I hit the “10 pounds lost” mark today in my weight loss journey! *happy dance for me!* Since I am a sucker for round numbers, I celebrated this mark by treating myself to some new clothes (shorts from Target for the summer), a monthly subscription to IPSY (makeup and self-care, yay!) and a whole lot of introspection on my weight loss journey.
I shared in an earlier posts that I have been wrestling with understanding my ego and the role that it plays in my weight loss (and weight gain, for that matter). I have discerned that my ego is massively triggered by – or rather, loves the excuse of – stress in my life to go on emotional eating, binging and overeating / over-drinking “because you earned it”, “because you need it” and “because I am having trouble coping right now and need a break”.
Ok. Trigger discovered. Awesome. Now to pinpoint the source of my triggers.
Cue the mom guilt…. My biggest source of stress that triggers overeating, over-drinking, skipping exercise and binging? MY KIDS.
At the risk of sounding like every other mom on the planet that struggles with mom guilt, I feel the need to state emphatically that I LOVE MY KIDS. They are my world. They are amazing. They are truly great kids. They are blessed with good health and no learning disabilities. They are exceptionally polite and well-mannered.
But they stress me the eff out, man. They are loud. They are hyper. They are rambunctious. And they are with my 24/7. Did I mention that I work from home?? (Is it sad that my stress ticked up a notch just writing this sentence?)
Intellectually, I know that being stressed by my kids does not make me a bad mom. I know intellectually that it does not make them bad kids. (Their antics are part and parcel of having tiny humans in the house.)
But the daily grind spirals me sometimes. Things like:
- Routine daily cleaning, just to have to continue cleaning again and again because the kids live here too and make messes as soon as they are cleaned. Never being able to sit down with the house being “done” or in a state of cleanliness for long.
- Never being able to read a book uninterrupted, hold a conversation with my husband, or take a long bath or meditate without kids barging in, fighting or playing too rough, etc.
- The kids waking me up in the middle of the night and / or the wee hours of the morning, and no matter how early I wake up to have some “me time” to journal and do yoga, they consistently wake up and interrupt whatever flow I try to establish. (I was getting up at 4am at one point just to be alone… just to have the kids wake up and decide they weren’t going back to bed at 4:10am. All attempts to keep them in their room resulted in my flow being interrupted to scold them and return them to bed every 5 minutes for the rest of the morning.)
- Making meals (and being pulled in a thousand directions while cooking) and then serving meals they refuse to eat (after assuring me they wanted XYZ for dinner).
- Almost constant bickering and / or play that turns into someone getting hurt. The sound of children’s programing and learning apps when they aren’t playing loudly and fighting. Just noise noise noise all the effing time.
- THE. LIST. GOES. ON. AND. ON. AND. ON.
So I get stressed. And I mentally, emotionally and physically shut down. My first phase of stress / overwhelm is to check out by reading books or comics or watching TV. Which makes me feel guilty for neglecting my chores and work and not being present and engaged in life. Then I get interrupted from my distractions by the kiddos… and then the guilt of neglect is coupled with the frustration of being interrupted.
Then the stress eating / drinking begins. Junk food, coffee, wine, dessert, you name it. Nom nom nom.
I have been trying REALLY HARD these past two weeks to meet the stress in those moments with something healthy. I figured that in my stressed moments I needed to get away to meditate… literally go lock myself in my bedroom and take 5 minutes to turn on a guided meditation app and calm myself.
But then what happens is I sit down. Get quiet. Start to breathe…. And then the kids start crying for me. Or fighting. Or jumping on my bed. Or climbing on my body. And then I crack and scream and freak out and then I’m TWICE AS EFFING STRESSED AS I WAS BEFORE THE MEDITATION!!!! No joke!!!
So what the eff am I doing for stress management while living with small kids right now??
While a regimented morning and mid-day meditation isn’t as regular or successful as I’d like at this moment in my life, I am not going to stop pursuing a healthier method of stress management and stress relief.
I need to calmly begin the process of crafting strong boundaries and values with my children, so that we can eventually get to a place where we are a home that values individual privacy, personal space, quiet and peace. To start, I am slowly conditioning my kids to give me some space when I request alone time for yoga and quiet breaths. I am explaining to them EVERY SINGLE TIME I step aside, how important alone time and taking a moment to breathe and clear my thoughts is to me. So thats a START.
While I love the idea of retreating to a meditation pillow, with candles and incense and relaxing music and a steaming cup of herbal tea, I am realizing that where I am in my journey right now (physically AND emotionally) just isn’t in alignment with that vision.
While it does not sound glamorous or impressive, I’ve come to realize that my biggest task, the biggest practice I am going to need to learn to enforce in my life is the practice of being able to be present with whatever shows up.
And I mean WHATEVER SHOWS UP. Kids fighting over toys? The newly mopped floor getting mud tracked all over it? My kids disobeying me and trying to climb on me during my yoga practice? ANY OF IT. ALL OF IT.
In every moment, I need to practice being present. That is my current meditation. The simple act of being present with as much compassion and patience as possible.
I need to accept that with 3 children aged 6 and under, beautiful and joyful chaos is a part of this wonderful journey and that IT IS possible to be wholly present while allowing them to be who they are and to express themselves, even when it makes me uncomfortable. And when they DO make me uncomfortable (or angry or frustrated) I need to hone the life skill of NOT reacting from that place of anger or frustration.
In every moment that stress threatens to overwhelm me and send me spiraling back into self-destructive habits, I am going to take a deep breath and choose to practice being present. I am going to choose to acknowledge how I feel in that moment and then choose to hold space for my children in THEIR process. Children have BIG feelings, and part of parenting is holding space for them to have these feelings — not taking the feelings away or managing them for our kids, but witnessing them with love and compassion.
And, as it turns out, learning to have love and compassion for ourselves is part of the process as well.
So here, at the 10 pounds lost mark, I am revising my meditation goals. While I will hit the meditation pillow as often as I can, I am going to make my primary meditation the practice of pausing and breathing in the moments that I get flustered, stressed and overwhelmed and simply BEING PRESENT.
Stop. Breathe. Feel. Acknowledge my feelings. Acknowledge my kids feelings. Breathe. Observe. Feel. Breathe. Repeat as often as needed, all day, every day.
Allowing myself, and my kids, some space to just BE in those moments. This counts as meditation… right?
CURRENT STATS
Start Weight (May 15, 2020): 201 pounds
Current Weight (June 1, 2020): 191
Total Pounds Lost (Since May 15, 2020): 10
Pounds Left to Lose to Reach Goal Weight of 130 pounds: 61
