Today was a hard day. Hard from the moment I got up and I just had that unshakeable feeling that it was going to be hard all day. You know those days that you just want to be over?
What happened?
Well my hard day started the night before really. In good spirits about getting through the tough part of the week, I enjoyed a Thursday night glass of wine or two with my husband. I also enjoyed a bit of trashy TV and a late night. And lots of laughs. I didn’t get to bed till 11pm.
Unfortunately my kids decided they were going to wake me a total of 4 times during that night. So my 5.30am alarm call was cancelled and I rose at 6.45am with them.
This meant no morning meditation. No unstacking of the dishwasher (hell the dishwasher didn’t even go on the night before), no cup of tea (not warm anyway), a rushed breakfast and not even a shower. I looked at my husband in pure disgust and hatred. You see our wild ways had no impact on his morning. He got up at his usual time. Did his personal grooming, had a shower, had breakfast while scrolling through the sports news and facebook and then he went to work.
So for the rest of the day I punished myself. Punished myself for staying up late, having wine and not getting up early. When the babysitter came to take my kids for three hours so I could work on my business – I criticised myself for doing things during that three hours that should have been done last night. When I was having a night off. In the end, it snowballed and I began criticising myself for even having the babysitter. For having the audacity to spend money on a babysitter when I’m not making any money in my business yet. And won’t be for a while my inner mean mummy added for good measure.
Because I was playing catch up on the dishwasher, and the laundry, and the menu planning for the coming week (a task I try to do early on Friday morning before the kids wake) I didn’t play with my kids as much. In fact I barely played with them at all. So then the self-loathing really ramped up. I was now a terrible mother. The thing is as well that the more I told myself off, the more terrible my behaviour. The more I shouted at my kids.
When I realised this. I gave myself such a talking to. At one point I told myself that I needed to quit this building a business malarkey. Focus on my family, my leisure time and my sleep and just get a boring 9-5 job that doesn’t pay that much but where I can leave the office on time. All of this because I had a late night and drank wine ….
Of course it wasn’t the late night that was the problem. Or the wine. Or the late start this morning. It was the way I was so bloody mean to myself. From the moment I woke up this morning, I determined it was going to be a shit day. I spoke to myself in such a horrendous way. Of course, if I was talking to a friend I would say “don’t be hard on yourself, we all have off days, you’re just tired, there’s always tomorrow.”
After the kids went to bed tonight I revisited what I call my unravelling strategy. Knowing I am prone to this type of self-bashing I had written some notes to myself on what to do when this happens. If you’re prone to a bit of self-bashing you might want to try this too.
- Stop and take a breather. Close my eyes and count to 10.
- Have a word with myself. These are the things I might want to say “It doesn’t matter if you don’t tick everything off your to-do list,” “the kids are fed – it doesn’t matter if the house is untidy” “you are in line with your vision and priorities” “you deserve a rest” “you can’t completely control your kids. They are human” “there is still tomorrow” “its ok if your kids get bored every now and then”
- Next I look at my to do list and reassess and rearrange. I think about the rest of the day, how I want it to be and what I need to do for that to happen
- Then I hug, touch or laugh with the person that is frustrating me. More often than not that person is me so tonight I gave myself a big hug and a pat on the back.
Today was a hard day. We have them sometimes. But there is always tomorrow.