There was a time years and years ago when on those days of my pajama days, I had a husband. I was married two years ago, and he used to call them my lazy days. Lazy day became a word to me. Every time that I would get home from work and I would do everything right for the whole week, make sure the kids were ready for their day, make sure I was ready to work, I worked late sometimes, I was on crisis pager, and I was up all night at the mental health institute trying to help clients, and all of a sudden it was Saturday. I was like, “Oh yes, my lazy day.” It just brought down that feeling, that feeling that I wasn’t doing it right, that feeling that something was wrong with me—who wants that? I don’t want a lazy day.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I had this coach say, “Do you ever recharge, have a Veenu day?” I’m like, “I mean, I used to,” and she was like, “Well, what stopped it?” I said, “I feel lazy when I do it; I feel like there’s no time to just be in my pajamas and veg out in front of the TV. It is like I have to be doing something like time is money. She goes, “Oh, that’s interesting. Where did that belief come from? “It went honestly back 30 years ago, when I was married to my ex-husband, and it just built, and it also went into my children. My children on weekends like to stay in their pajamas, and I will say to them, “What are you doing? It’s not time to be lazy.” I talk about that inner voice; this is the inner voice I was giving her; I was saying, “Don’t be lazy, don’t be lazy.” However, when I was able to change the meaning into a recharge day, my life got brighter and bigger. Not only do I get to have my pajama days with my favorite Netflix binge watching shows, but my daughter gets to have it. Sometimes, I’ll say, “Well, are we going to get dressed today? “and she’ll say, “It’s a recharge day.” All of a sudden I celebrate that; I celebrate that my daughter understands that sometimes we have to recharge.
How are you recharging? How do you unplug and be able to light yourself back up? One of the things that we do is run on fake energy. The day that you’re done and you feel good and you sit back in bed and you’re like, “I’m exhausted!” That’s fake energy. But when you get done with your day and you sit in bed and you’re like, “Oh, today was a great day!” and you’re able to just calm your mind and calm your body and get a good night’s sleep, that’s true energy. How are you getting true energy? You need your recharge days. If you could teach yourself that now as a parent, can you imagine the influence you’re having on your kids? How many recharge days do your kids get? They may not have the same busy day that we do, but in their little minds, they are just as busy, if not more, than us; their brains are going, and they don’t know how to slow down. What if we gave them permission, even at a young age, to recharge? What if we gave them permission to learn self-care?
Listen to the full episode here:
For more parenting content, visit my YouTube channel: