“I didn’t have fun Mommy.”
These were the words my four year old said to me on the way home from our outing.
Today, it’s the first day of summer so I thought I would make it special and take my boys to the movies. Oh man, did that backfire on me.
It was a bad day. I was yelling at the kids, I felt like I spent too much money, the kids were all over the place, and they wanted to spend even more money on the stupid arcade games.
It was the first time I had ever taken all three boys to the movie theater by myself, I thought it would be such a fun thing to do with them. But guess what? We didn’t have fun.
On the way home, my son said, “I didn’t have fun at the movies Mommy.” I replied, “I’m sorry to hear that buddy.”
But I wasn’t sorry, I was mad.
Here I went out of my way to make something special for my kids, and it wasn’t special at all.
Realizations:
When we create any expectations, we take all the fun out of it.
I had fantasized what it would be like. I thought it would be so special, I would feel like such a great mom, super women taking three boys to the movies by myself. I thought how I would snuggle them, and we would giggle together and pop popcorn in our mouths and smile.
But it wasn’t like that at all.
I was agitated, I yelled at my kids in public, and I don’t think I smiled once.
So I repeat, When we create expectations, we take all the fun out of it.
But the question is why do we create expectations?
I think the motivation for me was I was feeling a little ‘blah’ at home. So I had this thought that if I do something differently, I would FEEL different. I was created an expectation in hopes to feel better essentially.
This is never a good idea. This is a recipe for failure.
In every decision we make, we want it to come from a “clean” space. What that means is that we don’t want to make a decision with hopes that one of the choices, will create a better emotional state for us. It doesn’t work that way.
We want to feel good BEFORE we make a decision. We want to manage our mind in our current condition. Opposed to trying to CHANGE things around us to FEEL BETTER.
I have the itch all the time when I am home especially. It goes something like this, “The kids are driving me crazy… lets go do something.”
An innocent thought I know. But the truth here is that I am searching to change things externally to feel better internally. Again, it doesn’t work that way.
But I keep trying, hoping one day it will work. But guess what, it never does.
So here’s the truth Momma, if you want to feel better. You have to STOP. You have to turn your attention inward to take care of you. Nothing externally has to change for you to feel better. I repeat, NOTHING. Just you, and what’s going on inside. That is the work we love to do together. That is the work we overlook WAYYYYYY to often. If you want to feel better, you must begin the work inside.
When I got home from the movies, I felt even worst. I tried to care for myself as I would care for one of my children who was down in the dumps. I put myself in my bed, allowing myself to “sit” with my emotions. To sit with my thoughts and shift through what was happening. It seems a bit counterintuitive I know. But try it out sometime. Do the work. Feel the relief. And all is well.
