Center for Workplace Happiness

This past Sunday was Mother’s Day. It’s a lovely holiday designed to let moms relax for one day of the year while being appreciated and pampered. It’s a day that features flowers, favorite foods, gifts, and maybe even a macaroni necklace designed by a 3-year-old. Can AI ever replace those? (Please don’t answer that!)

What about the other 364 days? Most moms are working moms, not stay-at-home moms, who were the norm when Mother’s Day came into being. Working moms have two careers – their job and their child or children – and neither one can be back-burnered.

So, if one person has two careers, neither of which can be neglected, what lands at the bottom of the to-do list?

• Self-care.
• Hobbies.
• Passion projects.

The very things that feed the soul of the working mom get neglected due to lack of time and energy. During the pandemic shutdown, many or maybe most working moms found a way to better balance their various responsibilities, and some were...

She is revered. She is vilified. She is someone that most of us took for granted, not realizing that she was a person with a life, hopes, and dreams before us, and plans for her own life that didn’t necessarily include us. She is Mother and this Sunday is her day.

Relationships are difficult at times, and many people have difficulties putting their “Mom relationship” into perspective. For those of us whose moms are no longer alive in a physical body, this week can be tough, and for those who resent or even hate their moms, this week can be even harder in many ways. All that serves to make this week before Mother’s Day a challenging one for many of us to find emotional peace and balance. It can be done, though – the same tools that help you put other things into perspective work for this, too.

Neuroplasticity came into being as a field of study when doctors watched patients re-acquire skills lost after a stroke. Researchers studied the process our brains...