Moms, Lessen Your Stress - Take Care of Yourself First says Men Are Easy author Lynn Rasmussen

As Mother's Day approaches, in their busy, challenging lives, mothers may be feeling a normal, temporary, but distressing, loss of sense of self, the effects of the disappearance of tradition, and the lack of basic skills to handle these challenges. Stress is a natural outcome. Men Are Easy author Lynn Rasmussen offers advice and hope.

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 10, 2007 -- Stress is lessened when Moms take care of themselves first, says Men are Easy author Lynn Rasmussen (www.menareeasy.com). When women redesign their lives, the whole family is happier.

Before takeoff, flight attendants announce that in an emergency, parents should put their oxygen masks on first and then put the oxygen masks on their children. Why? Women need to care for themselves, says Men are Easy author Lynn Rasmussen, before they can care for anyone else.

If you want to provide a great life for your family, you have to first feel good which requires taking care of yourself. But how can you care for yourself first when there's so much to do and when you are overwhelmed?

Life coach Lynn Rasmussen was a mom 20 years ago. "I had perfect. Perfect house on the ocean in Maui, two perfect children, a perfect husband, perfect work, friends, travel, and I was miserable," says Rasmussen, "My husband and I were running around the block, doing, doing, doing, and I didn't even know who I was any more. I felt so guilty for not feeling good in my perfect world."

She says she and her husband almost divorced, but, in spite of everything, "we got it together and we're still together.""

For women today, Men are Easy offers stressed out wives and mothers hope. They may be experiencing three concurrent events that are getting in the way of their happiness:

1. A normal, temporary, but distressing internal chaos. "After our second child was born, I had a loss of sense of who I was. A complete chaotic brain reorientation and upgrade was going on, but I thought my husband and our life was the problem. He wasn't and it wasn't," she said.

Betty Friedan described this feeling in my mother's generation, says Rasmussen, as the "problem with no name" and attributed it to a lack of women's awareness and rights, to women feeling trapped in mommy roles.

"Motherhood puts us through a shift in sense of self and a shift in relationships with others that is physiological and real," says Rasmussen, "These chaotic times happen throughout life but too often we--and our young children, teenagers, college age kids--are diagnosed and medicated instead of supported through normal transition times. For adults, too often divorce is the outcome."

2. The disappearance of tradition and the lack of something to take its place. As traditions have changed, we are now having to figure out how to eat, exercise, parent, partner, spend, work, play, everything on the run.

"My suburban middle class mom didn't have that problem. The roles and rules were pretty clear for her but she had a much rougher life. In the 1950s my mother expected dentures by 40. Heart problems meant disability and early death. A wreck caused by a drunk driver was an "accident." Abuse and depression were faults of character to deal with in the privacy of your own home. So much for June Cleaver," said Rasmussen.

3. A lack of basic life skills for what's going on. The culture demands a new set of skills and a higher level of functioning. The old systems of support -- schools, health care, business/work -- are inadequate or just wrong.

This life requires more creative, open relationships with men. It requires ignoring what people are selling us and identifying what personally has value. It means reducing the lists running through our heads, eliminating the adrenaline lifestyle, getting our needs met, and aligning our lives with our values. It means creating our own systems of support while we go. It means imagining how ideally we want to live and to feel and then going in that direction.

"This is life as a design space," says Rasmussen, "I wouldn't have my mother's life for anything but I've had to figure mine out from scratch. I don't want that for my daughter."

When you don't have a grip on what's going on and you don't have the skills, it's stressful. When you do, it's an adventure.

For answers on how to rid yourself of stress and chaos and start taking care of yourself, get a copy of Men are Easy or go to www.menareeasy.com.

Media Inquiries, please contact Nanette Noffsinger at nanette @ burkehollowmedia.com or 615-776-4230.

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