Day 11 - Not my monkeys, not my circus

Except….maybe they WERE my monkeys and it was in fact ‘my circus’ that I was trying to escape?

Ok. So during my first trimester with Miss E, I was dysregulated a lot. We were in the height of lockdown number two, we were building (Mitch on weekends), then moving house. And of course, I was feeling extreme nausea and fatigue every damn day whilst parenting a wakeful toddler (and working).

When I reflect on what I did next, my way of helping myself come back to homeostasis was distraction, dissociation and disengagement.

I focused on new projects and learning new things, I largely tuned out from what was happening in the world, I focused on positivity and gratitude; and to be honest, a moment yesterday also showed me, that this was also when I had started to disengage with my family.

Yesterday whilst laying down with Miss E by my side and watching and verbally engaging with Mr F whilst he played, I realised I had also been trying to escape this beautiful time in our lives. I had not been fully present as often as I would have liked, for quite a while.

I realised that over the past few months, as soon as I realised Mr F was occupied and I could disengage I did. I would jump straight on my phone or laptop and I was letting him have way too much screen time in order for me to be able to this. I had stopped looking for the joy and playfulness in my parenting experience.

When I look at this through a compassionate lens, there is nothing inherently wrong with what I did. And I still think most of it was incredible necessary, helpful and nourishing. Focusing on gratitude and what we consume are highly important practices. But I was missing the balance of including presence with my family.

This is a problem for me because this is not what I want my life to look like, this is by no means a prescription for how anyone else should live their life or parent.

Whilst we cannot be present all the time, and doing things that light us up as humans is crucial, I was definitely not living life in a way that was sustainable with a young family. In fact I was making myself more unwell in the long term.

As what happens a lot, Mitch picked it, and has been gently hinting at this for a while (he’s much more in tune that he let’s on lol). But as we know, we can’t take in information until we are ready to hear it. I was ready to hear it yesterday (have the realisation smack me in the face).

And so, time for some further deep reflection and reorganising of my life based on my values and anchor words for this year.

Damn this birth has bought me back to presence so incredible hard! Thanks baby E!

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So in terms of my emotion day? I guess you could say hopeful? And even excited?

Have you experienced this in your life before? Are there ways you are checking out that don’t actually align with who you are and the life you want to cultivate for yourself?

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