Yesterday, I was really over the prospect of another week ahead of ‘online learning’ (aka trying to juggle kids and their school work with business). I was frustrated and not being the best version of a supportive mum, and feeling pretty crappy about that. Cos, you know, shouldn’t a coach have it together?
It culminated with me heading upstairs to the bathroom and crying after another challenging morning with one of my children.
I just wanted to tap out of this whole new arrangement.
And I wonder if you’ve been here too? In this space where you’re usually fine, but then one day or part of a day, you’re just not. And we have 2 choices – keep going and pretend you’re ‘fine’. Or feel it and surrender to not being OK for that period of time.
So I had my little pity party and felt the frustration and sadness and shame and inadequacy. And then I came down and sat outside and breathed in nature and sunshine and faced what’s next.
Which means that today I can move forwards.
I’ve worked out the following strategies to support where our family is at, and in case they’re helpful for you, let me share them here also:
- Scheduling: I’ve changed my online calendar appointments so that I have time in the mornings to work with my daughter on her school work and afternoons for clients and other meetings that can be done when my kids have some screen time and their work is finished. Then I’m scheduling more appointments for when my husband is home.
- Expectations: I realised that part of my struggle was because I had an expectation that we would be moving back to a school routine in the coming weeks, but yesterday it became clearer that this is probably unlikely any time soon. So I’m shifting my expectations to meet this. I also am adjusting my own expectations of what I can achieve with my kids home. It just cannot be the same as usual. For me, my expectations were the source of my frustration, because for some reason yesterday I wanted to be able to do it all. And to have a plan moving forwards for ‘back to school’. As Tony Robbins says, “Expectations are resentment under construction”, and this was certainly me in those moments yesterday.
“Expectations are resentment under construction” – Tony Robbins
- Feel the Feels: In Letting Go by David R. Hawkins he describes 3 predominant ways that we tend to handle feelings: 1) Suppression and repression; 2) expression and 3) escape, and all of them he describes as ‘ineffective’. In contrast, when we can let go of feelings by first actually feeling them (which is opposite to what we usually tend to do) and then surrendering to them, there is a ‘decompression’ effect and we begin to feel better. So while crying yesterday certainly wasn’t what I had in mind for the day, I was totally willing to do it, knowing this was what needed to be felt and released, so that then I could move forwards feeling freer, happier and more at peace.
This is certainly not an extensive list of supportive strategies, but those that came up for me yesterday. Hopefully there is something in here that is beneficial for you also.
And if you’re on a similar journey to me right now, here’s to just doing the best we can.
Kylie x
Tags: Expectations Feelings Frustration Home schooling Online schooling Scheduling
