Being a single parent, I get overwhelmed with all the things my daughter leaves around the house.  I am always picking up something that shouldn’t be there.  One of my biggest irritants are those long clear, tube popcicle wrappers.  Of course, I buy boxes of them in the summer and leave them in the freezer for all the neighborhood kids.  They love them and yet I get a little crazy when I find those wrappers all over my house.

Every time I’d find one, I would feel my irritation rise and then I’d yell  at my daughter, “why can’t you put these in the trash, they are driving me crazy.”  I would make my usual threat that I was not going to buy anymore  if she didn’t throw the wrapper in the trash.  Of course, the next time I was at Costco, I’d buy the box again.

Then one day, as I’m about to yell about the wrapper, I stopped and said, “what if every time I saw one of these wrappers I saw it as a note from you saying I love you.”  Well, my daughter loved this and said, “yeah, what if it was written in big letters, I love you , mom?”  We, both got a kick out of this.  The next morning I went down to the kitchen and next to the trash was a wrapper, folded up with a sticky note wrapped around it with a big I love you mom written on the note.  As I picked it up, the joy inside welled up and I knew I’d found another way to see and irritant as a reminder of love.  That wrapper sits in my kitchen window as a reminder.

The ironic part of this story is, my daughter has started putting the wrappers in the trash!  Go figure!

Being a single parent,  I move into overwhelm when I have too much on my plate.  Trying to make sure that everything gets done, often doesn’t leave a lot of down time to take care of me.   Unfortunately, when I am overwhelmed, my daughter, joins right in.  She can’t keep her equalibrium when I am drowning.  Those are the times when we both go after each other, nagging and criticizing.

Bringing awareness to these times, is the first step.  Even though I can’t always shift the state, I can at least acknowledge it.

Example:

We are going on a raft trip this week, so I am totally overwhelmed, trying to pack all the gear and see clients before leaving town.  Of course, the more overwhelm I feel, my energy field is anything but welcoming.  So, instead of helping, my daughter heads out the door to play with friends.  I feel even more burdened and by the time she comes in I am frustrated and ready to go after her.  As we are sitting at the computer, trying to download my camera, I get frustrated and start making some noise.  My sweet girl is sitting there next to me and she says, “Mama, take a deep breath.  You can breathe through it.”  This alone, brings a smile to my face and I start breathing.  She looks at me and says, “I think I’ll breathe with you.”  So here we are, sitting together breathing and smiling at each other.   Suddenly, my overwhelm is managable and my relationship with my daughter is at the forefront!  We giggled our way to bed leaving all the gear for another day.

What we focus on is what we will see.  When I find myself focusing on all the things my daughter is doing that I judge as negative, I often find even more.  When I’m tired and down on myself, I can walk in the house and within 2 minutes see everything that she hasn’t put away or hasn’t done to help out.  Even if she walks in with a huge smile on her face, I am energetically focusing on all that she hasn’t done.  What a downer!

I’ve learned, that this happens because of my own self-judgment.  As a kid, I didn’t like chores either and I was told over and over how selfish I was.  So, if you ever think, trying to get your child to do chores by shaming them, think again.  To this day, I still don’t like chores, and yet now when I don’t do them, I do the internal shaming.  When I focus on all the negatives and what I’m not doing I project it out onto my daughter.

As a single mom, I’ve had to learn to focus on what I am giving, and what I can take care of in one day.  When I’m able to do this, I’m able to focus on my daughter’s “greatness” and all that she gives me, just by being alive.