Are You a Hulk Mom?
I’ve never thought mindfulness buzz will become part of my purposeful existence. Let me tell you: yoga, meditation, all these talks about feelings, acknowledging what we experience, and how we process this world – it all seemed to be done by fragile people from another planet, but not me.
I’m a woman with a full-time job as a teacher, two kids, a house full of problems, and I have nooo time for this cr&p. I was convinced I can move forward and crash all the hurdles like a thousand-ton Russian ice breaker. I was on the expedition to my ideal life, could afford no days off. I was killing it. Fast. Fast. Fast.
Until it hit close to home… Until I found myself in the bathroom weeping because I had no mental and physical power to do my job or handle my kids.
I started noticing I was turning into a Hulk Mom. You don’t know what a Hulk Mom is ?! You are kidding, right? Oh well, let me describe.
As a teacher, I would bring my teaching head home and try to function according to the schedule. Dinner – at this time, healthy stuff only. Clean house? Yep! Homework with my kid? Oh yeah! How about some extra pages printed from TpT? I saw my daughter’s face begging like, “Mom, you’re kidding me…” I was that above and beyond Russian mother taking on everything and believing that I can do it all, and I absolutely don’t need manicure time.
So…it started to crumble little by little.
I would find myself shut off more often, being a sad mom who explodes by evening time because things like a cookie eaten by my kid before dinner would be a betrayal of my trust. It was unpleasant to realize I was turning into the worst version of myself. Above all, I felt terrible, empty.
I wanted my hair better, my nails more beautiful, my job not that frustrating, my kid not that silly and lazy. I wanted everything that I didn’t have, and most of all, I wanted to be like other happy people. Just happy, simply happy.
Well, I dug for answers, of course: books, podcasts, books again, webinars. I did find a lot of sources that could potentially bring changes into my polar expedition where my strength was leaving me, and I was to be snowed down by my problems. But as they say, nothing can change when you don’t act.
Yes, the magic of actually DOING something is undeniably compelling. It’s not enough to read and listen. You absolutely need to live it. You need to break your day apart and plan it intentionally to allow what you want to come in. You need to break your habits apart and separate the ones that are killing you. And that’s what I did.
My biggest drive was my child. When your child suddenly feels unhappy, and you realize the problem is in you, that puts things in perspective.
“Mom, are you not happy?” – was a frequent question my daughter would bug me with. She would sit in front of me, totally absorbing my mood and my powerlessness. I also saw her reflecting my unhappiness back to me.
She was often irritated, bored, unhappy, nagging, and seeking attention that I felt I could not afford because I was sailing my mega-ton icebreaker in the name of the happy future that my family will have one day.
So it all stopped.
I just sat one day in the bathroom like Elizabeth Gilbert, asking the mighty something what the heck was going on and why I felt so miserable. I just sat and wept and thought that there should be a way to stop competing with my demons and try to grab the present moment that was missing while I was battling for the imaginable prosperity, financial stability, and future happiness. I desperately wanted to drop that stone on my chest, stop worrying, and do something for myself because the exhaustion was unimaginable.
They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. My request into the realm of infinite energy and wisdom was answered, and I started finding things and people that would bring similar messages back to me.
I took courses in children psychology to figure out how I can parent more mindfully. I followed some people on Instagram whose message was about self-care, art, spiritual fulfillment, and the value of joy in every moment.
So it started looking like I was turning into a “Hare Krishna” follower donating money to saving ladybugs.
No …just kidding.
All this mindfulness thing seemed to be “the-other-guy” reality but not mine. To a certain degree, it looked fake, but I was trying so hard to make it mine, true to who I was and how I wanted mindfulness to work for me.
No, I didn’t quit my job or took a trip to Bali. I wish it could be more exotic in my life. 🙂 But I took unpaid maternity leave, and my problem increased even more.
Ha-ha!
However, this time, I was convinced to let certain things just be. I let go of control and was educating myself about how to make my life more simple and more joyful.
Changes did come. They were slow, but one thing that I’ve learned in my search for mindfulness is that happy mom is the foundation of a happy life for the husband and kids, and that was in itself a massive change.
Don’t get me wrong, I still want to get my dream car, and I want my materialistic dreams to come true. But I started letting go of control in the areas I could not control and putting more energy into the things that definitely depended only on me.
This is what changes look like for me:
- Took a couple of online courses on how to parent better and how to understand kids.
- Downloaded a simple version of the yoga app and started doing (awkwardly) some exercises. Very skeptic at first, I realized I found joy in merely stretching my body and listening to a lovely relaxing melody on the app. Sometimes I just lie like a log on my yoga mat, but it still feels good to do it for me.
- Returned to the visualization practices that I ditched some time ago. I started writing goals, dreams, wishes, creating vision boards.
- Purged my closet and got rid of “that’ s-not-that-bad” outfits I would never even wear anyway.
- Started writing goals for the day and the things I wanted to do for my hobbies and myself.
- Focused on practicing the idea that “all things cannot be done,” so I just need to focus on things that matter.
- Started practicing “well, that’s not a big deal after all” approach if plans didn’t work out the way I wanted them. So what?! I’ll try again!
- Allowed myself to watch that movie on Netflix instead of being bogged down by the teacher’s guilt “hey, you should be planning or grading now, not Netflix…”
- Ordered a few nail polishes on Amazon and did nails with my daughter.
- Started seeing the moment as it unfolds in my life, not against it or not in spite of it. And I realized that that less effort in trying to change things and less frustration about downfall times bring more results and more opportunities.
Many things got better.
I’m sure when I return to work from my maternity, there will be a day or two when my mind will start acting crazy thinking about all the things I need to grade or plan. But I’m determined to make my prioritizing practice part of my professional life as well.
I can’t be a frustrated teacher any longer.
I just want to do things that make me happy. That’s not bad, right?
So where the heck is mindfulness in all this, you say?
For me, mindfulness is to stop jumping over the hurdles that consistently leave your nose bleeding, and your face bruised.
Mindfulness is finally doing things that interest me and realizing that, in fact, this can bring more money.
Mindfulness is taking a Saturday off from planning and grading and dedicating it to Netflix with my kid, buying some cupcakes and not worrying about the crumbs on the couch.
Mindfulness is sometimes a messy bathroom but a happy kid.
Mindfulness is when you feel OK stepping over thousands of toys on the floor to reach the kitchen.
Mindfulness is “let’s go to that broadway show,” let’s not follow the schedule and explore what comes in and makes you smile.
Mindfulness is taking things as they are (however crazy and scary the situation can be) and trusting that you will be fine just because you are determined, talented, and passionate.
Mindfulness is taking small steps on the way to huge goals and accepting the downtimes.
Yes, bad days happen.
It happened to me too. I regressed to my old ways and feelings. It always comes and goes.
Some days it works much better, and I feel much stronger and happier. But there is no denying about the slow shift and things looking brighter and things getting more purposeful.
A newbie in mindfulness, I’m still searching for the information that is not just about meditation and yoga. I’m still trying to crack the concept of mindfulness and take away as much as I can from this idea.
I tweak it to suit my life. I search for answers and connect to people who I think are on the same energy level as I am. I try to do things out of my comfort zone just to prove that out-of-the-box actions can bring faster changes inside and out.
And this is, I guess, my biggest takeaway – to do the things out of your league that feel uncomfortable and scary but liberating and hilariously satisfying.
I hope for you, my reader, to find your mindfulness, too.
Some ways to start exploring mindfulness:
- Clean pretty website about mindfulness.
- The fonts, colors, mood of the site are relaxing, and it’s about mindfulness.
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Don’t forget to take care of yourself!
