Jennifer Wallace

Now, at this point, some of you may be thinking, the problem isn't that I don't matter, it's that I matter too much.

At home, at work, what you wouldn't give to matter just a little bit less.

Am I right?

Well, this too can be thought of as a crisis of mattering.

True mattering is not about stretching ourselves to the breaking point.

It's about balance, balancing our own needs with the needs of others.

For years, I have personally struggled to find this elusive balance.

And then I read a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic that showed me how.

Researchers there were testing a simple intervention to strengthen resilience.

They recruited a group of medical professionals, and they had them meet for one hour a week to share their struggles and to support one another.

After three months, the researchers found significant improvements in these participants' mental health and well-being.

Their cortisol levels, the stress hormone, had dropped.

These women also reported feeling like better parents.

Why?

because as caregivers, when we are surrounded by a strong network of support, we've become more resilient, and that resilience ripples out to our kids.

This is not an isolated finding.

Decades of resilience research find that a child's resilience is rooted in the resilience of the adults in their lives.

And adult resilience is rooted on the depth and support of our relationships.

Now, as caregivers, we're often told, put your oxygen mask on first.

But this research revealed something deeper to me.