A Day in Her Life
Meet Kara Renninger, busy mom of four growing kids with varied needs who is working full time and starting her own business.
Kara’s typical day starts with getting up before all other five members of her family.
She showers, does at least one load of laundry, washes all the dishes and puts everything away, makes a protein shake, and fills her water cup ‘most days’. She states, “When I’m doing good, that’s my self-care.
And THEN I have been trying to meditate if there is time. This morning I had the epiphany of ‘No wonder you don’t do it every day,’ because by then it’s meeting time.”
Kara described her days as reactionary. They are based on things her family needs, current worries, stress over her day job, etc. Much of the day is spent in work meetings and driving kids around. “Then I just get tired. I feel exhausted usually.”
In the evenings, everything ramps up for round two of the day. As the mom of older kids, they all return from their activities wanting to talk and everyone needs things. “That’s how my day goes. Right now, my day is based on emotional decisions.”
A Slap in the Face
Kara is new to self-care. She is trying to be conscious of scheduling her day more and including time for herself.
She has recently learned meditation and feels a definite difference on the days she’s able to practice it. Not only does the meditation itself make her feel better, but she has also noticed it carries over to her day in other ways. On the days she meditates, she is much more likely to take breaks when she feels stressed and to drink more water.
Kara has multiple health issues from stress. They make it even harder for her to manage everything on her plate. She says, “I’m at that point that it’s a crisis, where my body doesn’t give me what I need to handle the stress.”
She feels she must work a high-level, stressful job to afford all her kids’ needs because a lot of it isn’t covered by insurance. After 20 years in high-stress jobs, it’s become too much. It’s even harder now with everyone doing school at home due to COVID.
She says it’s now a ‘slap in the face necessity’ to take care of herself.
Get Real and Be Honest
Kara was enticed to join Flight Club by the notion of letting go of guilt. This is one thing that set the program apart from other things she’s seen.
Flight Club is a group I run to teach a variety of self-care techniques to parents of kids with special needs. In the Club, we learn a technique, then, most importantly, we learn how to really implement it into our incredibly busy and stressful lives.
Kara shares, “It helps so much to be surrounded by people who understand my life. What appealed to me about Flight Club was learning from someone who has lived the reality of my life, not just telling me what I should do. It’s easier to get real in the group and be honest. I have to have someplace where it’s ok to feel the losses of my parenting journey and say ‘I am not good’.”
Before joining Flight Club, Kara says she just made things work and never thought about herself. Flight Club has opened her eyes and shifted her mindset about putting her needs first. It’s made her realize that she’s allowed to make herself a priority.
Advocate for You Too
Kara’s personal and professional experiences led her to start her own business called Aligned4Learning. It is not your typical advocacy organization. Instead of advocating for parents at school, she empowers them to advocate for their child themselves.
She teaches parents how to speak the school’s language so they can advocate for their child with confidence and without fear. And she gives them a safe place to practice those skills before they need them.
Kara hopes to grow her advocacy business so that it can support her family’s needs and give her more flexibility to enjoy taking care of herself. I teach her that we have to advocate for our needs too!
Learn to Fly
The doors to Flight Club are open! I only let in new members a handful of times a year so don’t miss your chance.
Flight Club is a circle of new friends who understand you and your life as a special needs parent. It includes:
· monthly guest self-care experts,
· live implementation sessions so you can be successful at integrating the new technique into your life,
· easy, actionable assignments for follow through.
In Flight Club, you emerge from the hard work, transformed, just as the butterfly from her chrysalis.
The doors will close for membership on February 26, just in time to join in on our March self-care theme of meditation. Register here.