TILT – Review and Giveaway

While at Mom Com in Austin I went into a session with Marci Fair.  At first I was not sure I would get that much out of it because Marci is a classic “working mother”.  She has a career outside of the home, helps spearhead a charity that she founded and she is  busy with those commitments as well as the ones to her family, which includes a husband and four children.  But as Marci presented and spoke I realized her message was universal, for all of us mothers, whether we work outside of the home, at a traditional “9 to 5” job or not.  Marci and I are both multi-taskers.  So, after I realized that I knew I would get something out of her talk.

Marci has written a book that enlightened me quite a bit.  It is called TILT – 7 Solutions to be a Guilt-Free Working Mom.  Again, even though I do not currently “punch a clock” I still have certain commitments to those clients I photograph and the blog posts I promise to write, and so, in a way, I do have some of the same issues (and it seems I may always struggle some with how to juggle my time and tasks).  She outlines a way that we can conquer this guilt as she weaves stories of other mothers within the book.  She also highlights precious quotes that she has recorded, from her own children for years, throughout the book.

 

 

Marci’s main tenet is this,  Balance is impossible; We must learn how to TILT instead. 

Some days you may have to give your career more attention and TILT in that direction, since you have to travel that week for your job.  Other times you may have to TILT towards your family if someone is sick or needs you present at their track meet.

From the beginning of the book, Marci encourages mothers to have dreams and to be an example to their children that they can have dreams too.  She advises the reader to break their life goals into six different buckets and to have goals for each, including: Relationship Goals, Spiritual/Emotional Goals, Health Goals, Personal Goals, Financial Goals and Professional Goals.  I think these are all so good to focus on and this philosphy has really stuck with me and helped me to outline goals of my own.

Jumping forward, I also really like the last chapter of Marci’s book in which she talks about the importance of sharing motherhood wisdom with each other, since we really are all walking the same path, even if we are going in slightly different directions.  We are (for the very most part, I believe) all trying to raise kids to be stable, able adults who can make their own dreams come true someday.

Like I said above, this book is really for every mother, “working” or not.  Marci gives beautiful insight into what it is like to juggle it all and still enjoy it.  The chapters in this book encourage us to keep up with our dreams, as mothers and to let go of certain things that just do not matter.  Her words tell us to find what inspires us AND our children and run with it and at the same time SHE inspires us to remember that love is paramount when raising our children.  She also reminds us that our children will carry the experiences they have as children with them for the rest of their lives and our job is to give them wings to fly.

 

As an aside, one of the things I loved that Marci showed us during her talk at Mom Com was how she laminates drawings and other things her children give to her.  I happened to be carrying around a paper napkin from a restaurant in which G had drawn a picture of him and me under a rainbow and also written, “I love you Mommy”.  I told her I was going to get it laminated ASAP.  Thank you for reminding me to cherish those little tokens that are actually really big to our Momma hearts, Marci!

 

Marci really is a mother with a heart of gold and I was immediately drawn to her and this book.  You can purchase a copy of TILT and I am also offering a reader a signed copy that she gave me at Mom Com.   You can enter below.  I promise you WILL get something out of this book.  After all, we are all working mothers in some way! 

 

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