(Editor’s Note: This is the 2nd post in our series introducing new ventures being done by women in our ministry. While supporting their efforts, we hope these posts offer practical help to you and those you love.)
It took 18 long months for my oldest child to start sleeping through the night. There were weeks where I was sleeping in 20-60 minute spurts and barely staying awake despite the IV of coffee I lived on. I was in pure survival mode. The last thing on my mind was how I could serve God by making disciples and serving others. All I could focus on was when I could catch a nap and how to be needed the least amount possible by others. I knew this couldn’t be what God intended motherhood to look like, but I couldn’t see a way out either.
Over the past several years, I’ve had conversations with dozens of women who also feel lost in motherhood. They are drained by the constant demand on their time and attention. They are overwhelmed balancing pouring into their children and doing tasks for work and home. They know what needs to change, but knowing is not enough.
Thriving Over Surviving is a 4 week long course, conceived after taking my own deep dive into discovering the false beliefs keeping me in survival mode. I love and value having autonomy over time, but I found myself using my freedom to binge Netflix while the laundry and dust piled up. It felt freeing to tell Gilmore Girls to play on, but I was left feeling anxious when I looked up at all the tasks still lingering. In order to avoid the anxiety I would just play another episode.
Cycles like that continued until I realized the belief driving that behavior. I believed that filling my day with more tasks would leave me feeling trapped and hopelessly depleted of what precious little energy I had. The truth is that by completing the tasks, I would eliminate the anxiety felt by looking at the unfolded laundry. This energized me to start living my life instead of enduring it.
My Thriving Over Surviving course includes 2 live teaching sessions, 2 group coaching sessions and a workbook, each designed to help women discover the beliefs holding them in chaos and survival mode so they can be freed to live in God’s purpose for their life. When we recognize the lies we believe (about ourselves, God and the world), then filter them through the truth of his word, we can start to live out of our true identity in Christ.
If joining, you would be in a group of 5-7 like-minded women meeting online via zoom. The next class starts May 6th and will meet every Thursday in May from 12-1pm. Sign-up begins April 22nd and is through my website www.phoebebarron.com.
There are seasons of life that require us to hunker down and get through it, but we are not meant to get stuck there forever. I want to help as many women as I can get out of the stuck and start to thrive in serving God and others.
Meet the Author!
Phoebe is a therapist in private practice at Bethany Counseling Center, mom to Vivi, Charlie, and Harris and wife to Jeff. She speaks and writes on the integration of faith and mental health as essential to living in our identity in Christ. She enjoys nonfiction books, Disney movies, and, like any good millennial, is a coffee and pen snob.
This blog is meant to further the conversation about mental health and is not intended as medical or professional advice.
