Do you ever wrestle with losing and regaining the flow of your work and life? Does your ‘mojo’ seem like it’s stolen from you, time and time again? In today’s article, I’ll be talking about how to feel happy again after something – or someone – cramps your style.
As someone who wears the Mom hat WHILE wearing the hat of ‘business owner’, I’m challenged regularly. Among everything else it takes to run a house, my kids, as much as I adore them, can really test my patience… and my ability to settle back into flow.
When I wake up in the morning, I meditate quietly on gratitude before my feet even hit the floor. Thanks to this little trick, I always seem to begin the day on a high note. I can have full control over my emotional set-point, but I don’t always have control over the other people in my life.
Today, I’m reminded of that once again.
As I’ve been putting pieces of life back together from my recent interstate move, I’ve been plenty distracted. Even though I had a lot on my mind, I’d started the morning off in my usual good mood. It wasn’t until around noon that I discovered this lovely mess on my youngest daughter’s brand NEW desk chair… yikes.
It was an example of carelessness and obsession, two dangers I’ve talked to all of my kids at length about. She was so engrossed in her new computer game that she brought dessert to her room. That’s one rule she already violated right there!
As any Momma would expect, her little fingers became dirty with chocolate. But she didn’t want to stop. Instead, her brain went out to lunch… and she wiped her fingers all over her chair just to continue gaming.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wanted to shout out so many questions.
“What are you, five years old?”
“Excuse me? WHO was your mother?”
“How did you think this was okay?”
Ohhh boy, it was hard to recover from that one. One of my kids chose to break several rules, disrespecting me and destroying something beautiful in the process.
We had a long talk. Now, she’s grounded. She promises me to clean it up and never let it happen again… and now getting my mojo back is my main focus. I have to be ready to put on a smiling face for work all over again. Until, well, something else happens. 😉
Something else WILL happen. The ups and downs are inevitable and part of life. How you choose to react is your decision. Beyond that, you also have to choose some habits to rely on for getting back into a good mood.
Let go of what you can’t change. It’s common advice, but I believe it’s worth saying again. Sometimes we hear cliche advice like this and dismiss it for no better reason than how annoying it is that we hear it all the time. Meditate on it this time.
Accept that everything you face is an opportunity to grow and stretch your ability to remain calm. Besides that, despite how not everything happens for a reason, there’s a good lesson hidden in even the hardest problem if you practice looking for it.
Have you ever noticed how each of us tend to get angrier when someone tells us to “calm down”? Our feelings aren’t being validated, and we don’t like it. That’s a reasonable thing to be upset about, but it’s up to us to be bigger people for our own sake. We have to be fully conscious and in the moment. We need to notice on our own when we’re overreacting.
Overreacting isn’t always in the form of being loud and angry, too. Often, it hides in the words we choose to describe our situation. Sometimes we lay on the drama more than we realize.
Was it really a “long, hard week”, or did you just face a few more obstacles than usual? You’re not “trapped” or “stuck” where you are in life. You’re finding your way out of a challenging phase. Are you “crumbling under the weight of stress”, or are you in need of some down time?
As things happen, carefully watch what meaning you give the situation. You can make a situation feel better or worse by what meaning you choose to give it.
I have strategies I use to get back into bliss, but it takes focus, and that’s something else that can be hard for a Mom to come by. Often, I’m left wanting to pull my hair out.
But from all of this comes the realization that I’ve come so far despite it all. I deserve to pat myself on the back. My kids are growing up and it won’t always be like this. I’m getting stronger and better at returning to bliss every day, and now I can teach it.
My hope for you is that you can see all of these things, too, and that you take the time to master returning to your bliss!