Motherhood changed everything for me. I knew it would. What I didn't fully anticipate was how quietly it would begin to dismantle my sense of self.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. But in the daily accumulation of needs, logistics, emotional labour, and the exhaustion of nurturing a life that is fully dependant on you - I found that the version of myself I'd been building for decades had become... quieter. Buried under the weight of a life that was full in every outer sense, yet hollow from the inside in a way I couldn't quite name.
I was still performing well at work. I was a present mother. But somewhere between those two identities, I had started to disappear.
The Load That Has No Name on the Org Chart
The 'invisible load'. In case you’re living under a rock, the mental and emotional labour of running a household, anticipating everyone's needs, managing the cognitive understanding of multiple highly demanding lives simultaneously - falls disproportionately on women, and particularly on working mothers. Research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies consistently shows that despite decades of progress in workforce participation, the domestic mental load remains heavily gendered.
What this creates in the body and psyche is a specific kind of depletion that isn't addressed by a better planner or a more efficient morning routine. It's a depletion of self. Of the parts of you that exist outside your roles.
For me, what interrupted that pattern wasn't a mindset shift.
It was colour.
A box of colouring supplies during the pandemic that cracked open something I'd been too busy to notice I'd closed.
The act of making something that was entirely, unapologetically, for me - not an artwork that looks pretty or is useful, not productive, not for anyone else. It was a form of reclamation I hadn't known I needed.
Why Creative Practice Is Different from Other Self-Care
A lot of the self-care conversation aimed at mothers involves rest – and I agree, rest matters.
But rest alone doesn't restore identity. What creative practice offers is something more specific. The experience of being the creator of something, with your bare hands- purely to express something non-verbally helps you get in touch with your inner most emotions. The pure act of having an idea, expressing it, and seeing it take form in the world.
For women who've spent years having their time, attention, and energy allocated by others' needs, this is quietly profound. It restores agency.
It reconnects you with preferences and instincts that have gone quiet. It reminds you that you are more than what you do for others. It also helps you identify the baggage you’ve been carrying for others and offers techniques to visually, metaphorically and psychologically let go of that baggage.
At Venus Art Bench, I work with women who are navigating exactly this territory - not as a departure from their lives, but as a return to themselves within them. We together create self-care toolkits that are designed specifically for them, with the thought in mind- identifying small, accessible, meaningful practices that fit into a real life.
You don't need to disappear into a retreat or take daily salt baths to find yourself again.
Sometimes you just need ten minutes, a paintbrush and permission.