look inward - a mindful musing

Jul 31

potential time investment (estimated reading time): 4 minutes

Happy hump day 💚

How’ve you been caring for yourself over this past week?

I’m happy to say that I’ve been sticking with waking up later and (gasp!) I haven’t set an alarm for the past few days. That’s unheard of for me for at least the last 6 years — times are a-changin’.

I can absolutely tell the difference in how my body is feeling, and it is grateful.

I think this has also cleared some space for me to notice that my patience has been short for other reasons, particularly around my daughter (hello, parental guilt). It seems that it’s been happening long enough that I can’t say it’s just a bad day or week. It’s a bigger presence than that.

So what gives?

Well, she’s growing up and we’re both constantly in uncharted waters. Learning to human is hard, and I didn’t have a great parental role model growing up, so we’re both learning and making things up as we go. This is all super normal and cool, i.e., not the problem.

The problem is how I’m reacting to my own feelings — I’ve been putting too much responsibility at her doorstep.

Part of this is expecting things that are a bit beyond her capacity right now, and part of it is me not taking full accountability for my own role in my lack of patience.

It’s easy to shift the blame onto someone else. In the moments when it seems like an interruption or other event is the cause of my lack of patience, it’s really just that those are the easiest things to see because they’re right in front of me.

But they’re not the real cause. My daughter isn’t the problem. She’s just being her beautiful, blossoming and curious self.

My responsibility is to ask myself what’s under my lack of patience within me.

My answer? Constantly feeling activated in my body.

I’m walking around on high alert most of the time, and the real culprits are the flooding of news, PTSD, false senses of urgency, hormone fluctuations, worry and concern for the world we’re living in, etc. And none of that is my daughter’s responsibility.

So what’s the mindfulness practice I need to remind myself of here?

Pause and Breathe.

The pause allows me permission to take a beat — to gain distance. The breath allows me to anchor into my body and not my big feelings.

Once I’ve done that, I have a cooler head. I can separate what’s hers and mine. Recognize what’s a parenting opportunity and what’s a self-regulation/self care opportunity. Once I see that, I can see what else is in my trusty toolkit to help.

And so I arrive back in the whimsical land of proactive self care — making supportive decisions that fill up my cup instead of drain it.

My energy is best spent tending to the things filling up my activation bucket that are within my control: exercise discipline around my news intake, keep scheduled appointments with my therapist and lean into other supportive resources for my mental health, check in with my body throughout the day to see how I’m honestly feeling and what my capacity is, and avoid overextending myself.

Tending to ourselves in these ways first helps others.

I want to raise a human who is kind, feels seen and heard, and isn’t afraid to be who she is. I constantly worry that her light and sense of playfulness will be dimmed because of outside influence, and I for sure want to do my part to help keep those bright.

If I keep caring for myself proactively, I’m going to help keep my activation level low, my patience high, and then when interruptions and accidents and all the beautiful ruckus that is family life happens, I can take it in stride, find the joy, and invest my energy into raising a beautiful human.

I’d love to hear what resonates with you about this and what you’re finding challenging when it comes to your own self care. Strength in numbers is real.

✨ May this week’s energy help us care for ourselves with intention ✨

In good energy,