Have you ever had one of those moments when you remember something you had promised yourself you were not going to do again? Today is my Friday and after 32 hours of mental health clients I tend to need my level of patience refueled. This means all I want to do is go home,have a smoke and chill.
My son offered to drive me to work, due to his need to use the car. This my friends began the thing I had forgotten. He is always up and ready to go in the morning, bright and cheery " Have fun at work mom. I love you." Sounds awesome, right? The challenge comes in his follow through to pick me up on time. I was off at 1530 and he didn't show until 1600 (grr). My fury has been building for half an hour now! I stop and breathe and do my best to calm my rage, which is not working. I can feel that there is more going on deep inside than what the surface is showing. When he finally arrives I am HOT and in no space to talk.
I start sifting through my arsenal of life tools. I come up empty handed , well I have a full grasp of fiery scorpio rage,not something I want to share with my beautiful teenager. I keep searching as Cole is explaining himself . You would think that would help. The two of us were now stuck in an ego battle. Me being the mom and right and him being the one who knows "why" he was late and also right. And in a flash a passage from a book flashes in my mind "when all else fails, ask for silence".
One, two,three I count my breath and center to calm my voice. I ask for him to shut up. Oops, that didn't work. I can feel the rage and ego still bubbling. Deep breath, hand on my belly, beat of my heart,BREATHE! I adjust my wording " Cole please stop talking to me. I am angry, tired and want a smoke." That was a start. I ask once again adding "Cole please I just need some silence and I promise I will talk to you later about my anger." We ride the next ten minutes in silence. Be aware that if you are anything like me your ego is going to attempt to talk right then. Be in your silence. I learned far more than I expected.
If you are curious to know how powerful this moment of silence was for me and how grateful I am for the ego battle with Cole, please ask.
Its nice to know that we always have some tools in our toolbox that will work.
ReplyDeleteIt is also nice to be able to appreciate the opportunity to do some deep healing. I discovered that the behavior from Cole was triggering an old wounds. I recognized that I was feeling rather unimportant when Cole would forget to be on time. This original situation was from when I was younger and left at an amusement park by my family and then later events when my mom would be late picking me up from the airport. I found all this while sitting in silence and being mindful of my thoughts and feelings.
ReplyDelete