Spring break lumbers to a close. I lost the will to force the children to do schoolwork, which resulted in a lucy-goosey, do-whatever-the-heck-keeps-them-occupied approach culminating in today where I gave everyone (including myself) a day off.
We’ve tried many things — some of which have worked and many of which have not. 6yo is my toughest customer. He easily loses patience and is very vocal about what he doesn’t like. (While the latter is a good life skill, sometimes I wish he was more conflict-avoidant like his mother.) Surprisingly, some of the spur-of-the-moment stuff like dauber art and paper crafts have gone better than some of the planned activities. The lesson here seems to be: don’t try so hard.
Stress shows up in different ways for everyone. I have little vices—my “stress tells.” They are: sleeping too much, spending too much time on my phone, buying stuff online, and hiding in the pantry eating junk food. I assess my well-being based on how much I do the above. Sometimes they crossover like when I ordered 2 bags of cheese puffs and 4 pints of ice cream on my phone and post-delivery spent some quality time in the pantry. Side note: THANKS A LOT to the “how to stock for a pandemic” article that said “don’t forget indulgences like chocolate during hard times.” It failed to add that when you spend 24/7 in your house you do nothing but eat said indulgences.
Trapped in the house with too many of these 👆
A friend shared this article from HBR, “The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief” and this part resonated:
Emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through. One unfortunate byproduct of the self-help movement is we’re the first generation to have feelings about our feelings. We tell ourselves things like, I feel sad, but I shouldn’t feel that; other people have it worse. We can — we should — stop at the first feeling. I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad.
I’m trying to get better at allowing myself to recognize, wallow in and work through my feelings. Even if this must be done from the pantry.
Read: Tavenner’s book, Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life. 👍🏻Great read for anyone with kids. Currently: Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl.
Learning: Completed the first week of The Science of Happiness, a 10-week online course offered by Yale through Coursera.