Everybody is allowed to feel blue sometimes, mothers too. Nobody has a perfect life where everything is hunky-dory 24*7. There will be ups and downs. How you deal with your bad days determines whether you will get out of them or keep spiraling downwards.
Moreover, when you are a mother, it becomes very important that you bring yourself together. Being positive when everything is going well does not take much effort. But, being positive even when you are down in the dumps, now is a real challenge. Here is how you can remain positive even when you are not feeling up to it.
Accept that you can’t be cheerful all the time.
Life is a mixture of up and down curves (and for our scientifically inclined readers, life is a sine wave). Sometimes, you will be happy, and sometimes you will be sad. And you have to accept both these phases.
Being cheerful and bubbly even when you are not feeling good is never going to be helpful to you. You have to acknowledge that something is not feeling right. Unless and until you don’t accept it, you will never be able to overcome it.
Don’t hide what you are facing from your family. Tell them that you are going through a rough patch and that you will definitely come out of it. This way you will get their help and support too.
Focus on the positives.
Let us take an example. When we are walking on the road. There are several things happening at a time. Flowers are blooming, somebody is helping someone, children are playing, some people are merrily chit chatting with each other, and so on. Also, there will be someone fighting, someone littering the road, children throwing tantrums, accidents, and whatnot.
Now every person will see according to what they want to see. If somebody is in a pessimistic mindset that day, then they are going to see just the bad things. However when someone is in a pleasant mood, they will notice all the beautiful things happening around them.
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The point being, when we are not feeling good, we are focusing on everything wrong that is happening in your life. And hence, you are stewing in that mood. But, if you focus on what is happening ‘right’ in your life, you will have a whole new, and fresh, perspective.
Have some ‘me time.’
You have to keep connecting with yourself periodically. Otherwise, one fine day you will wake up and find that you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror. Bonding with yourself is just as important as bonding with your family.
Do the things that make you happy. If you have a hobby, pursue it. Spend some time with yourself, introspect. Enhance the part of your personality that might have been ignored in your busy life. When you are strong on the inside, that is when you can eradicate the negative points that you don’t want in your life.
Understand the impact of your quality of your energy.
Mothers are one of the pillars of the family. If they fall weak, the entire house starts swaying. You have to understand the kind of impact that you have on the house.
You have to understand that, with great power comes great responsibility. If you are sad and gloomy, the entire house is in despair. But, if you are positive, everything is cheerful. So, when you have such power and impact with you, you have to be careful with yourself. You cannot ignore yourself and let everyone face the brunt of it.
So, understand your importance. And understand the importance of your positivity. Both your positive and negative energies are capable of doing great things. But, the former will greatly benefit your family while the latter will harm it.
Cherish your treasure.
Now you may think, what treasure do you possess? Is it hidden gold coins? No. (even if it were true, you have to think why would I know about it?) It is something that you love the most of all. Your children!
Your children bring you immense joy. They are the source of your happiness. Whenever you feel low, all you have to do is look at them. You are going to feel a surge of positivity flow through you.
When you interact with children, their sheer innocence and happiness will bring a smile on your face and lift your mood. And that is what we have to do in a family. We have to borrow from each other’s energy whenever we fall short. This way the entire house is at an optimum level.
Play with your children. Plan family activities with the entire family. Soak in all the happiness. This way, it will help you with your mood as well as improve your relationship with your children.
Deal with your negative thoughts.
When you are cleaning your room, you have to deal with the entire mess to really get it ‘cleaned.’ Shoving everything in the closet so that everything looks spick and span on the outside does not mean you have dealt with that stuff. It is all going to rain on you when it opens up. And somehow, it is messier than before!
The moral of the story is, if you have negative thoughts swirling around in your head, locking them in the deepest drawers of your mind or ‘putting a pin on it’ will not get rid of it. At some point, that pin starts hurting, those drawers try to open themselves. And if you try to ignore it, they will make themselves heard.
And how will these thoughts do that? They will morph into one or the other physical challenges, like fever, headache, stomach ache, etc., that will make it impossible for you to not take notice. So, instead of waiting for it to grow into a bigger monster, nip it in the bud. Deal with these challenges as soon as they show themselves.