Self Care is Not a Spa Day: Mental Health for Homeschool Moms

Hello and welcome to the Super Simple Homeschool Podcast. I’m your host, Jenny Hedrick, homeschool mama of 3 and mental health therapist of 20 years. Today, we are starting a new series called Mental Health for Homeschool Moms.

The goal of this series is to help you incorporate practices and habits that are both Biblically-based and designed to help you to avoid fatigue and burnout so that you can homeschool with more purpose and joy.

Today, we are going to talk about self-care. What does Biblical self-care look like? Let’s dive in.

Burn Out

As a homeschool mama, you’ve probably experienced fatigue, frustration, overwhelm, and maybe even burnout.

If you shared this struggle with a friend or family member, you probably got some advice that sounded like this: “Take a break from the kids, get a pedicure, take a nap, exercise more, get some coffee, get a massage, pick up a hobby…. Do something for YOU.” And if you are extra lucky, you probably got a side helping of guilt along with it that went something like this: “After all, you can’t fill from an empty cup.”

Okay, let’s break this down. I don’t have an issue with the IDEA that you need to fill your cup first or put your oxygen mask on first or whatever cliche thing people say when you are overwhelmed and frustrated.

What I do take issue with, is the advice on HOW to do this. Most self-care advice focusses all of your energy on YOU while adding more things to your already overflowing “to-do” list.

This kind of self-care doesn’t work because it is too self-focused. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to take care of yourself. What we need isn’t self-care, it’s soul-care.

What is Self Care?

Worldly wisdom relies on you and your ability to overcome with your own power! If you just follow this routine, or complete this daily habit, or follow these rules, you’ll be okay. It’s all about willpower. Anything that depends on your own will power will fail, ultimately leaving you more frustrated and overwhelmed than before.

Please don’t misunderstand me, healthy habits and routines are good and can help keep us on track. HOWEVER, healthy habits without a relationship with Jesus, will always fall flat.

In 2017 I was pregnant with number 3, had just closed my therapy practice and I started homeschooling my 5-year-old. I was 36 years old and for the first time in my adult life and in my marriage, I wasn’t working. I had left the working world to homeschool my kids but I didn’t fully embrace my new position as homemaker and full-time mom.

For years I tried to explore hobbies and interests under misguided attempts to “fill my cup”, only to become frustrated when my kids would interrupt me or that I couldn’t find time in my day to do what I wanted to do.

I put my wants ahead of their needs and we all suffered for it. Afterall, being an engaged parent is selfless and exhausting work!

I thank God for the events of 2020 that ultimately led to a complete shift in my priorities and thinking as things outside the home were stripped away and I was left face-to-face with myself. It wasn’t a pretty picture either. But what came from that is I realized my need to turn to Him and to rely on His provision for each and every day.

Jesus did self care?

Let’s consider the life of Jesus for a minute. Jesus was God, but he was also fully man. He CHOSE to become fully human, embracing a life within the limits and confines of a worldly body. Jesus grew tired, hungry, and experienced the full range of human emotions. Jesus had demands on his time, and everywhere he went, someone needed something from him. And he had 12 students following him around and constantly asking him questions. If you think Jesus can’t relate to you as a homeschool mom, think again!

So how did Jesus take care of himself? He spent time alone, with his Father, in prayer. In Luke 5: 15 it says “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and be healed of their sickness.” Can you imagine crowds following you around waiting for you to speak and heal them? Then in verse 16 “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

Jesus, in his relatively short ministry, often withdrew to be alone and pray. In our humaness we might think that if we only have 3 years to completely change the course of history, we’d better make use of EVERY SINGLE MOMENT, right? But Jesus was never in a hurry. He stopped for prayer.

The Wilderness

In his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer talks about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. You know the story, right? Jesus had just been baptized and his identity had been confirmed through the Holy Spirit descending on him and the voice from heaven. Whoa. Jesus is confirmed as the son of God, in front of witnesses. But instead of continuing his teaching, he leaves. He goes to the wilderness. In the wilderness he fasted and prayed for 40 days. I always thought that this would leave Jesus weak, and of course this is when the Devil steps in to tempt him. But as John Mark Comer describes this in his book, he states

The wilderness isn’t the place of weakness; it’s the place of strength. “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” because it was there, and only there, that Jesus was at the height of his spiritual powers. It was only after a month and a half of prayer and fasting in the quiet place that he had the capacity to take on the devil himself and walk away unscathed. That’s why, over and over again, you see Jesus come back to the eremos.

