Surviving Monday As a Projector Mom

I am most exhausted on Mondays.

Not after a hard weekend. Not after a late night or a packed schedule. Just... Mondays. While everyone around me is hitting the ground running, I’m slithering out of bed wondering why all of my energy is gone before the day even started.

Monday is moon day. It’s introspective, emotional, slow by nature. And as a non-sacral being, I feel the collective pull of what Monday is intended to be. In previous seasons, I’ve built my life around the idea of slow Mondays. No clients. No appointments. No commitments unless they were really worth it. I still remember that my first date with my husband was on a Monday… and I almost said no in the name of: I don’t go out on Mondays. But I guess that invite was too good to resist.

Then kids arrived, and Mondays stopped caring what I knew about my energy.

To feel like I have to do the holding, when I’m really just yearning to be held… that’s Monday as a mom. And today was the most Monday-est Monday yet.

This morning I could not peel my eyes open. My husband wasn’t feeling well and had been pushing through all weekend, so I had every intention of getting up with the kids. But when 5:15 rolled around and my daughter was sitting up in her crib, I just couldn’t. She’s a Manifestor — and as a fellow non-sacral I understand the gift of waking up slowly in your own space. And in the midst of taking my time to get her up, I fell back asleep.

All of a sudden she was running into my room screaming mama mama!! And as much as that is the most adorable, joyous way to wake up, I just could not get myself going. It felt nearly impossible to get out of bed. And sometimes that happens. There are just some days, or even weeks, where I don’t have it in me. Even if my cycle is telling me this should be a peak energy week. I just can’t summon it.

And that’s frustrating… to not know what you’re going to wake up with, capacity-wise. Because as a Projector, a non-sacral being, it’s incredibly unpredictable.

So we’re having a morning. All the normal things we’d do to fill the time didn’t feel doable. And at some point I walked past the guest room and heard this little whisper in my head: move that mirror.

I had a floor-length mirror leaning against the wall. I know. I know that’s a big no-no. But I heard the voice… and I kept moving. I was busy. I was already in this headspace of, this day is shitty. And I’ve decided this entire day is going to be shitty, so I just blew right past it.

Minutes later, I heard a scream and a crash. I rushed in to my daughter, and the mirror, on the floor. Thank god not on her. But it broke the door of the guest room and she was freaked out. Of course she was. It was terrifying. I came running in and she was okay, but she was shaking and she wanted to be held and I just held her and sobbed. That could have gone so wrong.

My son walked in: What happened?

The mirror almost fell on Cece.

Why?

Because I’m an idiot. (I wanted to say but refrained.)

And I just don’t get why sometimes I don’t listen to that voice. Because every single time something happens, I can look back and go— oh my god, that little voice was there. Warning me, telling me, guiding me, attempting to protect me. And there I was, not listening, because I was so fixated on the fact that the day was shitty that I couldn’t slow down enough to hear it.

Later I decided we needed to get out of the house. My son had been asking to go to the mall all morning. There’s an arcade there and he’s been fixated on this tow truck prize that requires like a hundred thousand tickets. I’m trying to explain to a three-year-old that we cannot get a hundred thousand tickets in one day, and that we have to save them up, and he is not hearing it.

I did not want to go to the mall. Instead, I have this fantasy — one that’s been nagging at me for months — where I just put the kids in the car, pack a little picnic, and drive into the mountains. Maybe I bring the dogs. Sometimes the thought hits me while I’m already driving somewhere, like to the gym… on a Monday, and I’ll hear this whisper: just keep going. Don’t get off at this exit. Just keep driving.

And every time I think, oh, that’s silly. I don’t have a plan. I’m not prepared. Maybe next time.

Maybe next time maybe next time maybe next time.

Twenty-five minutes and we’re at a trailhead. Twenty-five minutes and we’re all barefoot in a stream, collecting rocks, listening to birds, completely forgetting about everything. I live in the Rocky Mountains. There are trails and rivers and streams that are so alive right now and so available to us and they are literally calling me. The whisper is there. Constantly. Literally begging me to go.

But I don’t listen.

So we got in the car to go to the mall, and the second I pulled out of the driveway the voice was there: don’t go to the mall. Go to the mountains. And I thought, but my son wants the mall. Do you think a three-year-old is going to be disappointed if we end up at a stream he can play in all morning? No. He’s probably going to forget that tow truck ever existed.

But I kept driving toward the mall.

All morning I’d been doing this low-capacity dance with my son — threatening him, using the mall as a dangling carrot — and he was so hyped up that by the time we were in the car he was almost falling asleep. My daughter was already asleep, decompressing from the mirror incident. And then when I told him… for the 100th time that we weren’t getting the tow truck today, he threw a full water bottle at my head while I was driving and it exploded all over me.

I turned around.

And here was my moment. We were already in the car, already out of the house. I could have just kept going the other way and driven twenty-five minutes to the mountains. That was it. That was the opportunity.

I didn’t take it.

How much longer am I not going to listen?

Because these are just little things. Little reminders. What am I waiting for? Something big? Why does it have to get loud before I hear it? Does the mirror have to fall on someone before I listen?

Why am I making it wrong to feel low energy on a Monday? Why does the day automatically have to be shitty just because I woke up without it in me? What if I just... let Monday be what it is? What if I made a different choice inside of that instead of doubling down on the narrative I’d already written for the day before it even started?

I think there’s a mental adjustment I can make on a Monday. When I’m aware that this isn’t going to be my high-energy day— can I prepare for that? Can I make a different choice in advance? Can I listen before something falls?

I don’t think this is actually about Mondays. I think it’s about listening. About slowing down enough to actually be able to hear. About honoring my energy, and following where it’s taking me.

As a Projector, I’m not meant to keep up with the energy around me. Especially on a Monday. So what am I doing? Trying to fit in, and then making myself wrong when I inevitably can’t keep up. Maybe it’s not even about adapting. Maybe it’s about choosing an entirely different path in the face of what I’m being told my day, or life, should look like.

The mirror is moved. Next Monday I’m taking the other exit.