I was having dinner with my girlfriends the other night.
We have been friends for many years.
Two of us have three kids under the age of 9.
We have similar backgrounds and lifestyles.
We love to yell.
What I really mean to say is that we have similar pain and emotion expression.
They just don’t teach you this in school
Take a breath.
Just take a breath…in that moment of tension.
As a mom of young children, there are times when it all comes to a head. The energy is boiling and it’s right at the surface and it feels as though our whole being is about to explode.
There is fighting between siblings, crying, yelling or no one is listening to the directions…
…the direction I didn’t create, by the way:
“I didn’t invent darkness and nighttime. I didn’t create the human body so that it needs rest and sleep at night. I know you don’t want to, but can you please get your pj’s on?!”
Something I am working on
Taking a moment…
Instead of yelling, when the frustration overwhelms us, sitting with that feeling and letting the energy be whatever, be where ever it needs to be.
Yelling feels good.
In the moment.
But then I realize that over time, it doesn’t leave for very creative (or fun!) solutions.
It is but ONE tool we can use to release our energy.
It’s like having a book shelf full of books and choosing to read the same one over and over. You may love it, but it gets boring.
That is yelling for me.
It just gets boring.
And it gets boring for me to play mediator as my daughter yells at her brother to move out of the way because he is blocking her watching a show…or whatever the fight is.
At the end of the day, it’s about our good soul
If nothing else….
….if I screw everything up as a parent all day….
Here is what brings me back home to my heart.
My son lays his head down on his pillow, and I have the real boy. The full, vulnerable heart. He is not fighting with me or his sister. He is simply being. Love. Softness.
I tell him,
“We are always good in our hearts. Our soul, our spirit, our heart….the essence of what makes us…. us. We are good. We have God in our hearts and for that, we can never be bad. We can only ALWAYS BE GOOD. Our choices, however, are not always good.
We are going to make mistakes EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is part of being human. It’s part of living here on earth.
But we will get back up, dust ourselves off, and keep going.
Just like when you are running outside and trip and fall. You aren’t going to stop playing. It might hurt and you might cry. But you get back up and keep playing.”
We must remind ourselves that we are running parallel with our children.
The lesson we so diligently want to teach them, we are learning ourselves.
Except Common Core… don’t worry about those lessons.
Why are we here?
In his dreary state, my 5 year old boy asked me,
“Why do we have life?”
I told him, “So we can learn about ourselves and share love and help others. And have fun.”
“Why did God make families?”
I told him, “So we can have people who love us, to help us. Everyone needs help.”
The real deal is that we are on this journey together.
Our kids are here to help us, and show us. When they are having a hard time, we are having a hard time. And that’s ok.
Things will move from that moment and then it leaves space for a new moment.
And it can be fun!
When you feel stuck in the same pattern with your kids of yelling, fighting, arguing about the same things, take a new book off the shelf and start reading.
It creates a new memory and a new path is carving for your trek. And you walk it together.
Diagnosis during pregnancy 