This literally hit me when I was perspiring profusely on my fitness bike this morning. I guess I was partly frustrated. Something seemed to be constantly screaming in my head and weighing me down. The truth was, I have been feeling really bad for arriving at the school roughly about two minutes late with my son today. It was not so much about the time than it was about the entire scene of his teacher already began with the lesson of the day as my son entered the classroom, which truly bothered me. I scuttered off in embarrassment after he disappeared into the group of little people. There was no odd events which stopped me from being on time with my six year-old, other than my lack of time management on this day. These were the thoughts lingering (somewhat torturing me) in my head:
Oh my gosh, what kind of example were you setting for your son and his class today?
Is this how you wish to teach your son about time management?
You really think it was okay being late even if the assistant tutor who opened the door said nothing, but you saw that look on her face...it said how irresponsible you were!
Did you see the two other parents standing on the pavement opposite who saw you arrived late then ran off feeling awful, they must be whispering about how bad a mom you are!
You should feel ashamed that your son arrived late at school while you live so nearby...
You could have woken up much earlier today, what was all that snoozing about?
While dealing with the tyranny of my inner critics, I forgot about all the wonderful things I actually did and experienced this morning. I woke up at 6.22 am this morning (snoozed a little from 6 am alarm), changed into my workout attire to squeeze in a quick 10-minute dance routine, while leaving the pumpkin seed bread baking in the oven. Then I sliced some mangoes and added some more blueberries into the fruit box, added salmon spread with cucumber to the done oven bread for the lunchbox and finally packed them into my son's schoolbag. After that, I cleaned away dishes in the sink and I made myself a nice small flask of tea, from which I took a few sips but was unable to fully enjoy it as the clock showed exactly 7.40 am. I let out a Oops! and ran upstairs to prepare the school clothing. I quickly washed myself and woke my son up. Watching him lifted his eyelids and closed them again for at least three cycles before he dragged himself to the bathroom, was quite precious, if you ask me. I remembered recognizing that the time might be tighter than usual but I did not rush my son at all. I let him go at his usual pace, brushing his teeth, exchanging morning banters about his dreams, changing into his school attire then enjoying his breakfast cereal.
I stood guard at myself who was trying to express out loud, "Quick, we are late. Hurry up!" It was hard to feel impatient inside but still glad I continued to imprison those words. He even threw me a riddle out of nowhere, asking "Mama, what animal moves but very slowly...?" That was easy, I thought and answered "Hmm...tortoise?" He paused from taking another spoonful of his cereal and murmured (to himself), "Oh, that is a possible answer too..." What, you never thought of that obvious answer? I thought and chuckled some for getting it wrong. Then he revealed his answer, "Well no, it's a lion when it is hunting. I wanted to say tiger, but it has stripes, or cheetah, but it has spots. With those, they might be easily seen from behind the bushes." Such interesting riddle with an unexpected outcome, what fun to start our day. By the time he finished his bowl of cereals, I had to utter, "Let's go. We need to be on time for school", gesturing at the clock. It was 8.20 am approximately 10 minutes later than a typical weekday to leave for school on time. He gasped knowing that we were running late and hurried himself to putting on his shoes. It was 8.31 am by the time I parked my car outside of the school and 8.32 am by the time the door was opened for him. The school starts at 8.30 am. Usually, there will still be parents with their kids at the door within the next five minutes but clearly not today. And, that was the entire story.
As I reflected back on everything that took place this morning, there was in fact nothing much that I felt really worth beating up myself for. Yes sure, I could have avoided the snoozing or cut back on that 10-minute dance workout, or perhaps just washed some grapes instead of peeling and slicing mangoes, or left the dishes till later.....and won back that 10 minutes. But I felt good for getting some me-time, preparing fruits that my boy loves and keeping my kitchen spick and span. Why should I let that unintended extra 2 minutes ruin my day? Then I began hearing different kind of inner chatters:
It is okay, just make sure you sleep earlier tonight to avoid snoozing - or put your phone far away from your bed so you can bring yourself to walk up to it...
That 10-minute toning merengue was awesome, wasn't it? At least you got your heart rates up for a boost!
Your son actually loves mangoes more than grapes, he will be happy to greet those yellow juicy slices in his fruit box today...
He certainly knocked it out of the park with that funny riddle he created...well, you had a good laugh yourself!
Well done for rephrasing from "we are late" to "we need to be on time"...that actually made a difference in educating your son about time management...
You did not act entitled for being merely two minutes late and apologized instead to the new assistant tutor who kindly opened the door for your son.
It was all your own perception of what went on in the minds of the assistant tutor and the parents you saw - get real, you are not a mind reader!
Remember how you felt today and just make sure to keep tab on the time tomorrow.
But you must admit, that was quite an awesome morning too...again, just watch the time!
Problem solved - stop being so hard on yourself!
What a huge difference! Had I not taken the time to process what happened and really let the feeling sunk in, I was not sure if I could really shift my perspectives and made peace with it that soon. I could tell how the scene of the teacher commencing the lesson without my son had shored up some feelings of being left behind inside of me that I did not wish for him. It was not the tardiness that has ideally created the unpleasantness in me but the idea of not able to catch up that eventually leads to the deeper feeling of "I am not enough". I am sure each and everyone of us is dealing with our own inner critics day in and day out. They are the kind of guests that keep streaming in for visits - if we engage and entertain them every time, we might get overwhelmed, flustered and even messed up, otherwise they will just hang around stubbornly for a bit before they decide to retreat.
The key thing here is not to shut the door, welcome them anyhow no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. Each guest comes with a purpose in mind to leave us a valuable lesson although we might not always recognize it that way. As long as we choose not to judge, but to simply befriend, listen and observe despite the agitations and impatience, these guests will eventually understand they have served us well to finally leave us alone. Since each guest will also bring their own characteristics, when words they feast us with can sometimes be harder than what we need to endure, they can render us feeling discouraged, demotivated, humiliated, belittled or basically crush our self-esteem. So what do we do? We may allow them to go on or perhaps challenge them softly by asking "Really, how so?" and see where they take us, as we start to recognize the insidious damage or potentially see them under a new light. Importantly at any time, we need to take heed of their likely overdue stay and decide when to show them the door. The duration of their stay is where we have absolute control of. In other words, it is not about the inner critics that should bother us, but how long we actually permit them to linger around and hijack our peace of mind. It is a choice that we need to know and understand we get to exercise.
Listen, you are enough, in fact, you are MORE than enough.
However, it will take awareness, compassion and continual practice to come to terms with that.
But it is good stuff, so take heart, be more gentle and stop being beating yourself up!
Start today wherever you are, it is never too late to learn about life itself.
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