The last week has been fairly chaotic for us and without a doubt has really pushed us with all the various elements that parenting can bring and…. norovirus can bring. Added in to that was birthdays, back to school for us and my increased working hours. It ended up that the norovirus timed itself perfectly with Mr Murray’s birthday, four of us were particularly unwell with the knock on effect that it meant that two of the three boys couldn’t go back to school as planned due to the clearance hours and impacted my own return to work too.
I was chatting to one of my friends about it all, philosophising about life and motherhood and what I was saying to her was, for me, it’s important to move away from the concept that we can change our situations but we can change how we are within our situations.
I have four children, a husband, two businesses, I have lots of things going on and lots of people that keep in touch with. I run a volunteer organisation (www.juno.uk.com) with others…. I am genuinely a really busy person. I have a lot on my plate, but what’s important is it’s not trying to change that. I love my life, I love my children, I love being a really hands on mum, I love the kind of life that we have. I feel really happy in my life. There’s not a lot I want to change. I don’t want to be less busy as I like everything that I do. It’s vitally important to me, however, is remaining calm in the storm.
For me, it’s about having various approaches to doing that. That would include not getting carried away with thoughts and feelings in the situation and not catastrophising. That means staying present, it means validating how I feel, accepting my situation, asking for help, and letting go of any need to control the situation. It also means accepting that I can’t do everything and that if everything isn’t done – that’s ok… I’m grateful to myself for absolutely doing my best and that things aren’t going to get done. For last week, that meant… forgetting everything on the back to school list was fully present (I could organise when I feeling better), seeing clients on Skype rather than in person (I hate letting people down), not getting everywhere bang on time, asking for help to look after the kids, not being able to do everything I wanted last week in my business and resting more than normal.
So how do I keep things in check? I firstly notice what’s happening…. what are the things that are bothering me? What feeling is that causing in my body? How am I reacting to that situation and why? What can I do about it?
There’s lots of various approaches. There’s a few I regularly turn to – journaling, EFT, solutions focussed questioning and breathing. I know so many others use other approaches but these are my go to ones.
Why I feel EFT is a brilliant approach is that it’s works on the body… more and more I’m aware that the emotions we have are tied into those bodily feelings – it’s a knot the stomach, a churning feeling in the solar plexus, it’s a feeling like I can’t breathe across the chest, a lump in the throat, tightness in the back… when I work with clients… this is where we start. And it’s the detail of these feelings where we get the most relief and the quickest changes.
As mums and parents, it’s our responsibility to work with these feelings. We cannot change our circumstances, but we can change how we react to our situations. That’s the bit that we have control over. It’s important that within my busy, busy life that I can still keep as calm and as consistent as I can be and still be the kind of mum that I want to be. That doesn’t mean that I am perfect as I am far from perfect, but it means that I am increasingly better equipped to handle all that life throws at me.
If you’re interested in supporting your wellbeing as a mum, then join our Overcome the Overload community which is reopening again in September. If you would like more information about that then do feel free to get in touch and I’m really happy to help you. Alternatively, you may be interested in some one to one parent coaching or EFT support. In the meantime, you can get access to these videos which will help you to feel calmer by clicking here.
Much love, Tricia xxx
