As a mother, this is one of my daily struggles. I am always worried! I worry about my children constantly. I worry about every aspect of their lives from their safety to what they are eating and how much TV they watch. I am always planning ahead for the next activity and fretting about how to get it all done. When I'm playing with my children, I'm constantly thinking about what needs to be done around the house. When I'm cleaning the house, I'm thinking about what to make for dinner and when I'm making dinner, I'm thinking about all the laundry that needs to get done. With three little people to take care of the tasks and planning for them are nonstop. Living in the moment seems IMPOSSIBLE. Yet I know that I need to take a deep breath and enjoy every moment. To hold, love, and play with my babies and think of nothing else. Knowing this, I've been trying to change but, I haven't been able to just breath and enjoy things. My mind doesn't work that way. I needed to find another way to calm my mind. So, yesterday, here is what I did.
The boys and I were walking around the lake and I was trying to get them to hurry so we could get home and get ready to go to the gym. Hurry, hurry, hurry. We had other places to go. Then, I closed my eyes and imagined myself on top of the roller coaster in Sea World. A roller coaster that I loved riding. In fact, I loved it so much that I rode it three times in a row. I imagined what it felt like to be in the roller coaster car just about ready to go over the first big hill. My heart racing, my stomach in knots and the only thing that I'm thinking about is the excitement that I feel as the car races down that hill. All my senses were totally focused on that precise moment. I wasn't worrying about my children or myself. I was totally physically and emotionally engrossed in the moment. Doing this gave me an immense feeling of liberty. A freedom that was unexplainable because I never let my mind go like that. I felt like a little child. Full of excitement and laughter.
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| The roller coaster at Sea World |
Then, it hit me. We didn't need to go to the gym. I needed to stop and enjoy what we were doing at this moment. I took a deep breath, listened to the wind howl, the geese in the lake, and my children's feet as they were running toward the park. I knew at that moment that we needed to stay where we were and enjoy the lake. And, we did. We stayed at the lake for three hours. We threw rocks, played at the park, and stomped through the cat tails. We came home tired, muddy, and extremely hungry.
I looked back at my day and am so glad that I didn't hurry up the kids so we could get into the car and drive to the gym. I'm so glad we just played and enjoyed each other instead of hurrying here and there and not really accomplishing much. I'm so glad that I remembered my roller coaster moment and we didn't go to the gym. I just closed my eyes and became totally engrossed in the moment, giving up my worries and regrets and living my life to the fullest!
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| A bird's eye view of my roller coaster |
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