Grace Matto was the mother of a newborn baby when she and her husband divorced — but the Central Coast woman had no intention of slowing down.
The 39-year-old said despite the split, she was still going full speed ahead, working full-time and and attempting to find balance between three important aspects of her life — work, socialising, and motherhood.
She soon found herself constantly plagued by illness, after the self-care regimen she stuck to religiously during her pregnancy began to dissolve.
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That’s when she said, “the true burnout happens”.
“Of course having a newborn is exhausting, but I think where it really shifts into the potential for burnout, is when you try to juggle (that) with work and socialising,” Matto told 7NEWS.com.au.
Matto, who lives in Copacabana, NSW, said she now realised that the birth of her now three-year-old daughter Goldie had led her into a “sharp pivot” away from prioritising herself.
“When you’re pregnant, people tend to focus on self-care, you’ve always got healthcare professionals, family, friends, and loved ones encouraging you to take that time,” she said.
“There is an emphasis on it during that period, and then kind of a sharp pivot when that baby arrives.”
“I’ve always had the inclination to exercise and take care of myself, but there was a year or two there after having a baby where some things just slipped away.”
She said she found upon motherhood that people-pleasing tendencies, once subtle before birth, became magnified along with the emergence of “sublevel biological programming where you put the needs of your child before your own.”
With sole custody of her child, and working full time as a creative assistant at an interior design firm, Matto said she was “running on broken sleep for a number of years.” “You go to work, and then you get home, and (it) ain’t over,” she said.
However, it was when she found herself hit by “recurring sickness” with only several days between bouts of illness, Matto said: “That’s the point where you say ‘OK something’s got to change here’.”
A shift back to self
This was the tipping point for Matto, forcing her into a badly needed lifestyle shift.
It would require some “reprogramming and reconditioning,” she said, and, most importantly, “not feeling guilt about taking time for myself.”
That could include making your peace with paying for a babysitter and simply taking yourself for a walk or going and having some kind of beauty treatment, she said.
“I (now) go to the gym, I make time to get my exercise done at least four or five days a week. My daughter doesn’t love it, but she comes to the crèche, and that’s just something I do for myself.”
“She has to slot in there because I know that I’ll be a better person, a better parent, and a better friend if I take that time for myself.”
“One thing I also tried to do was to go to bed a little bit earlier because there is that trap of trying to stay awake at night just to try and get that me-time, but it’s not really the right type of me-time to get in.”
“The folding of the washing can wait, take that early night, get that sleep. Your mental health and wellness is more important than housework, or even work, really.”
“Just allowing yourself to see that housework and go, ‘No, it’s more important for me to just sit here and have a cup of tea and take a moment for myself’.”
Before her lifestyle shift, Matto was among the seven in every 10 Aussies whose priorities get in the way of being able to relax at home, according to new research by YouGov on behalf of Starbucks At Home, which launched National Fill Your Cup Day on Wednesday.
The study, which surveyed 1,017 Australians aged 18 years and older in July, found that one in five Australians said the last time they took a day to ‘fill their cup’ — essentially taking time out for self-care — was more than three months ago.
One in eight admitted being unable to remember the last time they did.
Australian comedian and television personality Em Rusciano, an ambassador for the campaign, said: “My cup has cracks in it and the handle is broken.”
“Life continuously finds a way to actively stop me filling my cup. I think the idea of self-care has become so exhausting that we’ve even begun to avoid that.
“Sometimes all we need is a day at home, in our PJ’s watching one of the Real Housewives yell at her family. This movement, the idea of filling your cup, appeals to me because it’s so achievable! And so desperately needed.”