Big Reactions To Small Problems
Are you feeling a little heightened too?
Last week, I was feeling super overwhelmed. I think my ah-ha moment when I was on the phone with one of my best friends chatting before our kids woke up. We do this every few weeks, and normally it’s delightful. I’m usually curled up on the couch, with coffee and a giant blanket, yapping about our lives, our kids, and just catching up. Eventually, we hit 7am, or start to hear little voices upstairs, and we part ways - feeling reconnected and ready for the challenges of the day.
But this week, my friend noticed a noise in the background…. “What are you doing?” she asked me.
I was wrapping.
Because 6am is apparently too precious of a time to be snuggled on the couch when I could be getting something done. And to be honest, it really felt urgent to be at the time.
I don’t think wrapping while chatting is a bad thing. It was just a sign of times - a blinking warning light that maybe we’re starting to feel a little off kilter this holiday season.
If you are zen and living your best life this holiday season - I love that for you. But something tells me that most of the moms out there are feeling a little bit like me. Like the to-do list is VERY long and there isn’t enough time, energy, or morale.
Truthfully, I’m having a delightful holiday season - my kids are 6, almost 4, and 2, which feel like MAGIC ages for Christmas everything. And also - it’s a lot to stack an already busy life as a working mom, with a lot of relationships, responsibilities, and priorities on top of all the holiday expectations.
So my call with my friend was my blinking red light, letting me know that maybe I should proceed with caution.
And I got another one a few days later.
I started to notice that every problem felt HUGE. Like not having the right ingredient for dinner suddenly felt like a monstrous problem. And feeling disconnected from my husband became a problem that needed to be solved IMMEDIATELY. And some work stuff I needed to take care of was playing in the back of my mind during the hours I have with my kids… which is something I usually try to avoid.
So I started leveraging a tool that I teach all the time… it’s one that I originally found when working with teens, but I find it to be simple, effective, and a really great way to communicate how you’re feeling. Which leads us to our skill of the week: Size of the Problem + Reaction…
Name The Problem:
What feels big? For me, this week, the problem was a lot of commitments, a kid going through a whiney phase, not feeling totally well, and having to re-do some work things where I had made mistakes over the last month or so (cue shame).
Size of The Problem
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being small potatoes, and 10 being a giant problem, where does this fall? Sometimes giving it a number helps you gut-check and self-correct… how big of a deal is this really? If you compare it to another challenge you’ve had this year, how do they stack up against one another?
The idea isn’t to diminish how hard it is, it’s just to take a moment and acknowledge the size.
Size of The Reaction
This is usually the humbling one. Whether the reaction is your tone, your words, outward rage, or simply the way you feel internally, give the size of your reaction a number, using that same 1 to 10 scale.
Now, notice… How off base are your problem size and reaction size? What might be a more appropriately-sized reaction?
Part of being “regulated” is having appropriate responses when something really is big, or threatening, or small reactions when the problem is more manageable.
My reactions were around a 7 this week, and the problems were around a 4. Just noticing that helped me recalibrate… So this week, I want to invite you to use this as a gut-check… how big are your problems? and how big are your reactions?
photo: a hostess gift a new friend brought to a holiday dinner that I hosted last week that made me laugh out loud - If you’re a Caroline Chamber’s fan, you know!