Firstly, this is not a wellness program for people with time and energy.

This is for the parent who sat down for the first time at 9.47pm and is already dreading tomorrow.

The one who can’t remember the last morning that didn’t start in a rush.

The one for whom “self-care” has started to sound like a joke told by someone who clearly doesn’t have children.

The Stoics didn’t sugarcoat human difficulty so neither will we.

Marcus Aurelius wrote his private notes from inside exhaustion, did you know?

He wrote while dealing with campaigns, grief, plague and relentless responsibility and what he returned to again and again was not a 12-step protocol but a handful of small repeatable actions that kept the ruling faculty* intact when all else was draining it.

This is what this plan is.

Small, repeatable and built for the life you actually have.

The rule?

Remember this is not about being a hero, do whatever you can, when you can and focus on the fact that one thing is not nothing.

Before we dive into this daily plan, we will look at just three easy principles.

These will be the load-bearing walls. Everything else sits on them.

This is not a cliche but a Stoic observation about capacity.

Epictetus was clear:

You can only give what you have - so depleting yourself completely will not make you a better parent, just the reverse, it will make you less present, less patient and less effective.

Tending to yourself is not selfish.

It is maintenance of the only resource your children actually need most - you, functioning.

Think about that for a moment.

These are small things but if you are coming from a state of exhaustion, then they are your best efforts from that state and again, one thing is not nothing.

A small thing done consistently rewires a life.

A large thing done once does not.

On the days when everything falls apart, do one item.

On the days when the children are unwell, skip the structured parts and hold the principles.

This plan is a tool, and tools exist to be used.

Let’s begin.

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