Mindful parenting when you have lost your mind

I am talking about one of those moments. Those moments when they were both screaming for different and what seem very trivial reasons.

I mean come on you two. Bug is upset he can’t find a particular action figure when he has twenty others to choose from and Bear is freaking out because she cannot find her other Elmo slipper. In my mind I am thinking, “really guys don’t you know there are children starving in 3^rd world countries and wars going on?”

At these moments I am out of my mind with stress. I ramp up into the same heightened state of agitation they are in and I am now freaking out about action figures and slippers AND starvation and wars. One of my common failings as a mom is that when I find myself out of my mind, my first priority should be to get back in there.

That is so easily done while I sit here at a computer free of the distractions of screaming toddlers. From here I can picture myself stopping in the chaos. Taking that deep cleansing breath and then calmly solving each calamity for them all while teaching them just to calm their mind and then look while not agitated. Look there is the guy on the floor by the table. The slipper simply got covered up by a blanket.

Don’t think for a moment that is what happened. I madly searched for this action figure and didn’t find it until I stepped on it. I tossed things about trying to find the slipper and never noticed it was sitting right there on the couch the whole time. And then I raised my voice and said, “really you two just CALM DOWN”

That is right calm down while mommy is flipping out.

I know I am not the only one who does this. I know I am not the only mom who finds herself incapable of mindful parenting because somehow my mind has fallen out and rolled under the table next to the missing action figure. It just seems like I should get better with practice but don’t.

So to that end I will be reading more books on mindful parenting and just mindful meditation for the next couple months. As I come across good stuff I will share it with you all.