What Are You Thinking?

“My child isn’t GIVING me a hard time, they’re HAVING a hard time.”
~ Avital Schriver

How are you feeling thee days Mama? Are you Irritable… triggered… sad…betrayed… overwhelmed… frustrated… worried… jealous… hurt… disappointed… embarrassed… anxious? 
These are just a few of the emotions that may describe our state of being when it comes to our relationship with our kids! 

Like me, you may have become so accustomed to socially acceptable descriptions such as “my kids are driving me crazy”, that you may actually believe that your plight in life is your child’s fault! 
They do drive me crazy, you may protest, if they didn’t do a,b or c, then I wouldn’t lose my sh*t!
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to place blame of all our “crazy” on someone else? I assure you I’ve tried but the frustrating reality is that it never stuck to them, it kept coming back at me. 
Why was I the one struggling while another Mom was able to shrug off the same annoying behaviour. ~ Infuriating! 

The inconvenient truth I’ve learned is that a child can’t drive you crazy, the trigger is in you.

If triggers were universal, then you too would get angry instead of shrugging it off. So what’s the difference, why can one of us remain peaceful while the other struggles? 

The only difference is the thought before each of our reactions, or the thoughts that directly follow witnessing the behaviour. 

You cannot have a feeling without a thought first! 

We act out based on how we are feeling which comes from what we are thinking. Which means , I hate to break it to you but, your child cannot be driving you crazy, you are actually driving yourself crazy!

It sounds so simple I know, just change your thoughts right?! But when we see our child on their device (again)& think “They’re so lazy, their brain is going to fry, they’ll never going to get a job”, a rush of adrenaline sends us straight into panic & it’s impossible to feel zen! Or if their toys are all over the floor & you think, “All I do is clean up messes, they’re so disrespectful, this house is too small!” There’s a good chance you’ll feel anxious.

You’re not alone, most of us would get triggered by all of the above, & since our brains are wired with a negativity bias, this means ANTS, or Automatic Negative Thoughts, run wild through our mind! If we don’t do anything about it pretty soon they've created an anthill of emotions that, not only, don’t serve us, but make us feel badly about things that may not even be true! 
​
Nobody else can get in our minds & control our thoughts (yet) so here’s the “good” & the “bad” news, YOU can feel calm… relaxed… trusting… generous… joyful… happy… peaceful… surprised… empathetic… loving… abundant… & grateful, even when your child is driving you crazy, because you are driving the car!

Lindsay Lal