The Mom Rage

We have all felt it. That moment when every cell in your body is vibrating and you are so filled with rage that you feel if you moved too fast you will break in half. Just me? Ok. Well in case anyone else has felt this way, here is what I have learned about the “mom rage.”

My kids are the most wonderful blessings I have ever received yet they have the ability to push me to a place with my sanity that I never knew existed. A place where if I step on one more freaking cheerio I might explode. Or while typing my blog post I have to mash down the “m” and the “n” extra hard because my sweet angels have ripped off the keys on my laptop so many times they can’t be fixed and I cringe with each stroke of the keyboard. I have felt these feelings a lot more recently, especially during this time of social-distancing.

Here are some things I have learned about myself and how to handle myself during these moments. I am by no means perfect and I still have moments where I lose my crap on my kids and have to apologize later.

1. Count down from 10 SLOWLY before reacting.
This is harder said than done but so beneficial if you can accomplish this. While I am counting down I try, and let me emphasize TRY, to do some deep breathing.

2. Repeat out loud- God, please help me. God, please help me.
You may look like a crazy person but desperate times call for desperate measures and there is no shame in calling on a power greater than myself to help me.

3. Visualization.
Walk into another room and close the door or put them in their car seats and stand outside. Do whatever you need to do to not be in direct contact with them. Visualize being somewhere warm, tropical, sandy and with a nice, cold virgin strawberry daiquiri in your hand. I am telling you if you take 3-5 minutes to do this it’s a game-changer. One app that I like to use to help with visualization is Calm. Check it out on the app store! It offers guided meditations and soothing sounds.

In the end, the “rage” we feel towards our kids/life/husband is “normal” and will probably never fully go away. At least for me, it hasn’t yet but I can tell you the most important thing is at the end of the day, to go to my kids and apologize if I lost my temper. Allow them to see that mommy is human and makes mistakes and has bad days. However, it’s important that we have grace for one another because we are all learning. I tell my 5 and 3-year-old every night, tomorrow is a new day and we have the opportunity to try again and every night I sing Amazing Grace, because there is something so amazing about the grace we give to each other. Godspeed mama!