I have to confess I used to panic in
chaotic situations because I was raised
in a family with a history of
obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child
home was a place of color coordinated
organized closets and a spotless living
spaces I felt safe
I laughed in the house of my childhood
memories I was raised with a philosophy
that been a structure is what you need
to become successful and I believe this
because throughout my life I saw my mom
building an academic career while
raising four kids so proud of her every
morning before breakfast my mom would
have made us to stand up in front of the
refrigerator to memorize the schedules
of the day and the weeks to come
so technically I have learned to follow
schedules at age of four as you can
imagine building a career as an IT
project manager was the most natural
path for me I love my job because it's
about providing a structure to project
teams it's organized system base just
the way my mom even liked it when I was
ready to become a mom I wanted to
replicate the house of my childhood
memories I wanted to have my son to feel
safe and lost in the same way I did so I
asked the specialists my mom to help me
with this project so she came and she
color-coordinated and organized all my
closets and she even made an inventory
of all the baby shower gifts I feel so
safe and everything was in control that
I was so happy when my son was born
I wanted to be like my mom and keep up
their organized life style but I felt
like many moms I was sleep deprived the
bed even get made the kitchen wasn't
clean and I couldn't keep up my
color-coordinated organize closets as
soon as my son started crawling he
became the chaos machine he started to
get all the clothes out of the laundry
baskets and if I clean up all the toys
in less than 30 seconds they were back
again in the floor he fell like a
hurricane just passed by messing up my
house and my emotions I feel like a bad
mom because I wasn't following the
advices that my mom told me to how to
raise a child and at the same time I
feel terrible for not being emotionally
present with my son I was exhausted of
feeling guilty of not being able to
control my chaotic life feeling no
present with my son made me sad I
realized that having big expectation of
what motherhood should look like me
for building a meaningful connection
with my son it took me time to
understand my boy because I didn't know
who I was
like many moms I was trying to follow my
mother's advice with good intention
because she's great but her Parenthood
style wasn't helping me because I wasn't
my mom and my son wasn't me at that
moment I was an impostor to my child I
needed to explore ways on how to connect
with my unique son in unique ways
I needed to explore who I was as a mom I
remember I stood up there in the chaos
my taller left behind on the floor and I
was wondering what could I do to embrace
this new phase of my life without
feeling I was losing myself Annette and
then I remember someone told me someone
very inspirational whenever to
experience a hard moment there will
always be something to smile about it
and that moves me so trying to find the
smile in my chaotic life I started to
take pictures like this and then I got
the courage to share it through my
colleagues and friends and to my
surprise they were not horrified by my
chaotic life instead they showed me tons
of compassion and then later I ran in a
survey that 92% of moms
fill a stress about having people over
just because their house is not as clean
or organized in the way as they want it
to be so the feeling that I was gonna
learn on this motivate me to explore
ways of how to connect with my son so I
decided to gather all my pictures and
started a personal project that I call
the happy Explorer project to explore
the chaos my soul scales and ultimately
my chaos I wanted to have my camera
helping me to understand my son's
perspective in life I wanted to connect
with his world and be part of it I
wanted to feel and sense what he was
experiencing when he was exploring life
for the first time
the first thing I noticed when my son
was in a chaotic room
he wasn't judging himself or anything
else he was in the now he wasn't asking
himself why aren't my Legos
color-coordinated or where I my toys man
was instead he was calm he was walking
around the room picking up all the
objects he will find interested and he
started playing without having a
concrete plan in mind then he started to
explore fearless all possible ideas
until something new and creative will
come up and when he had the ha moment he
was bored I was inspired by this and
slowly my messy hum is stop feeling like
a war zone stead I started to feel like
I was living in an art studio by
allowing myself to be present I was
experiencing the creative thinking
process of my son the best teacher I
stopped seeing chaos instead I started
to see magic my messy home I started to
become a still-life toy compositions
that was inspiring me to write little
stories that I will read to my child
some of the stories my child didn't like
it very much like this one the last word
of the yellow fish at the end of the
story the fish died and he hated it he
gave me the feedback to become aware of
writer and as a result we started to
build together the intimate diary of
children's tale
where we will celebrate our creativity
together I stopped seeing my son's
friends like naughty guys instead I
started to see them as little artists
young artists who were coming to a party
where I was the waitress and the
security guard before when children's
were playing silently hiding in a room I
was freaking out because I thought they
were sitting on my house on fire but the
happy explorer project helped me to
understand that if this happened true
collaboration is happening kids were
learning how to share ideas and word
together and I was so inspired to see
that at the end when they finalized
their projects they were celebrating the
results together it was just beautiful
but wait a minute sometimes the kids
didn't like the Lego tower they built so
no problem they will knock it out
destroy it with pleasure
I'm from the mess they will start all
over again I was inspired by my son's
friends and my son's ability to keep
calm in chaos explore opportunities fail
ask for help and stir again this not
only helped me to connect with my son
but with myself professionally I started
to be more Styria in chaotic situations
but personally I started to connect with
my loss inner artist I used to be a
cellist playing the cello has been the
greatest joy of my life but more than a
decade ago I got assaulted in a train
station in the Netherlands my left hand
got badly injured it was painful
and I stopped playing shallow because I
lost myself in this traumatic experience
but they have explorer project journey
give me the willingness to explore the
most vulnerable to step into chaos
try ask for help fail and with a lot of
mistakes it slowly-slowly from my broken
self I started to play it shallow again
from zero two years ago and you know
what if thought great
let me confess you something else I'm
not saying that chaos is better than
order or visa versa
in fact I'm teaching my son to
appreciate a recession because this
skill has been a great asset in my life
but my unconditional love I fell for my
son is teaching me that chaos is also
part of life that I have to assert
myself and also said that I will
continue making mistake because I'm not
a perfect mom to understand that this is
a never ending journey to learn my son's
perspectives on life to explore new and
creative ways to appreciate each other
from who we truly are thank you
[Applause]