matter how hard she tries not to be herself, she keeps coming back to what she doesn’t want to be.
Similarities in these Superwomen
What you see from these women is that they are all struggling with who they are or more to the point, who they are not. They don’t feel like they are good enough no matter what they do but they keep exhausting themselves in trying to be other than who they were and who Allah swt created them to be.
When we fight against our natural self, we create an inner turmoil deep inside of us and exhaust our physical bodies. We become too drained to enjoy our life let alone enjoy our children.
The mistake mothers make who find themselves in this situation is that they think that the problem is who they are, that as they are, they are not enough so they keep trying to do more to fix the problem. What we don’t realise is that the problem is not in who they are, because there is no mistake in who Allah swt created us to be.
The problem is actually in the standard that we have set for ourselves in order to be good enough. The standard is impossible to reach because it represents perfection. A human being who does not get tired, who does not need to rest, who does not need anything for herself, who does struggle with her mind or emotions and who does not make any mistakes or has any weaknesses. If this is your standard, then it is not achievable for you are a perfectly imperfect human being.
By taking on a perfect version of who we should be and using that standard to judge ourselves against in everything we do, you can see how damaging that could be for us. You are not the problem, your standards are. Allah swt did not ask you to become perfect, but simply to do your best and do everything with Ihsan, with excellence, not perfection.
Sounds like an easy enough shift but the problem is that we have these standards embedded deep in our hearts, that’s why you don’t even know why you say yes to things when you know it doesn’t make sense to take on extra. Why logically you know that Allah does not expect perfection from us yet we are still seeking to reach perfection and feel like a failure when we make a mistake.
Heart-Level Change is required
These standards need to be changed at heart level because the Prophet (saw) told us that there is a piece of flesh and if that is good, then the body is good and if that is corrupt, the body is corrupt and that piece of flesh is the heart. So to change our behaviour, we have to change our heart.
The Ihsan Effect Process
This is the process that I take my clients on. It requires working at heart level to change the voice you hear in your head that and the feelings of inadequacy you feel deep within your core to aligning your standards to that which Allah requires for you. Only then will you be able to make consistent changes in your life and find balance. I call this process the Ihsan Effect. It’s essentially helping my clients learn how to become their very best in every part of their lives.
In the first ten weeks, I train these clients to remove the voice of perfection in their head, the feeling of not being good enough and the standard that they were stuck trying to meet.
The Transformation
When this happens, the professional Muslim Mothers that I work with find balance in what they do and contentment in who they are. They go from feeling like they will never be good enough to becoming happy with who they are. The chase is over. They can just live their life striving to be the best they can be rather than being someone who they are not. They leave that internal torture and physical burn out behind for a life they love.
When you take this journey, you will find yourself suddenly waking up feeling an immense boost of energy and motivation to get out of bed and start your day. This enables you to start doing the things you’ve always wanted to do. You’ll feel like you’ve been given a new lease of life. Imagine how great you’ll feel, how great you’ll look, how much you’ll smile, when you’re finally feeling like you got there and are good enough now you can peacefully go on with your life.
And that’s not enough, once we get there, I take my clients over the next six months to on a training to becoming the best they can be, to becoming an excellent wife, mother and Muslimah. With the pressure off trying to be perfect, they thrive, grow and flourish and it allows them to sleep better, start exercising and taking care of themselves, take up hobbies, follow their passion, set up businesses, spend more time with the Quran, and build beautiful relationships with their husband and children.
Who would have thought a ‘standard’ was the problem, not who they were.
So if you are reading this and thinking that’s exactly the journey I need to take, I need to change this inner voice and you can’t live with this impossible standard anymore then the first step is to book a Happy Home call with me. Let’s have a private 1-1 free 30-min call to discover what part of your standard and inner voice is keeping you from living your best life and I will share some insights with you as to how to overcome these obstacles. If it then makes sense for us, I’m going to extend in invitation for us to work together going forward.
I’ll see you on the inside!
