I see you moms. You’re carrying a lot of plates. Your children. Your work. Your family. Your life. Everything. You are carrying more plates than anyone should expect to carry. I know it’s hard. I know it feels like you aren’t doing a good job at any of those things. But the truth is you’re amazing.

You’re carrying those plates and they are heavy. And you’re still pushing forward. You’re tired. I know. It’s exhausting.

You will get stronger.

But you also have to learn how to hand off some of those plates. You have to know when you’ve tried too much weight and when adding one more will be the one that will strain you too much.

As a mother, your identity shifts. You have another human or humans to care for. Your understanding of who you are will change. Your priorities will change. Your past self is a part of who you are, but it’s not who you are anymore.

And you’re awesome.

And now I’m going to do my favorite thing and mix metaphors:

You have to learn how to weed your garden. The things that don’t enrich the soil? Gone. The things that strangle the fruit? Gone. The things that help the plants but only in small doses? Regulate. Protect your garden.

Protect yourself. If you give and you give and you give all day long, you are depleting yourself. There will be nothing left to give at some point. You have to find the things that enrich your life so that you can give when you need to. It is ok to take a walk by yourself. It is ok to ask for alone time. It is ok to go to the gym. It is ok to do something that you–and only you–enjoy doing.

Because that’s the thing, you have to care for yourself or eventually no one will be cared for. You can’t be empty and continue to give. When you do that, you move on the negative axis; you accumulate exhaustion, frustration, anxiety, resentment, anger.

Dear moms out there, I encourage you to find things that enrich your lives, to eliminate the things and people who deplete you, and to communicate your frustrations, your emptiness, loneliness, anxieties, to those close to you. To ask others to carry some of your plates. To find communities who can support you. To let yourself feel your feelings.

I don’t know if it’s ever not hard to be a mom. But I do know that when we allow our needs to go unmet, we’re heading down a dangerous path. Prioritize. Minimize. Optimize. Boundaries–ok, I just wanted to make that one fit. The point is, don’t try to do everything, master the art of “no,” and let people know when they’ve asked too much of you. Don’t let them minimize your feelings or persuade you that your feelings are wrong. Let that be your red flag.

I’ve got you, moms. Make sure you’re enriching yourself too.