I am anxious. My heart is pounding. My breathing is hard and I just got done with a mini breakdown and a few tears. I had a moment. We all do at some point. You know. That moment when you realize maybe you are handling it a little irrationally. Moms get it. It happens more often than we probably like to admit. As moms we are expected to have it all together. All. The. Time. But the reality is we don't. And if you say you do I'd venture to guess you are either lying, you have a lot of help or you are in denial. You know what I'm talking about. The days where you hear 'Mom', or in my case 'Mom Mom', every five minutes. Or is it seconds?? When as soon as you sit down or get into your space, again...'Mom!' And every opposition, every objection, every response that is difficult feels like a personal attack.
Today I went to the ugly place. I crossed the line to ugly and regretted it immediately. I realized that what may have started as me just looking for cooperation and not getting it ended up being me going over the top and getting unreasonably reactive. I mean, I actually got into an argument with my husband about the whole situation and there may have been a door slammed and a huge moment of regret for me. What happened and what led up to it is not as important as my moment of clarity on why it happened.
In the midst of it all after slamming that door and feeling that regret, I realized I needed to step away. I needed to take a moment for me. I stepped out onto my front porch (since right now it is an unseasonable 67°) and sat down to just breathe. Yes. I took a few moments to center myself. Once I stopped the tears of regret I closed my eyes and brought myself back to my present. I did a little grounding activity, paid attention to my breathing, relaxed every muscle, listened to every sound around me, felt the breeze, smelled the earth, and thought about how I felt and why I went to the dark side. And the reason was simple. I need clarity.
I need to realize I am enough.
I need to focus on my priorities; self-care, family, goals/dreams, my job.
I need to stop second-guessing myself.
I need to stay positive and remember that my actions make a difference.
And I need to stop overthinking every single thing. Overthinking is something I do all the time. and it is so damaging to a positive mindset. I've done it at the gym and at work and now I'm doing it at home. When you overthink things as much as I do it starts to seep into everything you do. And eventually, it turns into negative self-talk, doubt, and what happened today. As I sat on my front porch and thought about what was making me anxious I realized it had nothing to do with what had happened. It didn't even have to do with my husband or my grandson. I was anxious because of my own lack of clarity and focus. I was anxious because I had 100 things to do and hadn't accomplished one of them yet. So when you're feeling this way and a five-year-old wants to argue with you the reasons why he shouldn't need to use the bathroom after saying he had to go you have little patience for opposition. To say I was frustrated and didn't handle it well would be an understatement.
So here I sit in front of my computer with a small child curled up next to me trying to snuggle, get my attention and apologize all at once. And to try to explain to him that I've been overthinking and second-guessing myself would be difficult if not impossible. My husband, on the other hand, had to run an errand after I lost it and slammed the door in his face. For him, an apology seems simple. Say you're sorry. Admit you lost it. Tell him you are overwhelmed and overthinking everything. Or maybe just tell him to read this post (wink, wink).
But how do I keep from losing it again? How do I stay centered? I already know how. I know that you need to be intentional and have goals, set a road map to reach those goals and stick to it. I've learned that with my workouts and powerlifting. I've learned that with both my master's degrees, I've learned that with a lot of things. But when it comes to juggling the personal parts of my life, I have not taken on the same philosophy entirely. But today I realized something. I realized it is necessary. I need to map out my goals for my family and home, and my relationships. I need to have intentions that help me keep my focus. Most importantly I need to remember that I can't control the actions of others. What I do need is to set intentions for how I react or deal with the actions of others when things don't go as expected or planned.
When you live with intention you significantly increase your chances for success. Intentions give you higher levels of clarity. And when things are clear it's easy to stick to the plan and be successful. Intentions improve your ability to focus. Having clarity will help you stay focused on what (and who) is important and take the right actions. Intentions help you stay calm and confident and be present so you progress faster towards what you want. The higher your clarity and better focus will determine your actions and your consistency in doing the right things. And intentions will help you keep perspective. Which is what I did today. We all have bad days. Sometimes unexpected, or sometimes we are completely blindsided. But if we can keep perspective instead of making assumptions or creating false meaning and making unreasonable accusations, we can always reconnect to our intentions that will help us recommit to what's important, while keeping our eyes on the big picture.
