More contrast...more growth.

It's tempting to skip over the last couple of days like they never happened but I know that doing so would be dishonest to myself, and to anyone who might be reading along with my happy-fun-mothering-adventures.

There have been many wonderful moments in recent days, most especially our potluck picnic at the park on Sunday, and the creation of my new dating column on kidoinfo.com, but there have also been many long, dark, angry, scary, trudging-uphill-in-a-snowstorm moments.

And I am once again examining who I am as a person and mother and who I want to be.

In the last week, and especially in the last two days, I have been ugly and angry and disrespectful and violent (physically, emotionally, verbally, energetically) with my children.

And the whole time I have been feeling angry and trapped because if they would just start behaving themselves, I wouldn't be so frustrated all the time.

My two-year-old has been biting my four-year-old and my four-year-old has been throwing food and books and toys at my two-year-old and at me.

Yesterday I read Scott Noelle's Daily Groove and it spoke to me so deeply.

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: Blessing the Mirror ::

Today, stand before a mirror and bless it for the gift
of reflection...

Thank you, blessed mirror, for helping me
see myself, so I can use that awareness to
express myself more authentically.

Thank you for letting me see when my face
shows signs of stress, so I can shift my
thinking until my reflection indicates that
I've found my way back to Well-Being.

You know where this is going, don't you? . . .
Your *child* is the mirror!

When you don't like what you see in your child,
there's a good chance s/he's reflecting some aspect of
yourself that's out of alignment with Who You Really Are.

Be open to seeing that. And remember that it's rarely
a *literal* reflection. Children often reflect their
parents' shadows in exaggerated or quirky ways.
Follow your intuition.

Bless your beloved "mirror" and focus on being true to
your Self. Eventually, your child will reflect that
Truth back to you.

http://dailygroove.net/mirror

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

I have been repeatedly telling my kids over the last several days...

"It's okay to feel angry but it's not okay to bite"
"It's okay to feel angry but it's not okay to throw food at your Mama."

...and threatening them with consequences and putting them in Time Out (yet another of the many things I vowed I would never do).

Meanwhile, I have continued to do exactly what I am trying to teach them not to do.

I am taking MY anger and frustration out on THEM.

And when I step back and look at the words I have been using and the energy behind them, as I am now, I feel sick to my stomach.

I know that the way that I have been acting this week is NOT who I am and most definitely not who I want to be.

Thankfully, I have a loving and supportive partner who patiently and gently put kids to bed the last two nights when I just couldn't do it.

And I was able to get out and take a walk alone and work in the garden and return just a short time later with a fresh perspective.

I am simply out of balance.

Really that's all there is to it. And as a yoga teacher I *should* know this, right?

But it's so hard to see it in your own life. And when there is so much chaos and anger around you, it's so easy to point at everyone else and say it is their fault.

I love my children dearly and I love being their mother. But I also love being a writer and a teacher, and working in my garden, and learning new things and dialoging with other adults.

And I am a much happier, calm, centered, joyful, present mother when I acknowledge and honor these needs.

And yet I still keep pushing forward (with a clenched jaw and knotted stomach) with this idea that it wrong for me to want to be away from them. To need to be away from them. And that if I just keep trying hard enough I will somehow figure out how to balance it all at the same time.

And it's not working.

So today, once again, I am deeply grateful for wonderful and nurturing childcare so that I may have this time and space to explore these feelings, to rest and to recharge and to, once again, find my balance.