We can all have crazy, bad, shitty, unproductive, chaotic, unfocused days occasionally. Maybe, more often than not, with child/ren in toe! Days where you may only chip away at a few tasks on your extensive, unrealistic ‘To Do List’…therefore dragging all your ‘To Dos’ over to tomorrow (yet another ‘To Do’ on your list of ‘To Dos’!) with you and gathering a few more along the way! Why not!?
Sometimes the crazy chaos can even arrive uninvited, throughout your day…from one moment to the next. One blissful moment, feeling warmth and love radiating out of your heart to a crazy…insane…’is this really happening?’ moment. Where things feel like they spiral out of control, and you have no chance of finding that calm happy place you are so eager to envelop. Yep…not going to happen!
Yes, your day, your hour, your minute, your second can change in a heartbeat. Like a thief in the night that has stolen your precious jewels. That moment of love/joy/expansion that you desperately wanted to hang onto…vanishes into thin air.
Where emotions can get the better of you and you lash out, you yell desperately for someone to hear you (as your child/ren are not listening!). To hear your pleas…someone please listen, hear me…see me…notice me…acknowledge me…see all the work I have done, yet it can fall on deaf ears and there is no one out there to hear your plea in your moment of need.
My Sunday began like this. Naturally, at the crack of dawn. It was time to go to swimming lessons…I rushed to get ready and make pancakes for my son (after his request and my toing and froing of ‘should I or shouldn’t I make pancakes?’. Naturally, I succumbed to the request).
Eventually, we got to swimming and my daughter refused to put on her ‘happy nappy’… (seriously, who would not be happy wearing a ‘happy’ nappy!?). We danced to and fro… in and out of the water, trying to get just one foot into the ‘happy nappy’… but to no avail, it just was not going to happen today.
I noticed my thoughts going back and forth, like a drama scene. From frustration, to understanding, from control to surrender, from upset to calm, from blame to that’s just life. The loops of thoughts were looping around, making me confused and dizzy. I felt my exhaustion as the mental tug-of-war continued. My mind was jumping from one side of the fence to the other with no clear solution or way out of the haze.
It was at that moment… I knew I had a CHOICE to stop the chaos in my head and surrender to the madness I felt, knowing that soon ‘it too shall pass’. The only control I really had was within me. What I chose to FOCUS on and how I would ACT (or react) in that moment.
OK, I could have continued down the rabbit hole and looked at it as a complete disaster, been angry, yelled at my child or tried to forcefully get her happy nappy on (I mean swimming lessons aren’t cheap!), not taken NO for an answer, felt resentful, then continued the anger and frustration into the change room. Then felt more anger and upset… allowed the wave of guilt to suffocate me and take over, sucking out any kind of joy and making me feel like shit inside and out, taking me on a long guilt trip that could continue for the whole day, which would ultimately suck the life out of me and take away any fun/happy moments that were there for the taking. But seriously, that’s my shit!
