The Mother of all Blogs...

Me and my little pumpkins!

Hope all you hard working mommas out there had a Happy Mother's Day!  This is going to be the most un-traditional Mother's Day blog post ever.  But it needs to be done.  So if you are looking for fluffy kittens and unicorns, this isn't the blog for you.  Just keeping it real over here.  This ain't the Hallmark channel.

I have known I was going to write this post since I started my blog.  And I have not looked forward to writing it, let me tell you.  I know several people who have recently gotten off of social media because it "just makes them feel bad".  I even read an article several months ago that says social media is one of the number one stressors for women.  Apparently, people are seeing/reading things and feeling that they are just not good enough, in comparison to these other people who are doing all these wonderful things and looking great while doing it.  And I am here to tell you, in case you don't know, that social media is not real (reality TV isn't either, by the way).  People show you what they want you to see. No one is going to put on Facebook "just spanked my kid again".  They are just going to put the good stuff out there.  Or the funny stuff.  Which is ok.  As long as you realize you are just seeing a sliver of the big picture.  Which leads me to my post...

Lots of people tell me that I am a great mom.  And I appreciate that.  Really, I do.  I think that I am a great mom.  But I am not perfect.  I have a bad habit.  So...you should know...(deep breath)...I yell at my kids.  I hate myself everytime I do it (even when I am right).  My mother was a yeller and that has always been my excuse.  My mom was a great mom, but she yelled.  I have been saying for many years that I was going to stop yelling.   This year, I decided it was time to get serious.  Done with the procrastination.  (Started the blog, right?) When I went to do my 2015 goals and got to the heading "Stop...."  I knew immediately what it was I needed to stop.  If any of you saw my 2015 goals post (January 22nd) and noticed 'stop yelling at my kids' in my picture frame of goals, thanks for not calling me out on it.  I wasn't ready to talk about it.

My Jesus Girls and I started the year with the Joyce Meyer book "Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits" and this really helped me to get centered on what it was I wanted to do.  Mind you, I have LOTS more bad habits than this.  I made a list of those things I wanted to STOP doing (Habits to Break) and those things I wanted to START doing (Habits to Make).  And then....I started with something else.  That's right.  I needed to have some success before I just dove right into what might be the hardest habit of all for me to break. But just the mere fact that I realized it was a habit, hey...that was a start.
I began by making a list of why I wanted to stop. I mean, really detailed, everything about it that bothered me.  My list looked like this:
   it hurts the girls
   it hurts God
   it's teaching them a bad parenting skill
   it makes me feel like a bad mother
   it's not Christ-like or in the fruit of the Spirit
   it steals my peace
   God can't work in a life of turmoil

Then I asked myself why do I do it?
   I am frustrated, tired, aggravated or any combination thereof

Then I asked myself what were my triggers?
   kids being ungrateful
   kids aren't listening (I am repeating myself over and over)
   kids arguing with me (ok, mostly this is the pre-teen)

Then I asked myself how do I feel when I do it?  I think this was the most telling of all...
               Enraged.  Out of control.

How am I doing?  You feeling better about yourself?  Good.  We're real short on fluffy kittens and unicorns right now.

All this analyzing was really important.  Because it's not just enough to want to stop.  I felt like I had to understand it.  Fully.  And then, I prayed.  I prayed for God to give me some insight on how I was going to break this, because I had no idea where to start.  God gave me several epiphanies through Joyce Meyer's book.  Here's what really helped me:

"God can't work in a life of chaos and an atmosphere of turmoil.  If you have no peace, you have no power."  Woah.

"The devil sets us up to get us upset.  Be peaceful in situations where you have no reason to be peaceful."

And this was the aha moment for me..."It's not our circumstances that upset us, it's not knowing how to respond in the proper way."  What?
I just needed to learn how to respond in a different way.  And that single thing, that made something in me completely shift.

I keep a journal and write down every day if I yelled or didn't (I have done the same thing with all my habits I have been trying to make and break.  It makes you very conscious of what you are doing and it shows you your successes too.)  I would write down when I lost it and what made me yell.
And then I had 2 days in a row with no yelling...and then three...and then a whole week!  And then 2 weeks!  And then....
I dropped my basket.  The exact journal entry reads like this:  I yelled.  Like a crazy person.  I mean, I really lost it.
Sigh...I was so close.

I would love to say this post ends with "and now, I am completely cured of this bad habit".  But I am not.  I am still working on it.  But I have made tons of progress.  Sometimes I think I yell now and I don't think I would have even considered it yelling before.  I am learning that some of the times I lose it, it's because I am crazy exhausted and so I am realizing that maybe I need to slow down and do a little less.  I need to make the habit of going to bed on time.  I have learned a lot about what is it about ME, not my kids, that is making me yell.  Another one of my favs from Joyce..."God is not nearly as interested in changing our circumstances as He is in changing you."  Chew on that one for a minute.

So, I submit to you my very humbling blog post. I hope my blog never makes anyone feel like they are not enough.  Because we are.  But we could always strive to be a little bit better.  See, I know I am a great mom.  But I'm not perfect.  But every day I am trying to be a little better. A better person, a better Christian, a better wife, a better friend and a better Mom.  And as long as we are trying to get a little bit better every day, we're moving in the right direction.  And that my friends, is something that should make you feel good about yourself.

One Day at a Time!
K