I am sure a lot of you can relate. By the end of the day I’m often really scraping the bottom of the barrel. My patience, my energy, my acceptance, tolerance and love seem to be vapors. When the last of the …”I need a drink, I need the toilet, I’m not tired, I’m hungry, It’s too dark, it’s too bright, they won’t be quiet, I can’t sleep, my sports uniform is dirty and I need it tomorrow” are done, just the thought, of another child at the top of the stairs, is enough to send my blood to boil!
Because you know the thought is enough. Our amazing brains can create the same emotional intensity with just the thought, the memory. You get the same chemical cocktail in your brain as though it is really happening. So we don’t even need the real event. We can just think about it and it’s real in our minds and bodies.
So I land in a heap on the couch and release a sigh. I take a moment for myself to just be at peace. I glance over and there are my daughter’s sneakers and dirty socks on the end of the couch. I say to my husband, Her stuff is just everywhere! When I ask her to put it away she says ‘sure’, only to move it from that spot and put it down in the next room.
The frustration starts to mount in my mind because those shoes represent something. We give meaning to everything, nothing has inherent meaning, we choose what it means for us. It’s how we make sense of our world.
So unconsciously those shoes mean: I’m not a good mother because I can’t get my kid to put her stuff away. I have a lazy child. I have a distracted child. She’s never going to remember. How is she ever going to look after herself when she’s older. She’s going to lose everything when she’s on her own. I’ve made so many mistakes raising these kids. I don’t put my stuff away and she’s learned it from me, Or my husband is lazy and doesn’t put his stuff away, it’s all his fault…..we assign meaning.
We create fears for the future, blame from the past and in our body those feelings are like it is really happening. If we dwell on it, how do we feel? If we feel that way how do we think, if we think that way how do we feel, and so the loop goes on. All this often happens under the surface, unconsciously, and in seconds we have created a feeling that can loop for as long as we allow it….
My husband bless him just looked at me and said: “Those shoes won’t be there forever”. Nothing has any meaning except the meaning we give it and we can re-frame that in a second. Those shoes have sat there all night and all day and when I look at them now they mean I am blessed to have this beautiful child and I feel love and gratitude. Now that is something worth dwelling on x