Why I Told the Truth

I experienced something really, really cool this weekend. How to release the pressure and watch your painful story disintegrate before your eyes.

The way you “release the pressure” is to Tell the Truth.

It was Saturday, my family and I had just returned home from a typical afternoon: took baby to one of the Chicago street festivals, listened to some music, had lunch, pushed baby on the swing at the park, stopped at Target on the way home. I love days like this.

We had been home for about an hour. The TV was on (this is one of my triggers…I’ll blog about triggers someday soon).  Baby was being hyper, crawling all over me and hubby on the couch. Hubby watched baby with one eye and TV with the other. I watched baby with one eye and started feeling BORED.

I’m sitting with my family, I just had a really fun afternoon so it’s not like we’d been sitting there all day, I have the most adorable baby in the world who I really, really wanted and went through hell to have, and I’m bored.

I want the baby to go to sleep so I can leave, go do something. Or I want to write, or read a book, or work on my website, or brainstorm a new telecourse, or clean something. All things I can’t do with a hyper baby. And the baby’s not about to sleep.

I’m not happy and that’s so, so Wrong. The mental dialogue starts:

I’m not the mom-type.

I have no patience.

What the hell is wrong with me that I’d rather read a book than play with my baby?

My husband is a frickin’ saint.

He’s so patient, so content, so in the moment, so much better than me.

Way better than me.

No wonder the baby loves him more.

Man, I suck.

I’m so selfish.

I’m a terrible mother.

There is a right and a wrong way to be happy and what would make me happy now is Wrong.

None of these thoughts were new, which only made them feel more true. Familiar = feels more true.

But…the way I handled them was brand new. Instead of noticing them and trying to do my own work on them (this is part of my thing, I have to do it all alone, don’t ask for help, don’t drag innocent hubby into my stuff)..instead of keeping them in, I let them out.

I told hubby exactly what I was thinking. I cried. I told him how I had expected motherhood to change me, how I thought I’d want to spend every second watching her and how reading or writing or any of the things I used to love would just pale in comparison. I told him how I secretly wanted her to sleep so that I could do my own selfish things again.

He laughed the nicest laugh I’ve ever heard and explained that I was crazy, but not in the straight-jacket kind of way I was thinking. I won’t go into it all, but he really is a frickin’ saint.

The point is, a really, really cool and interesting thing happened. I felt SO much better after I let out my truth, but that’s not it. The interesting thing is that for the rest of that day, and for all of Sunday, I truly and honestly wanted nothing more than to chase my little girl around the house and listen to her babble.

And my husband took a break from the baby and raved about how patient I was. He offered me a break and I turned it down. I really didn’t even want it.

When I Told the Truth, I released the pressure. My story went away. It was like saying it out loud freed it from the prison of my mind.

I didn’t experience the boredom any more. Like my resistance to it was making it so much huger than it really was.

And the shame wasn’t there. Well, not as much.

I know the boredom will probably come back but I think that’s okay now. I don’t think the shame will come back—not as much, anyway.