Hey Mama!

How are you doing?  How is your wellness?

When was the last time you were able to truly work on and invest in your well-being?  

If you're a working mother, its possible that the answer is quite some time, or much longer than you'd like to admit.  I have something I want you to consider.  

Women are powerful, but we hold the most power when we work together.  If you've struggled with not feeling well, difficulty prioritizing your needs, or not taking care of yourself, its possible that you are in need of community and support from other women to help.  

Please join me (Dr. Amber Thornton, Clinical Psychologist, Personal Development Coach, & Wellness Consultant) and 5 other EMPOWERED women on a journey together by joining
Balanced Working Mama: Empower Wellness. 

While you may not be able to have as many in person gatherings at this time, you should not forget about the other ways to be social.  Continue to call and text your family, friends, coworkers, and other significant people.  Consider using Google Hangout, Zoom, FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, GroupMe and other tools to communicate and even video chat.  This is likely an ideal time to reach out to that person who you’ve been having trouble making time for or that person who you haven’t caught up with in so long.

Bonus Tip:  Schedule time for socializing just like you would any other work-related or important meeting.  You may find that other tasks or priorities can easily fill up your time, so make socializing from afar a top priority by scheduling it into your day and week.  

Whenever life changes rapidly, i.e. during a global pandemic, you may notice that you lose track of your schedules and routines.  Developing and maintaining routine is healthy because it helps to ward off uncertainty, anxiety, boredom, or even depressive moods.  Schedules and routines keep us engaged in the moment, and helps us to anticipate what is needed and how to prioritize tasks.  

Therefore, I highly recommend that you determine what your new schedule and routine will look like.  It's possible that this will be different than what you’re used to because you may now be working from home or spending much less time outside of work or home.  Therefore, take the time you need to ensure that your new schedule and routine is reasonable, realistic, and adaptable to future changes that may come. 

Bonus Tip:  When you figure out the schedule and routine that will work for you, make it visual and tangible!  The schedule and routine you create will be much more effective if you write it down, print it out, post it, or put it up somewhere.  Make sure that your schedule is visible for you to see so that you are more likely to stay on track. 

You may have wondered if it's okay to talk to yourself.  I want to let you know that it is absolutely okay to talk to yourself and it's something I recommend.  Healthy self-talk is necessary during moments of crisis or challenging situations because your thoughts will likely feel more negative, fearful, or tense during those times.  

One thing you must know is that healthy self-talk takes practice and something you should work on every single day.  It's normal for this practice to feel awkward or forced at first, but the more you practice, the better and more natural it will feel.  

Additionally, I want you to understand that positive self-talk is not always healthy self-talk.  Therefore, as you practice self-talk, remember that it does not always need to be overly positive (which can sometimes feel invalidating).  The goal is to practice healthy self-talk, self-talk that will support your mental and emotional well-being without invalidating your current reality or feelings.  

Bonus Tip:  If you are having trouble knowing what counts as healthy self-talk, try the following:  

Remind yourself of what is going well in your life.
Remind yourself that current challenges will not last forever.
Ask yourself to recall a happy memory.
Tell yourself you are doing a good job.
Think of someone who inspires you.
Remind yourself of something you are proud of. 

​For many Black women, motherhood means learning how to navigate and balance both our passion for being mothers along with our passions for our work and careers.  With Black women continuing to be the most educated group in the United States and so many of us being caretakers for children, it's no wonder that we may struggle to find resources and spaces that meet our unique needs.

Being a mother has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life. I love spending time with my son.  Watching him grow and learn has been amazing! Being a psychologist is the other most rewarding part of my life and it’s hard to imagine who I’d be without being able to help others.  Being a working mother has allowed me to have so much compassion and empathy for the unique struggles of other mothers who passionately work and care for their children.  We need support, guidance, validation, and the occasional “I see you sis!” 

Here are a few strong Black women who are dedicated to creating space for Black working mothers. 

