You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

I was brought up in the era that shouted ‘women can have it all!’ I used to think that was an empowering message, but my lived experience left me feeling the exact opposite.

It feels as though in some ways feminism has shot us in the foot and the message has got confused. Instead of ‘women can do anything’, now ‘women should do everything’. It’s such a dangerous message, for so many reasons;

Sense of failure - Trying to do everything is an impossible mission, and so when you eventually fail at the impossible mission you will feel like a failure and likely lose your confidence. There are physically not the hours in the day to have a full-time career and be a full-time mother, wife, cleaner, daughter, sister, and friend, whilst also staying healthy, fit and post on social media about all of that too! 

Burn out and illness - All the empowerment messages keep you going, so for months, years, decades we keep trying to do it all. Eventually the exhaustion and stress leads to illness. There’s a reason Gabor Maté’s research found that autoimmune diseases predominantly affect women, due to the ‘female load’.

Overwhelm and isolation - When it’s all too much we turn inwards. We just do what we can to cope, the bare essentials. We protect our energy reserves by staying home, not socialising - that’s a downward spiral and a perfect storm for mental health issues to take hold. 

Men lose their place - It’s not only women’s mental health at risk. Men are out of a job. They are no longer needed as providers, so often feel emasculated. But they cannot be pregnant, give birth, breast feed or be ‘mummy’, so men are left feeling like they aren’t useful. This leads to low self esteem, loss of confidence and eventually depression. Male suicide rates have never been higher. 

Things HAVE to change. It’s damaging everyone. I don’t want my kids to expect women to do everything. It is not healthy for anyone to be told they can do everything. It's great to think you can do anything, but ultimately to enjoy anything wholeheartedly, guilt free, you do have to choose.

I learnt that the hard way and want to save any other females from going through the challenges that I did. When I unexpectedly fell pregnant with Lenny (whilst I was on the coil) I had signed a contract to open a new studio in Edgbaston. Covid hit the following week, we were held to the terms of the contract and were not eligible for any grants due to the configuration of the lease, totalling over £60k that I owed. I was pregnant with my first child and in Covid for the first time. My husband's company also had to fold. The pressure was on for my businesses to provide at a time when no one was allowed to enter a yoga studio. It was an incredibly hard time and it’s taken a long time to build my businesses back up, whilst raising my children. We were in survival, and stayed that way for years.

Thankfully, we have now come out the other side, my businesses are thriving, my husband has rebuilt his business too, we have bought our own house, we’ve had another baby, and are fortunate enough to afford nursery for some of the week. I’m so proud of us. I look back and wish that someone had said to me, ‘you can do anything, but you can’t do everything’. I probably wouldn’t have listened but it would have been nice to understand why. Choose, not because you have to but because it will mean that you can be at peace and enjoy your role, instead of being spread so thin that you feel like you don’t do anything well. Being a mum to young children is time you never get back, something to look back on with fondness not with regret, the opportunity to build a business will always be there.  I know full well that in reality it’s not that easy, cost of living these days doesn’t facilitate for one person to stay at home to look after the kids, most households need two incomes to stay head above water. I know it’s not quite as simple as choose, but I do think we can move the needle in a healthier direction through a change in psychology and expectation.

Something that has really helped Adam and I navigate this new normal (where women work as much as men but women are still expected to do the majority of child care), is revisiting our weekly routine on paper and actually splitting childcare and household chores 50/50. We share pick-ups and drop-offs, cooking, laundry, the lot. I’m incredibly grateful that he is forward thinking enough to embrace that. He heard me when I said it's not fair, because it wasn’t fair and isn’t for so many women - but you can take practical steps to re-address the balance. Be the change you want to see in the world. 

We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.