ACCEPTING YOUR INNER CHAOS
Here it comes. My dear friend anxiety.
My toddler is starting into his tenth meltdown of the day. I find myself with the racing heart and tight chest when his little toddler brain doesn’t understand that we can’t watch the same movie for the third time today. And he won’t eat his dinner but instead paints my kitchen rug with it. When he throws his sippy cup at my head even though he asked me for it. When I say left but he goes right. And his scream is so loud it reaches a decibel I’ve never quite experienced. The anxiety that has made a home in my life really starts to get revved up.
When your child is having a tantrum, you feel like you are the only person on planet earth to ever go through this, and they are the only tiny human to ever act out. Or maybe it’s just me.
It made me think of Kate Middleton acting as poised as ever while her son Louis was “acting up” at the Jubilee recently. Adorably might I add. (You should totally look up the video). I suppose she could have some anxiety racing through her mind too. I won’t presume to know what she was thinking, but I admire her very very much.
So! I try to channel her as a fork whizzes by my face at the dinner table. I take a deep breath and think – be like Kate Nicci, be royal AF.
Yeah, that’s not happening. There’s no royalty running through these veins!
I like to do a lot of self-reflection. Can ya tell? Why does all the toddler chaos make me anxious? It’s not like I’ve never been around loud noises. My mother is Italian for Christ’s sake. Love you mom! I know most parents out there would tell me it is completely normal, but I wanted to dig deeper.
What I came to realize is that this feeling is familiar. I get anxious when I am not in control of the situation. My racing thoughts turn into complete inner chaos. When you are an anxious person, feeling out of control is like your kryptonite. I can’t predict his little outbursts any better than I can predict the weather. And it drives me mad. So instead of drinking a glass of wine, here I am writing about it.
I’ve felt my world spinning out of control before, but I’ve never had to co-regulate with another human being while it was happening. And when was the last time I felt out of control?? Great question. That would be watching my dad go through cancer, survive various scary treatments, only to lose him seven years later.
These two situations may seem very different but they are also painfully similar in the fact that I am not in control. Gosh Nicci, act like you’ve been here before.
I’m pretty sure the seeds of my anxiety were planted on the very day my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Thanks dad! Just kidding. I love you!
But I survived the loss of control and inner turmoil before, so I will survive this tantrum. And the one after that, and the one after that. Maybe. Hopefully!
Thankfully I’ve got more of a grip on myself than ever before. I may feel like I don’t have a grip on my toddler sometimes, but as long as I am in check, I know we will be okay. What I am learning to do is accept that I cannot control this unpredictable chaos that we call parenthood. And that’s okay. And when the world does spin, I just know that I am a work in progress.
Motherhood is testing all the things I’ve put into practice since I lost my dad.
Be present, have faith, give yourself grace, relinquish control, get cozy in the chaos around you, and believe you are resilient enough to thrive in it.
I find it ironic, and oddly comforting that I am able to connect the two.
I got this. We all got this.
But if you’re like me, just take a deep breath and try channeling Kate Middleton.
