I spoke to my child in anger.
I won’t forget the look in her eyes – she was scared of me. I was scared of me.
Because this was not the ‘me’ either of us knew. I don’t do anger. When I’m tired I whinge with no real emotion behind it and my kids mostly ignore me or tell me I need to go to bed. Or, when I raise my voice at them, I usually feel powerlessness and frustration that I can’t come up with a better way to resolve a situation. Anger was something new.
I could have blamed it on the fatigue hat comes from looking after sick children. We were on round 3 at the time and they had started bulk-billing us at the doctor’s as regulars. But as I looked closer I found this dissatisfaction with myself.
My baby was 3 months old and it was time for me to return to the real world. I needed to spend more focused time with my children, take them to more places, cook more, clean more, put more effort into my relationship, work, write, build a business, volunteer at my son’s school, learn to drive, exercise and remember to iron my clothes and put make-up on in the morning so that I look just as fabulous as the other mums at school.
Ridiculous, right? Only I thought this was the voice of reason. I didn’t recognise it as my inner critic’s voice until I listened to a call with Amy Ahlers from the Succulent Business tele-summit*. It turns out that my Inner Mean Girl (this is what Amy calls the inner critic) has transformed. She used to criticise the way I was until I got skilled at ignoring her. Now she’s changed into this over-achiever who wants to do everything.
Once I made a mental list of everything she wanted me to do, it became obvious that it wasn’t humanly possible. So I stopped pushing. I reclaimed my hour-long walk with my baby as my (almost) daily practice. I went back to my 9 pm bedtime. I bought Amy’s book Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves
The world is looking a whole lot brighter again and I’m grateful for it.
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Hi, I'm Tat. I believe that through motherhood we're given another chance to find ourselves, grow and shine. I have three beautiful children and I learn a lot from them every day. This year I'm searching for ease in everything I do.
I’m glad your world is looking brighter, it’s too easy to buy into that whole “perfect” mum thing isn’t it?
Lisa@RandomActsOfZen recently posted..Week 7 of Grateful
I have heard of this book and think I might just have to invest. So pleased you’ve made some changes and things are looking better.
Nat – Muddy Farmwife recently posted..Grateful for bits and pieces of our holiday
It’s more of a time investment these days, isn’t it, with so many books out there which one do I choose? If I love the book, I will most likely write about it again or we can exchange what we make of it
It’s so easy to create that cycle. “Inner Mean Girl” makes sense – must be more wary of mine too. Glad your days are looking brighter Tat xx
Congrats on your new baby. This is a great post and I am going to check out the books you mention. I have felt the pressure you mention almost daily… now I know it’s just my inner mean girl.
Vanessa recently posted..Tuesday Reflection.
Tat,
I am glad you refused That Mean Girl. She doesn’t now what is important. You do. Love to you, gentle love.
xoJodi
Not sure why your comments end up in the spam folder, but I’m so glad that I checked and found it. Your encouragement warms up my heart. Thanks! xx