You know the feeling.  Your blood starts to boil, you completely forget how to think for a minute, and something just snaps.

Out of what seems like nowhere you’re just ready to return your kid and hand in your notice.

I’ve made a huge mistake you may whisper under your breath, recalling the days before kids when your biggest struggles were new jars and high heels.

Why do those little angels make us so ANGRY?

Believe it or not, it’s by design.  Children come into our lives to trigger us into healing.  Before children, we could happily sweep those pesky inner child issues under the rug and bottoms up some champs.

Kids, however, force us to confront those issues HEAD ON.  Every ounce of fear hiding deep within our personality will be unearthed and can manifest as anger.

Every line of BS (Belief Systems) our parents fed us will be remembered.

And every single one of us will likely be empaths, putting their needs well ahead of our own... in some cases so convinced that there’s no way they could be possibly be ready for even the slightest bit of healthy independence.

These are the core issues and this is the meat of what we do together when I’m coaching parents.  Uncover, unearth, feel, and heal all of it – so their lives begin to go down a new path and those triggers lessen and lessen until eventually they may not even be triggered at all.

But what makes us act on the anger?

Just being triggered — having a thorn touched — is not the end of the world.  We SHOULD be able to stay present and on the breath, and even put those feelings in a container to be deconstructed later.

However, if our cup is totally empty…. look out kid.  Here it comes.  That happy mom is gone and here’s the wicked witch!

Basically, we are feeling so depleted from having not attended to our own needs that we go into utter fear when someone dare press us for even more.  We’re like a toddler fighting for the toy we’re playing with from another kid that wants it.  We lose our shit.

We have GOT to take care of our self.

So what is self-care?

Self-care comes in layers. 

First you must attend to the very basics:

1. Enough Sleep
2. Healthy Food & Water
3. Pain Relief or Healing (yes, being sick is a VERY GOOD reason to give them extra screen time – you must heal!)
4. Basic Hygiene
5. Meditation

Then you can add on:

6. Exercise/Move Your Body/Get Outdoors
7. Massage/Chiropractor/Energy Healing/Coaching/Therapy
8. Connect With Community/Friends
9. Favorite Activities/Reading/Journaling
10. Creative Activities/Art/Cooking/Singing/Writing

And the list could go on and on from there.  After the basics, it’s pretty much anything that fills you up and makes you feel loved.  A clean house is self-care!  A made bed is self-care!  A manicure is self-care!

Whatever it is, you MUST do it, or you are going to suffer.  Your child is going to suffer.  Your business will suffer.

For a great book on self-care, especially if this is a totally foreign concept for you like it was for me, check out my dear friend Suzi Lula’s book – The Motherhood Evolution.

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Beth Rowles

On a mission to stop creating childhoods that kids have to recover from by ending divorce culture, Beth helps ambitious, often entrepreneurial, moms use their marriage conflict as a feedback loop so they can grow in self-awareness and authentically create the relationship they want without leaving the one they're in.

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