Getting Centered on Rough Days
Need to go to your happy place?
Little Boo woke up every two hours last night (and I was up with her), and this morning as Hubs was wading through the mess on his way out the door, he tossed back a comment, “maybe we should just go to sleep as soon as the baby does, and that way you have a chance of being more rested in the morning.”
This comment slays me. Every time.
Because, (as I explained for the third time,) if I wake up with the baby and go to sleep with the baby, and spend all day with the baby… there is no time for me to be an adult. Except MAAAAYYYBE the 45 minutes I can eek out at naptime. Which, of course, is time already spoken for, 3 times over.
I surveyed the mess and the silhouette of my partner as he walked towards the door, trying not to be jealous that he would get to spend the whole day without having food thrown at him by an angry toddler. Feeling resentful that he had slept through the night while I had been up at 11pm. And 1am. And 3am, and 5am. And then the thought swept over me, along with a wave of helplessness:
“I just don’t think I can do this today.”
Parents, does this ever happen to you? If you said no, I’d suspect you were lying. Being overwhelmed is part and parcel of parenthood, and, if I were feeling reflective (which I am), I would say that the biggest lesson is to be learned in terms of what you do with this feeling when it comes up.
The biggest challenge for me is recognizing when I feel overwhelmed. I don’t often have such clear signals as I did this morning. Everyone reacts differently.
After having this thought, I turned to a favorite centering activity of mine, which is (liz layne’s) 5 Deep Breaths practice. I closed my eyes and took the breaths and looked inside myself, at the exhaustion, the weariness, the drudgery. And I made a conscious decision to soften myself to it. Yes, this would be today. And yes, I might not feel up to facing it. But the day is here and happening now, so show up in the best way you can. Put on those big girl panties and deal with it.
I opened my eyes to Boo rather roughly pulling the cover sleeve off of a favorite book of mine. But instead of following my first instinct (to snap at her), I took another breath and asked if she would like to hear the story. And you know? She nodded, yes, and curled up on my lap. And we read the story.
This led me into another centering practice which I have been trying to be more regular with, which is the Daily Gratitude practice. It’s another simple thing with a profound impact. So I tried to think of three things which I was grateful for in that moment. (Hmm, Coffee, Coffee, and Coffee??)
The day is far from over, and it might be that I repeat this exercise over and over today. But at a minimum, I feel more centered and balanced, and I have the distinct feeling that today… I can do this.
