We’ve all had that kind of day. We forgot to be mindful. We forgot to be compassionate, and maybe we forgot to be kind, especially to ourselves. Stacey, a mom I work with, told me about having a day of mindfulness lost not long ago. She went to the grocery store at the end of her day. As she pushed the cart down the dairy aisle, her 3 year old daughter started to call out the names of every item she saw. At first Stacey proudly smiled at her daughter’s growing vocabulary. Within a minute or two, though, the little girl’s happy naming of items became insistent screaming for everything she saw. The kind of screaming every mother knows is the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg being the smoldering tantrum about to explode. Stacey persisted, knowing there wasn’t any milk in the house. She had gone directly from work to pick up her daughter from daycare. They were both bone tired. Suddenly, Stacey heard a loud crash. The glass jar of yogurt, she had so carefully picked in order to avoid plastic, fell out of the cart splattering yogurt and glass all over the place. Ah, the moment when the mindfulness angel could have visited upon Stacey, but didn’t. Exhausted and embarrassed, she picked up her daughter, heart pumping, face bright red and ran out of the store, leaving the mess behind. Even though she knew everything about the situation was all wrong, she started yelling while buckling her daughter in her car seat, believing she could never, I mean never return to that grocery store again. Then she felt horrible, despicable.
When this happens, the worst thing we can do is to beat ourselves up for not only for a bad situation and our handling of it, but also for not being a mindful parent.
Instead, I taught Stacey what I call ‘Bubby’ meditation. Where you talk to yourself with all the kindness and acceptance of a loving grandmother. You acknowledge the embarrassment, the need to escape, the exhaustion and the desire to have the situation go well. You acknowledge that you are a human being that makes mistakes, a mother like so many others who have momentarily lost their way.
After Stacey gave herself loving kindness, she extended that to her daughter, the person at the store who had to clean up the mess, and all mothers who struggle from time to time. Together we appreciated her return to awareness, and compassion.
After doing this short loving kindness meditation, Stacey did some stretching and breathing, soothing her nervous system.
It wasn’t long before Stacey had a plan to go back to the store. She wanted to apologize about leaving her cart and the mess, and pay for the yogurt. She also had a plan for how to talk to her daughter about how to “help” her shop. My guess is that if Stacey had continued to beat herself up, seeing herself as a mess up of a mom, who on top of everything else, did not have access to self-awareness, breath and calm, that it might have been a long time before she went back to that store and felt at peace about the situation.
When we realize we forgot to be mindful, the kindest thing we can do is to be happy we realized it. Then we can send ourselves some kindness and and acceptance. Once we have taken the time to do that, it’s easy to extend it out to our child, and everyone else we meet.
The more we practice, the stronger the muscles of mindfulness and compassion grow, and the easier it gets to remember. In the meantime cut yourself some slack,and be glad you came home to yourself. It gets easier, and you are not alone.
May you bask in loving kindness.
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