​Jasmine Chanelle is a mama who is passionate about inspiring millennial moms to have it all.  “I teach female entrepreneurs how to craft meaningful brand stories to attract their dream clients. I help my clients find their authentic voice and develop strategic tactics to share their brand across digital platforms.”

Jasmine is incredible at highlighting “what it takes to be a boss in the boardroom and at home.”  She is popular on Instagram, YouTube, and has recently launched the Mom2Mogul course for working mothers who are ready to devote to their online businesses full-time. 

Did you enjoy this article? 
Don't forget to share it with another amazing working mama. 
​We see you, sis! 

“I’m too busy” is a phrase I hear often and a phrase I’ve even said to myself when I was having trouble moving forward with something.  The reality is that we all have so many tasks and responsibilities, and it makes sense that we might feel overwhelmed or overworked at times.  With that, you may still be wondering how to make the best of your busy schedule so that you can still move forward with your goals and responsibilities. 

So how do we make the very best of our busy schedules?  Here are three things you should do.

​The first thing to do is to find out what you are doing with your time.  If you have never taken inventory of your time before, you may find that there are pockets of time throughout your day or week that may need to be modified.  It's possible that during that time, you are watching TV, or scrolling on social media, or in general doing something that doesn’t align well with your goals and priorities.  While these are not bad things, instead it's likely that you may be doing some of these things in excess and can reduce time spent doing them.

The second thing to do is to make a decision on the things that don’t matter, and to discontinue or reduce time spent with those things.  In other words, the things that do not align with your goals or priorities should not take up so much of your time.  For example, if you’ve taken inventory of your time and realize that you are watching TV 4-5 hours of your day, or have been on social media for a similar amount of time, you might find that reducing or discontinuing that activity will give you more time to devote to other things. 

If you’re having trouble deciding what should be discontinued, really ask yourself this question: “What are my goals and priorities right now?” 

​Ideally, the things you spend the most time on should align well with your goals and priorities.  

The final thing to do is to begin to prioritize the things that do matter.  In other words, do more of the things that align well with your goals and priorities.  After you’ve taken inventory of your time and discontinued the things that don’t matter, you will likely notice that there is more time than you realized and it can now be used for the things that will truly move you forward.  

Are you feeling ready to form better habits and work toward your personal development goals?  

To book your personal development consultation or talk more with Dr. Amber Thornton about personal development, book your FREE 15 minute consultation here.  ​

Are you feeling ready to form better habits and work toward your personal development goals?  

To book your personal development consultation or talk more with Dr. Amber Thornton about personal development, book your FREE 15 minute consultation here.  ​

Now that we know willpower is not enough to form new habits, I want to talk about two more strategies that can help you to form and continue to strengthen new habits.  

​Yes, rewards! No, they are not just for children.  Rewards can be a very healthy and strategic way to help you to form a new habit.  Research tells is that immediate rewards are excellent for helping to reinforce a new habit.  In other words, when you engage in a new behavior and you want it to become a habit, rewarding yourself immediately after engaging in the behavior will help your brain to learn that this is a good thing to do and that you should keep doing it.

For example, if you want to create a habit of drinking more water and you plan to reward yourself at the end of the month for meeting your water goals, the likelihood of you meeting this goal is low.  This is because you are forcing yourself to wait an entire month to experience the rewards of all your hard work.  Instead, I would recommend that you reward yourself more frequently.  Ideally, the reward should be small, frequent, yet enticing enough to keep you motivated and encouraged about your new habit.  

One trick that works extremely well is “temptation bundling”.  What this means is forming a new habit by bundling the behavior you want to become a habit with something you already really enjoy.  The trick?  You are only allowed to engage in the thing you really enjoy when you are actively engaged in the behavior you are working to make habit.  

Another example:  If you want to develop a new habit of exercising and you know that you love listening to a particular podcast, that means that when you exercise, you will be able to treat yourself by listening to your favorite podcast.  However, you are only allowed to listen to the podcast while exercise.  

