Mom Anxiousness

Are you like me and experience anxiousness now that you are a mom? Before kiddos, I was laid back and fun. But now 4 kiddos and 12 years into this parenting gig, I’m anxious most days. Only I didn’t even realize that it was anxiety driving my actions. I thought it was clutter in my home and kids that I can’t get on board to clean up after themselves 100% of the time.

But I’ve learned over the last year, that my inability to handle a messy house is a symptom of my anxiousness. It’s me trying to control my life, so if and when something happens that I can’t control there fewer problems to solve. Like I should clean my house incase someone gets hurt, then my house isn’t embarrassingly dirty if others need to come in and help out. Or the diaper bag is pre-packed ready to go and keys located in case we get invited to go somewhere last minute. My favorite one that I was telling myself, is that I get ready every day for my mental health. But really I’m doing it in case the school calls me to pick up a sick kid. How does it show up in your life?

Anxiousness Relief Steps in the Moment

I’ll walk you thru a scenario that is popping up a lot lately for me this winter. As I walk you thru this, I will show you how I use the anxiousness relief steps.

This winter we’ve had more snow than normal and we live where the wind blows. This results in icy roads, snow drifts too big to drive thru, and closed roads. For my family, we have temporarily moved into an one room apartment with better driving access, but still close to the cows that my husband cares for. We live exactly between two towns/cities. It is 60 miles to either one and we send our children to public school.

Compassion for Self:

The other day we had a weather forecast of less than an inch of snow. We woke up to six inches of snow. I found myself irritable with my children as they got ready for school, nobody could do anything right in my mind, and I asked my husband to do the bus run for me. I just couldn’t bring myself to drive on bad roads again.

This is where I gave myself compassion and space to be where I was in the moment. I didn’t judge myself for sending my kids on snowy roads while I stayed home. Nor did I berate myself for feeling this way. I observed and asked myself, “Hey sweetie, what’s wrong? How can I help?”

I allowed myself to cry and frustrated. I didn’t try to talk myself out of being upset. I just allowed myself to feel the emotion of anxiety. I noticed the rapid heart rate, heat in my chest, and heaviness that overcame my body. I lowered my expectations for the day. I did the bare minimum and let that be good enough.

Story vs. Fact

Another morning, we woke up to an inch of snow. It was a clear still day outside our window. It was going to be a great day. I had lots of productive things planned to do. As I started towards the bus the stop with my three girls in the back seat, the wind picked up. Fresh snow and wind equals a ground blizzard here. You could barely see reflector post to reflector post. The rumble strips on the side of the highway were filled in with ice, so you didn’t know if you where on the road you were. My hands clenched onto the steering wheel. I snapped at my girls to stop all talking. My heartrate increased. All while I tried to hold back my tears and pity party. I can’t do this anymore.

This is where I picked the facts out of my story. I told myself there is one inch of snow on the road at 6:15 a.m. I am in my 4-wheel drive SUV with my three girls. We are warm and driving to the bus stop. We were driving 20 MPH on the highway going the correct direction in the correct lane.

Notice the difference between how I tell the story in the first paragraph versus the actual facts in the second one? Our brains are designed to look for the negative. It’s how we’ve stayed alive all this time. Our brain looks for what could go wrong, so we can avoid it. But I stop I letting my brain run away in the what-ifs world and focus on what is in the moment, I can see that I am okay right now.

The Next Step:

After getting home from taking the girls to the school bus that day, I cried and cried. I had compassion for myself. It felt very hard to be here in this circumstance again. But I had a bare minimum that needed done. I needed to help feed the cows, get my son of to pre-K, and come up with food to feed my family for dinner. I wanted to crawl in bed and avoid the world, but life wouldn’t let me.

So I just did the next step. I put on my winter clothes and my son’s. Then we left to get in the tractor. I normally try to be very proactive about helping my husband out. But I gave myself compassion. I didn’t do all the extra little things, I normally like to help out with like opening gates or entertaining Tate. Instead I cut the next twine string off, until the task of feeding was done.

This allowed me to move forward, while being in the anxiousness. A lot of times the goal isn’t to get rid of the anxiety, but to learn how to carry it around in our pocket and still have the life we want.

On the Good Days

Because I am learning to accept the anxiousness on the hard days, the good days are that much better. All because I know what it is like to have the opposite in my life. The good days feel like a nice spring day, when you just want to dance and sing while soaking up all the sunshine and new growth. I wish you the best of luck mama as you relieve your anxiousness. If you would like some help exploring how being anxious affects you, schedule a FREE explore coaching call.