Mama Is The Sweetest Word
Today, I got to experience two important parenting lessons: The Pause and Watching Your Feelings Rise and Fade while being in the state of non-reactivity. It was only after the experience that I gained conscious awareness of how beautiful and calm it feels to experience these two things while in the midst of chaos.
The dinner time was approaching fast and I was scrambling to make a meal for the family. It’s been a long and exhausting day and my two little children (2 and 5 year olds) kept competing for my attention all.day.long. “Mama watch me do this,” “mama watch me do that,” “No, I was first, watch me”, “no, me first!”, “mama!”, “mama come!”, “mama, MAMA!” …
It was a noisy day. I couldn’t get a thing done without being interrupted every half minute. I was being pushed in all different directions at the same time. I’d be handling raw meat and my 2 year old would scream: “mama wipe my bum!” Or, I would be cutting up veggies and my five year old would be pulling on my sweater to come watch her new piano performance … In short, simple things were taking triple amount of time to do and my head was spinning.
I finally realized that I am way overdue to empty my bladder. As I entered the bathroom, I heard another “mama, MAMA! Come!”. I shut the door to the bathroom and locked it. The next 30 seconds were going to be mine. It would be me alone uninterrupted. As I sat on the toilet, the words “mama, mama” were still ringing in my ears and I could feel my feelings of frustration and helplessness rise. I was so tired I wanted to curl into a small ball, have warm milk and close my eyes. Why can’t I have even 30 seconds to myself?
And then magic happened. Sitting in that bathroom a distinct memory of five years ago came into my mind. Five years ago I was sitting in this same bathroom, pregnant with my first child, impatiently waiting for her to enter this world. I fantasized how one day there would be this little dependent being in my life who would call me “mama”. I would be HER “mama”. I would be her world, her comfort zone, her entire universe, if only for a little while … I remember wondering what it would feel like, completely oblivious and clueless. And I remembered how much I wanted to have children all my life. Yes, ever since I was five, I knew I wanted to be a mom one day.
And I realized, my two children might be pulling me apart right now but that is not because they want to annoy me or interrupt me, it is because I am, still, their world. They want to show me every little thing that they’ve mastered, share their simple (yet very important!) experiences and discoveries; in fact, seemingly so simple to me, like standing on one leg, that I have fully forgotten what an accomplishment it is for a small child. So why, then, can’t I make extra time for all these interruptions? Why not brace myself for a one hour meal prep instead of 30 minutes which would account for all these interruptions, or rather … little gifts of joy from my children?
As I sat there in the washroom, I watched my feelings of frustration rise and then fall to pieces … followed by a wave of an overwhelming feeling of joy and love.
Lessons learned and practiced from Dr. Shefali Tsabari and other ‘masters’:
- The Pause. When things seem to start spinning and you’re getting utterly exhausted, take a moment to pause. Breath and reflect on the situation. Can you stop and not react, spilling out your emotions and frustrations onto someone else? Can you regain your ground and approach things calmly and patiently?
- Watching your feelings come and go like waves. Can you ‘simply observe’ your feelings today and not react to them? Accept how you feel. You can’t change your feelings when they arise but you don’t have to act on them either. You don’t have to dump them onto others to feel better. Simply observe and wait for them to pass. And then everything will feel better again.