Temptation bundling takes a bit of self-discipline, however it is extremely effective and will definitely help you to form and strengthen that new habit. 

Are you feeling ready to form better habits and work toward your personal development goals?  

To book your personal development consultation or talk more with Dr. Amber Thornton about personal development, book your FREE 15 minute consultation here.  ​

​It is completely a myth that new habits are formed because of willpower.  We often hear people say “I just don’t have enough willpower to make this change.”  Well...that's not entirely true.  The most important thing to consider when attempting to form new habits is the actual science behind forming new habits.  

The thing about habits is that they are very automatic and unconscious.  We generally don’t think much when we are engaging in our most solidified habits, which is why it has very little to do with willpower.  That is the goals when forming new habits.  We want this behavior to become automatic and unconscious, and there are many researched based strategies that can help us achieve this.  This article will talk about two strategies that will help you form a new habit. 

​The first thing to consider when attempting to form new habits is the level of difficulty.  If there are a lot of barriers between you and the change you want to make, or if there is a lot of friction while you are attempting to make this change, then the likelihood is that this change may not form into a habit.  It's best to think about how to take the level of difficulty from high to low.  How do we remove all the barriers that live between you and this change so that there does not need to be a lot of excessive effort.

For example, if you want to form a habit of going to the gym more frequently, you should choose a gym that is 1 mile away from your house instead of the gym that is 10 miles away.  This is because it is easier to get to the closest gym.  In this scenario, time and distance are barriers and we want to eliminate them as much as possible. 

Another example- If you want to form a habit of drinking more water, you need to make sure you have a water bottle readily available to you at all times.  You shouldn’t leave your water bottle downstairs or in a different room.  Keeping the bottle or other means of accessing water nearby makes it easier to actually consume the water and removes any barriers related to inaccessibility to water. 

The second thing to consider when attempting to form a new habit is repetition, or how repetitively are you engaging in this change.  If you are only engaging in this new changed behavior once a week, once a month, or even less frequent, the likelihood of this becoming a habit is very low.  However, if you are engaging in this new change frequently, i.e. multiple times per day or at least once a day, then the likelihood of this change becoming a habit is even higher.  So repetition is key!  We want this change to be something that is occurring over and over again until it becomes more automatic and unconscious.  

Are you feeling ready to form better habits and work toward your personal development goals?  

To book your personal development consultation or talk more with Dr. Amber Thornton about personal development, book your FREE 15 minute consultation here.  ​

Are you feeling ready to better manage stress and work toward your personal development goals?  Check out the video below to learn more about personal development consultation and how it may help you in meeting your personal development goals! 

To book your personal development consultation or talk more with Dr. Amber Thornton about personal development, book your FREE 15 minute consultation here.  ​

It's really important for us to have BOUNDARIES.  
​
I know that we are hearing that word a lot more now.  Even with the topic and idea of boundaries becoming more popular, sometimes we still aren’t sure where to start when it comes to setting healthy boundaries.

The very first step we need to take when learning how to set healthy boundaries is to learn where our boundaries need to live.  It may sound simple but it can be complex. It's important to take some time out to learn where our boundaries are so that we are able to effectively communicate them to other people.  

What I encourage you to do is take a moment to reflect on all the things that feel good and all the things that don’t feel good.  As you notice things that do not feel good, that is an indication of where a boundary may need to be set. For example, if you notice that you attend events late in the evening and starting to realize that you don’t enjoy being out that late, maybe that means there needs to be a boundary set around when or what time of day you will attend those types events.  
​
As you start to learn more of what does and doesn't feel good for you, you then get to decide whether you are going to set a boundary or not!

1. Take one full week to reflect on events, moments, situations, relationships, interactions, etc. do and do not feel good.
2. Keep a record of the moments during that week that do not feel good, or that feel uncomfortable, etc.
3. After the week ends, look over the list you have created and decide what may need a new boundary set around it.  

I hope this helps you as you begin to set new healthy boundaries in your life!