Image: angry woman screamingI am annoyed.  Pissed off.  Angry.  Wow, I can say that these days “I am angry”.  I’m a Mum, a wife and someone who yearns to MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.  That said in capital letters because the light inside me that yearns to burn brighter is strong and powerful and yearning to be expressed.  So who am I spending my days filling in forms for new school uniform, finding registration documents for my daughter’s football team that have lain untouched for 2 weeks by either her or my husband who brought them home?  Why is it me booking the flights and buying the food and making the dinner?  How can I possibly fit in changing the world into this little life of minutiae and routine and yes, often of boredom?

I am not in my centre today.  I can feel it.  I KNOW that I do these things for my family out of a sense of duty but also a place of love.  I choose to serve them in this way to make our joint lives more harmonious.  So what if I don’t?  What if (like on My Little Pony this morning) I allow in chaos?  Discord?  Things left undone?  What is the worst that can happen?  That Maria couldn’t play in her football match on Saturday?  Maybe that would show her (and my husband) that things don’t just get done by magic around here.  Yet I can feel her disappointment.  The people pleaser that is still inside and well inside me wants her to be happy.  But at the expense of my own fulfilment?  Surely that can’t be right? How do I bridge the gap between my needs and those of my family?  How do I give myself room to breathe my way back to balance?

The answer of course is exactly that – room to breathe.  I need to first know my own needs and then work to fulfil them.  I need to learn to hold the space inside of me when my knee jerk reaction of putting others first tries to kick in.  So I do what I know is what I need when I am out of balance.  I get outside, I breathe deeply.  I create a space for that angry child inside to be heard so that I can locate my needs. So here they are: time to practice letting go, letting things break, putting responsibility down. Again and again if necessary until someone else picks it up or it ceases to be necessary.  It’s a long journey to wholeness and it comes in these daily challenges, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.