Yesterday morning I lost it. Totally. Utterly. Completely. Lost my cool. I threatened to walk out even before I served breakfast. And it was only 7.20am! The kids had only been up for an hour!
Why?
Because the Sunday Family Day Breakfast I had just spent an hour making (we make a special deal of Sunday Family Day Breakfast) was rejected by our 3.5yo son even before he had sighted it.
Yep. That did it!
My behaviour rocked the house. You see, I am usually the cool and calm one. The glue. But yesterday I came unstuck. I think for a few short hours Israel got a glimpse of what it was like for me when he was in the midst of his depression. And for our poor children, they must have thought they were in a nightmare. My 8 year old daughter was crying because she didn’t want me to leave and our 3.5 year old was just wailing because I was ignoring his pleas to make him another breakfast.
Of course, the real reason for me losing my cool was not because our son rejected my breakfast. The root cause was in fact because I was / am emotionally drained and have not had any down time for myself in over a week.
Usually my day starts at 5am when I get up and write and do things for The Root Cause, then at 5.40am I turn off the office light and head out for a short run, take my shoes off, put my feet in the ocean and do my affirmations. Then I am back by 6.30am just as the kids are rising. These simple acts of self care and self love are what keeps me cool and calm. They are good for my health and my soul but all this stopped over a week ago because of a number of circumstances.
My brother who has been living overseas for 20 months was flying home. He was arriving at 6.05am on Saturday morning and I had committed to pick him and his girlfriend up and bring him home. The day before my Dad and Step Mum arrived to stay for the weekend so they could spend some time with my brother. And in the background lurking was a whole lot of mother anxiety. Our little guy was having a 2 hour operation on the Monday and as much as one tries to stay calm about that, it’s never really far from top of mind. How will he go with the anaesthetic? How will he cope being in casts on both legs for 4 weeks? I hope he isn’t in too much pain. I would do anything for it to be me having this operation for him. And so on…
Fast forward to the day of the operation and it all went extremely well. In fact, he has bounced back superbly even though he has casts on both legs and requires my help to get him to and from places. But here’s when the slippery slope of self care neglect really started to happen. Between Monday and Tuesday, I had the equivalent of 2 straight hours sleep. For the first night I slept next to him holding his hand whilst he fought sleep despite being on morphine and pain killers. On the second night, he just wouldn’t sleep until exhaustion set in about 3am and I slept on the floor next to his bed. Fortunately, sleep has now returned to both of our routines, but even though I have set my alarm at 5am every day for my self care routine, I simply haven’t had the energy. It’s a dangerous ride this one, where you let yourself off the hook too many days in a row. It’s like when you eat bad foods (eg. like a bag of maltesers at the movies) and then all you want is to keep eating more junky foods. Have you noticed how this happens? I just kept thinking this sleep in my nice warm bed is great – and it was, until it totally took over my ability to be centred and calm.
During my studies at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I learnt just how important it is to take care of your body and mind. In fact, we were constantly reminded that to be a Health & Wellness Coach, self care had to be part of my job description. In all honesty though, as a mum, self care needs to be been a part of my job description. Without it, I fall apart at the seams, I become unstuck. When I become unstuck, so it seems does my hubby, my kids, their behaviour and the state of the house. Everything is worse, and it’s a vicious cycle. Yesterday when I lost it, I saw everything in the house crumble around me. Today, I resumed my normal self care routine, and the house is infinitely a better place.
What do you think about self care being part of our job description as mums?
Do you have your own self care routine?