Eremos is the Greek word used for wilderness in the New Testament, and most simply means a solitary place. This word is used over and over again to describe Jesus’s habit of going off alone to pray.

When we make time for eremos in our life, we are recognizing that the task set before us can’t be done in our own strength. We can’t do this through sheer force of will, it can only be accomplished through God’s strength that he gives us through the Holy Spirit in the eremos.

If you consider that eremos is a quiet and solitary place, this may seem impossible. And in certain seasons it will be much more difficult than others. However, I encourage you to make this the top priority of your day.

Many of you grew up in the church, as I did, with the idea of “daily devotions” or “quiet time” imposed on you by well-meaning parents and church leaders. This many have left a bad taste of legalism in your mouth, or it may have helped you establish a good routine of eremos. Regardless, taking a legalistic approach to eremos will not fill your cup, so to speak.

Instead, see eremos as an invitation. An invitation to meet God in the calm and quiet spaces of your day. It’s an invitation to let him carry your heavy load, to admit your own limitations and ask Him to carry and hold you so that you go through your day in His strength, not your own.

Getting Alone with God

Okay, I know that some of you are still wanting to know HOW to make this possible. If you have early risers like I do, you may feel like there is no way you can find time to be alone when the house is quiet. The age of your kids may make it feel like you can’t even go to the bathroom by yourself, nevermind get alone for prayer and time in the Word!

If this is you, recognize that different seasons will allow for different things and if you are in a season of all hands on mommy all the time, this too shall pass. Make time when you can. Prioritize this over the dishes and the laundry. We have an incredible ability to fill every space with activity, so instead, pray that God will open up the small spaces in your day and give you the courage to walk into those spaces with Him before tackling the to-do list.

If you are not in that season, then I encourage you to take an audit of your day. If you are not making time for eremos regularly, it probably means that either you haven’t embraced the invitation or you’ve filled your time with other things.

I have found that my best bet at eremos, is rising early and staying as far away from electronics as I can for the first hour of my day. The draw to other distractions on my devices is too great for me. I need my Bible, a journal and maybe a physical book to aid with study. Some days, my kids are up early and I don’t get much time. Other days, I sleep in due to physical exhaustion. But most days, I rise early and start my day in the quiet, alone place in the Word and in prayer.

This routine won’t work for everyone, and it’s totally okay to figure out what works for you. Maybe the hour before bedtime works better. Or maybe you can take this time while your kids nap in the afternoon. Maybe you build in eremos for the whole family during the day. There is no right or wrong way to incorporate this into your life.

Accepting the Invitation

To truly accept the invitation to eremos, you must first accept your own limitations. This may seem obvious, but all too often I see homeschool moms striving to “do it all”. I am that mom! I regularly take on too much, only to find myself having to backtrack later, letting go of things in order to make time for what is most important.

Nothing sucks me into doing it all faster than comparison. And social media is the source for all of my comparisons. It festers in my mind like a tick that won’t let go. In fact, just yesterday I found myself going down a rabbit hole that had me believing I needed to completely change everything we are doing in our homeschool. I mean, seriously??? I love how we homeschool- it took 8 years to figure out what works well for us and 20 minutes on social media and I was completely second guessing myself!

Knowing your limitations is recognizing that you are a unique person with unique gifting for your actual children. Some other homeschool mom might do something that works great for her family, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it too! God made YOU for YOUR kids and YOUR homeschool.

Now, when I get all swirly about what I’m not doing or think I should be doing, I can remember that I can’t do it all, and that I’m not meant to do it all. After all, I am NOT enough, but He is. And I have full access to Him and all that He has for me in the eremos.

Self Care for the Homeschool Mom

So what does self-care look like for the homeschool mom? By now I hope you can see that while a spa day might do you some good, it certainly isn’t the way to care for your soul. And you definitely don’t need more things on your to-do list in the name of “putting yourself first”.

Instead, recognize your own limitations. You are human, afterall. When you recognize your limitations, you will be more eager to tap into the source of your strength and well-being.

So accept the invitation to eremos, and be strengthened through the Spirit who gives you everything you need for today and every day.

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