I don’t know how to say this other than bluntly and truthfully. I have been struggling with feelings of boredom, resentment and frustration at home. I find myself dreading waking up in the morning and spending time with the kids. It feels like I am yanked to “come here”, “go there” and “do this” when all I want to do is sit and wake my body up slowly. I also dread coming back home. Again I feel yanked at, to do many things and play the many roles I do at home. And then, when I see this boredom, resentment and frustration I hate myself a little bit. How can I feel this way about my kids, about home, about my life, a teeny voice says. And then there is this other voice that says, “Here I am, arnt I? What are you going to do with me?”
Of course I am bored, resentful and frustrated. My stance towards my life right now is that of pushing away the experience that is right in front of me. I yearn to live in a space and world that exists only in my head. Many of us do that though no? I find myself easily frustrated when I am disturbed by family or a phone call while reading a book or really focussing on something work related. We want to be a certain way, glide through life a certain way and when that doesn’t happen we feel frustration, resentment and even boredom.
In the eight week program that I am currently leading, we have been discussing this very thing. In doing something seemingly benign as a Body Scan or a mindfulness practice what unleashes forth is the minds internal dialogue-you cant do it, you are not good enough, this is so not my thing, I quit, I am a bad person, I am inadequate…and the list really just goes on and on.
Similar to my own minds blabber about boredom, resentment and frustration- as if they were the only things I was feeling, as if feeling these things means something really bad about me and my role as a mother!
The feelings that I do end up having though point towards something important. Much like the feelings and sensations of the body while doing a body scan. They point to what is going on in the moment. They are the little bells of mindfulness waking us up to our current stance towards our life, giving us the opportunity to remember our intention for the moment and attend back to this moment with a renewed sense of presence.
From sitting with my feelings of frustration and all, I reconnect with my deepest intention from my relationship with my children-to connect soulfully with them, to connect with the intention to nurture them profoundly. So I vow, I vow to come back to this intention again and again. I vow to be mindful of my stance and warm it up to be embracing of my plight and that of theirs again and again.
This is what connects me to my present moment with my children. This is what feels nurturing for me in the moment.
EISD # 7: Our task for this week then is this, in the words of Donald Altman:
“Whenever you notice you are doing something that is not truly satisfying, make the sixty-second decision to turn to a more nurturing and fulfilling activity.” It could either mean you change something on the outside or you merely warm up your own stance/attitude about what you are witnessing in the moment.
“A wonderful thing about being human is that focusing the mind on what is nurturing right now simultaneously turns it away from whatever brings discomfort. Isn’t it empowering to know that how you decide to use the next minute is wholly up to you?”-Donald Altman.
Take care of your present moment and bring yourself back to it with the awareness that your intention is to nurture each moment, again and again.
NOTE: This is the 7th Experiment of the series on Experiments in Slowing Down, a weekly resource and mindfulness bell for subscribers of Pause for Perspective. If you would like to receive weekly bells of mindfulness in your inbox sign up here.