Ask Me Anything #1: Good Mom’s Question About Calming Down

This question came to me from a friend, I’ll call her Good Mom, who writes,

“What’s your go-to for calming down when the kids are going crazy, the house is a mess, and you’re feeling anxious?

Would also love to know what you do with those 10 minutes!!“

You need to know that this friend is an actual angel. Full stop.

As far as answering her question goes, I want to pause and recognize and honor her heart behind this. It’s to be a good mom. Because I know her, I know she already is a GOOD MOM. It’s the moments of anxiety where kids are screaming and dinner is burning and the house might also be on fire that we lose sight and connection with our inner GOOD MOM.

I’m sure someone smarter than I am could sell a system and make a million dollars on how this system could prevent this from happening, but we all know, that’s not real. What is real is the demands are high and they all occur right at the same time and that there will be something or someone that takes a hit. It’s overwhelming to have to decide what will take a hit in the heat (and flash) of the moment. Do I save the rug that the 5 year old is peeing on? Do I save dinner? Do I yell at the dog?

Not to mention, so many of us are momming alone and we/society places so much emphasis on doing it perfectly.

There’s so many ways I could approach this question and they all would be totally fine approaches. But because there’s anxiety involved, I’m drawn to approaching it from my anxiety therapist lens.

If anxiety is an underevualuation of our capability to deal with the problem, and an overevaluation of the problem, we are anticipating the problem to be WAY bigger than our ability to cope. So we are standing at the bottom of a hill with stick arms, anticipating the problem to roll down the hill to crush us.

In other words, we forget our strength in dealing with the problem at hand.

I know this friend has handled hundreds of situations like these in the past. Because I know she is GOOD MOM, she’s guided her kids and herself through beautifully. Or if it has truly ended in shambles, she’s apologized and held her kids and moved on. We aren’t going to prevent these situations from happening. We can prepare for them, we can choose how to respond to them, but we cannot prevent. And nor should we. Control is the gateway drug of anxiety, and attempting to control the situation will make us more anxious than learning to ride the big feels in the moment they are happening.

Which, when tensions are high and kids are screaming and we’re overstimulated, we are going to forget that we have done this before, and we will do it again. Our nervous systems, when they aren’t regulated, will read these situations as a threat.

And you know what dysregulates our nervous system? These kids that the Good Lord gave us intentionally to grow and heal us from our childhood wounds. (I’m kind of joking but not)

If I had to make a system to help my sweet and wonderful and beautiful GOOD MOM friend, I would tell her to pause (if danger is not imminent— which it usually is with the children). I would tell her to remember she is a GOOD MOM, to take a breath, choose to act in alignment with her inner GOOD MOM, and to evaluate the situation from that lens.

I imagine this friend would also not care about the furniture, or the spilled milk, or the pasta on the ceiling, I imagine she’s much more concerned with the heart of her children learning that they too are human, worthy of respect, and held in high regard. GOOD MOM is also smart, and can reroute if she chooses to. So what if dinner is eaten in the tub tonight? So what if laundry gets done tomorrow? So what if kiddo sleeps naked? I’m all for boundaries and kids not being mean to each other or their parents, but some norms are ok to be broken.

GOOD MOM is also human. So if she doesn’t “get it right,” she will apologize and own up to it. GOOD MOM knows that she’s handled it before and will handle it again. GOOD MOM remembers that control is only an illusion, overwhelm is temporary, and we just learn to ride the waves as they come.

You are a GOOD MOM, Good Mom! And I know that because I know you, but even if I didn’t, your question tells me enough.

And to answer the question about what I do with the ten minutes- it’s nothing because I rarely have it. I run over time with my clients all the time and so the time I have in between is NADA.

My boundaried, higher self would love to do notes and answer emails, blah blah blah, but we all know she’s not doing that.