CPC guest post: Phoenix rising
Today's post is by Wajeeha Nadeem of Enchanted Letters
Hello and welcome back to Creative Parenting Club. Whether you’re reading this newsletter in your email inbox, or finding us for the first time via the Substack app, we’re excited you’re here.
Today we’re pleased to unveil a brand new newsletter format which we’ll be featuring regularly going forward: guest essays from parent writers in our community.
We hope that CPC will become a place where creatively-inspired parents can not only connect with each other, but also amplify and support one another’s work. Our spirits have already been lifted from some of the great writing being shared in our Creative Parenting Chat this week. Check out the latest chat threads here including reflections by
on being an immigrant parent-turned-schoolteacher; a story from about developing creative expression while growing up with deafness; and an interview by with the modern classical music composer Alstad, touching on family life and the creative process.
You may well be hearing from some of these writers in this newsletter going forward. In the meantime, you can check out their work and subscribe to their publications through the chat. Feedback and support is always encouraged!
And if you’ve got writing you’d like to share with the community, please feel welcome at any time to start a chat thread of your own.
Now, on to today’s guest essay.
When we first connected with
, we were intrigued by her story: a new parent-turned-successful food blogger building a full-time career online. For many creative parents, this sounds like the dream. For Wajeeha? With the arrival of her second child in 2018, the pressures of internet food blogging became a long and difficult journey eventually leading to a burnout, from which she has recently emerged with her new Substack publication .As Wajeeha articulates below, the metaphor of the mythical Phoenix is a fitting one for so many aspects of parenting. For those of us feeling various levels of stress and overwhelm from juggling all the things, the experience of burning out and rising from the ashes is especially real: even if it’s just to take our 2 year-old out of his crib once again at 6:30 in the morning.
Here to tell her version of the Phoenix tale in her own words: please welcome Wajeeha.
The Phoenix Within Us
By
,“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” -Confucius
—
I’ve always been fascinated by the mythical creature Phoenix. But I only realized that it’s the perfect symbol of resilience when I became a parent. Similar to the phoenix, we also crash and burn. Then we rise from the ashes, for our children. Every single time we fall, even if we don’t want to, we get up for our children.
Perhaps that’s what parental magic is. We keep showing up, no matter how bone tired, shattered, and burnt out we are. We keep showing up even when our own dreams are at risk.
But this is not a story about how I was the most amazing parent, it’s a story about my personal failure. You see, when my firstborn turned one, I was ready to do something that was just for me. I loved my daughter to bits and pieces, but somewhere along the way, I’d lost myself.
So in late 2015, I launched my food blog, which went on to become my second baby. I was still sleep deprived, but with hard work and pure grit I was able to attract ample traffic to the website, and within a few months my blog was monetized. I was finally doing something just for myself, doing the two things I loved most, writing and cooking.
Great success
My blog rose from nothing to a full time career for me. I worked from home, but in between looking after my daughter, I was constantly testing recipes, taking pictures and writing posts with details on how to nail the recipe for the very first time. I was basking in full glory.
For a few years, I had it all. I did struggle with the growing workload, the hustle, but that was just the way it was. That’s what I told myself anyway: it was all going to be worth it in the end. Little did I know the end was nearer than I thought.
In 2018, we welcomed our son into the world, and I was nervous but still hopeful that I would be able to manage the blog along with two kids. I also had help, so I wasn’t too concerned. But I think that’s when like a phoenix, I started gradually losing my feathers, my abilities to go on and do everything. I wanted to have it all, but to have it all, you need to give it all. With two young kids, I didn’t have much left to give. But I kept giving and giving, draining myself in the process.
Along came covid, and suddenly my blog went completely sideways. I couldn’t manage having everyone home all the time, not to mention the fear of all the unknown things a pandemic would bring. I would post new recipes, but not as consistently as before. But the blog was on autopilot, because I had spent years laying a strong foundation for it. However, the guilt of not working on the blog kept eating at me from the inside.
Back to normal?
When things started going back to normal after the pandemic, I went back to posting recipes too. But the food blogging industry was a cut throat industry, and there were always more and more requirements piling up to show on Google search and different social media platforms.
And I felt myself crushing under the weight of all the things I needed to do to run a food blog, along with being a mom. I slowly let it go, ignoring it, but the guilt kept eating me from the inside.
The guilt of not being able to do it all. I had it all, why was I ruining it myself? Why was I self sabotaging myself? Why had I given so much of myself to everyone else, and not left much for myself? Those were the questions that swirled around in my mind like a stormy tempest, taunting me, hurting me.
Eventually, I crashed and burned. I gave up any notion of going back to posting on the blog. I was done. I had finally been engulfed by fiery burn out, and my dream went up in flames. Nothing but the ashes of my once beloved dream remained. I allowed it to happen because at that point I could either be a good blogger, or a good mom. Not both. I had to make a choice.
I chose to be a good mom. I would have always chosen to be a good mom, because nothing is more important than my own children. So, I chose to let go of my beloved dream. Maybe it was no longer a dream anyway, because it had put me through many nightmares over the years.
I spent a couple of years, recovering from burnout, and just focusing on being fully there for my children. I no longer felt pulled and stretched in different directions, and for the most part I was at peace with my decision. I still felt the ache of loss. And a voice in my head would nag me again, and again that I had given up. That I was a weakling. That I was a failure. That I had quit.
But I know better now. Like the phoenix, that was just my first life, and I wasn’t truly gone forever. When I started my Substack, an ember of an idea, a dream long lost came roaring back to life. My life long dream of becoming a writer, one which I had wished for since I was 8 years old, came back. Out of this spark my newsletter Enchanted Letters was born, and became a beacon of hope for me.
It’s all going to be ok
Today I’m finally living the life I was meant to. I’ve finally found the courage and strength to work towards my dream of becoming a published writer, while also being a parent. And since my children are older now, and both go to school, I am able to keep a balance between my passion and motherhood. I hope to continue.
But I know there will again come a time, when I’ll crash and burn, due to one reason or the other. This time however, I know it won’t be the end, and I’ll come back stronger once again.
Because that’s what phoenixes do.
Many thanks to Wajeeha Nadeem for today’s guest post.
If you’re interested in sharing your own guest post with the CPC community, let’s talk! You can reach us either with a DM on Substack, or by replying to any one of our email newsletters including this one.
We’ll be back next week with our next parent interview.
In the meantime: have a great weekend, and keep on rising.
 | A guest post by
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Thank you so much for this opportunity, I really enjoyed writing this piece!
and thanks for mentioning my blog too, @creative parenting club