Imagine it’s a reasonable waking hour in your bedroom. The same bedroom that is cocooned in a spa-like ambience: clean, with the peaceful aroma of lavender floating out of the diffuser like gossamer being spun.
You arise from the perfect-number-of-hours slumber refreshed and ready for you day. You touch your still-sleeping prince charming gently on the shoulder just before imaginary bluebirds fly your silk robe over to you—just like they did for Olivia Newton-John in the cartoon during the opening credits of Grease.
As you slip into your robe, you know the day is going to be lovely, even magical, because the pace of it will be measured.
Then a thought, maybe a memory, pinpricks its way into your consciousness.
First, it whispers…”not so fast…”
You shoo it away like a gnat as you get out of your bed.
Then it speaks, “no, really, not. so. fast”
You make your way to the bathroom, shaking your head, no, no, this isn’t right.
Finally, it screeches at you like a record scratch: “Listen up, sister–you’re a mom! Who also works outside the home. Oh, and you have a home, too.”
As you look in the mirror, the dream disintegrates.
In its place {maybe} are toys on the bathroom floor, the hamster (maybe her name is Scarlett) accidentally left in the tub overnight, and a nagging sense that you didn’t brush your teeth before bed.
Now your mind is fully alert: your to-do list crashes onto your neurons like ocean waves frothed up by a hurricane. Your conscious mind is quite irritated that you had the audacity to sleep and…
A sense of overwhelm mounts, your breath shortens, your jaw squares, and your muscles tighten as another thought besieges you:
Oh, no, am I going to war with the day?
Then you have another memory: you can meditate. In fact, you do meditate. You make your way over to you cushion or chair and settle in. The only thing you need to focus on is your breath.
Straight up: I love being a mom. I wanted to be a mom my whole life. But like some many other of life’s events, the expectation of motherhood and the act itself are a smidge different from each other.
One of my on-going discoveries about motherhood (Adulting, really) is that a huge component of life is management. Management of resources: time, money, people, the bloody laundry (more on this later), etc. Even when you are fortunate enough to have help in partner or outside help, if you’ve opted for a householder lifestyle, you’ll likely still have a lot to manage.
I’ll confess right now: I’m not a natural manager. To elevate management to an art form requires a consistency that my brain has thus far not developed.
I once took such pride in this: I’m reminded of Emerson’s quote about “consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds”. Upon deeper research, what he actually said was “a foolish consistency…” Meh.
But at some point I’ve had to embrace that life involves management. And, becoming a mom compounds management exponentially.
The sheer number of things to manage—grocery lists, school runs, the relentless, unforgiving nature of laundry (question: why do kids’ backpacks suddenly develop a weird smell? Is it just me?) on and on, ad infinitum. The things you have to manage—and manage beyond the old-college-try-well—can make you a bit nutty.
Not to mention that the emotional toll of being a mom, much of which centers around the Am I Doing This (be it feeding, nurturing, disciplining, dressing) Right? can drive you to cuckoo land.
So I sit. Even when I don’t want to. Even when it seems boring AF and my mind slows down for only a millisecond.
I’m not saying meditation is a panacea—I engage in all sorts of healing modalities. But meditation is one of the fastest ways to slow down to speed up—to come back to the present moment where I can take my next step and live my days with more intention, less reaction.
So if you are a mom (or anyone), set up a daily meditation practice. Yes, you may have to get up earlier. Or shorten the time you watch Netflix. Hopefully you will find that it helps give you some perspective on the sheer number of items clanking around in your noggin’.
Here is a guided meditation that anyone can do.
P.S. Here is Emerson’s quote on consistency.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘A misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
