Yesterday was a grumpy day. I found I was being easily triggered into feelings of frustration and overwhelm.

It felt like my children were pushing the boundaries and avoiding doing their schoolwork, and other tasks we had agreed they would do to ensure they kept to a healthy routine.

It felt like technology was failing me; passwords weren’t being accepted, the TV sound was on the blink, so Joe Wickes sounded like an alien, and emails were out of control.

And the cats had brought in two mice and left them on my office floor and kindly regurgitated one of them as an extra special gift for me.

My usual tools and practices to keep me grounded and connected with myself didn’t seem to be working.  So I chose a bit of unhealthy escapism and poured a glass of wine and watched a mediocre film with my youngest about an alien…at least I think it was about an alien, but it could have just been the dodgy sound on the TV.

And that was OK.

I knew I had ‘stepped-into’ the Drama Triangle (see previous blog) and my inner dialogue was flitting between Persecutor and Victim roles, getting cross with others for not having done what they ‘should’ be doing.  I knew it was negative and judgmental inner dialogue, and I knew it was unhelpful and unjustified given the huge adjustments we are all having to make at the moment.

I also knew I was flitting between different stages of the Change Curve.

The Kubler-Ross Change Curve is a model used to understand the stages people typically go through when they are reacting to change, although it is not linear and you are likely to flit in and out of the roles at different stages of the process.

It is helpful to understand the Change Curve in order to normalise the different emotions which are likely to arise, so that you can give yourself permission to feel them and allow them to pass through you, rather than resisting them, which will cause them to keep popping up again.

Yesterday I felt like I had moved from a very conscious choice of DENIAL into an unconscious choice of ANGER.  Whilst I didn’t want to feel angry I knew it was a normal and healthy reaction to an extreme situation and I knew I had to allow it. And whilst being grumpy with my children wouldn’t have been the way I would have preferred to have processed that emotion, I also knew that going to bed early and starting afresh the next day. was what I needed to do.  Who says you can’t go to bed at 9pm when you’re a grown-up!

So here we are at the end of another week.  Well done all, we’ve made it through another one!

And today I got up early and made a coffee, enjoying the silence of sleeping children and birdsong.  I journaled my feelings and set an intention for how I wanted to BE today and what I would need to do to be like that.

My children and I did our 9am PE with Joe Wickes; today was Fancy Dress Friday with Joe!  We had a giggle dressed as Spiderman, a Pigeon and a full-length Tequila Bottle (the high leg kicks were harder today)!

I have taken a deep breath, stepped out of the Drama Triangle and am focussing on what I can control, and that is managing my state of mind and staying in the moment.

Stay safe.  Stay at home.

Sarah x