Self Abandonment in Action

The older I get, the thinner my patience gets. It seems like nothing I do seems to make a difference. I do yoga, I take that deep fucking breath in and blow out through pursed lips- nothing.  It doesn’t matter if we’ve had the best day out, everyone on point, no arguments – at some point I will be so annoyed with everyone that I want to just walk out the front door and carry on going. It seems to happen a lot on the drive home from a day out, I’m suddenly just so irritated with everyone (poor husband included, might as well be a third child at this point) that I start getting snappy and quite frankly a bit of a bitch. Now this is the problem- my little family are my favourite people in the world and they are without doubt the only ones I truly don’t want to be a dick to. They are also the ones that get the very best and very worst of me. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember and it’s something I just started accepting so long ago that I stopped questioning it. I stopped trying to figure out what was causing it and what I could do to stop it.

When I retrained as a life coach and started doing the work not only on myself but with so many other women, I suddenly realised that my body and brain have been screaming at me to prioritise myself and my choices and I’ve been flat out ignoring it. Raising two kids under two mostly by myself with zero family help has a certain way of negating your own needs. (Their dad is pretty amazing but away with work a lot so in the eyes of a stressed out, tired mum who needs physical help rather than emotional support over text- it’s pretty shit). Now the kids are 9 and 10 things are different and yet harder all at the same time. Days out no longer need to have me running all over the place but they do need me to referee fights, answer more questions that anyone has the capability to and constantly field requests for snacks. Not to mention handle all the mood swings and emotional turmoil two pre teens are entitled to experience.

As a bid to keep my sanity and not be arrested for homicide, I created my own method to be honest with myself and not just blame everything on hormones. The way that I see it, hormones may well be the instigator but my kids do not deserve a bitchy mum because of my hormones. It’s a reason not an excuse and I’m not the best at pulling myself up in the moment.

The Choose Yourself Method- Notice it. Name it. Choose Yourself.

I wanted to come up with something that would help me be accountable in the moment, stop the spiral and pattern whilst still be kind to myself. (that’s also something I’m working on). Being mean to the kids and then being mean to myself afterwards is something I am absolutely not interested in continuing. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I don’t and when I get it wrong I apologise to the kids (ha more begrudgingly to my husband) and then myself. I have clearly let the self abandonment carry on unnoticed and I deserve more than that.