Coats & Gloves

Recently I needed an attention grabber for a talk I was giving on stress reduction and present-centered thinking. I reread a blog I wrote about a year ago (“Coats, Gloves, and the Power of the Pause”). 

 

I could not have predicted that a few weeks after I wrote that blog, I would have the experience of watching water gush from a broken attic pipe and flood our family and dining rooms one Tuesday night after I finished teaching a Mindful Self-Compassion class. (That’s 100% true, by the way. I was finishing our post-class debriefing with my co-facilitator when the boys began screaming “Mom! The house is flooding!”)  After the water got turned off and vacuumed up and the soaking-but-possibly-salvable items had been moved to the screen porch, I surveyed the damage and went upstairs. The boys were already asleep. I sent a very brief email to my family to update them, turned on my Insight Timer app, and fell asleep before the 10-minute closing bell rang. Interestingly, the fall-apart moment occurred a couple days later, after our water had been turned back on, and I decided to do laundry. My wise inner voice didn’t talk to me in that moment, as I sat among our clothes, trying to sort them into piles of whites, darks and colors while my thoughts were racing and my tears were falling. Or maybe she did and I was too distracted to hear her. But something else happened instead. A text alert distracted me from my internal monologue. It was a text message from a dear friend from work. It was simple. “I want to help. Put laundry on the front porch and I’ll come get it.” (That’s true too, actually. She washed all the towels from the flood clean-up.)

 

Life is comprised of highly stressful moments. Sometimes it’s big ones, like a burst pipe or the sudden death of a loved one. Sometimes it’s a lot of little ones that combine to become overwhelming, like our never-ending to-do lists or a misplaced phone.  The best stress reduction strategy we have is one we never had to learn: A deep breath. So, my friends, I invite you to take a deep breath and read the blog below. May we find grace for ourselves when we can’t find the gloves and coats and when the attic pipes burst. And may we find ourselves surrounded by friends who show up to wash our towels. Jennifer

 

*** 

Like most families with school-aged children, our morning routine is regimented to facilitate a school arrival of 7:30. This morning was trickier. With an unanticipated, overnight cold front, finding gloves and coats needed to be added to the agenda. I handed that task over to them and found myself walking upstairs, anticipating “Mom, I can’t find ____!” responses.

 

Where did I last see the heavy coats? Do the heavy coats still fit? I know I bought several pairs of knit gloves a couple months ago…where are they now? Are they in the pile of laundry that has now overtaken the dirty clothes hamper? If I dig through the laundry and find them, spray them with Febreeze, and put them in the dryer on high heat…will that shrink them? The coats should be in the boys’ closet but maybe they’re in the garage with other stuff we moved from their room last week? Why didn’t we figure this out last night?!! If we can’t find the heavy coats, what if we double up the t-shirts underneath the sweatshirt(s)? Do they sell gloves at Randalls? I stopped in our upstairs hallway, looking around trying to find a good first step.

 

My wise inner voice chose a pause in my angsty monologue to offer direction: Take a breath. I inhaled slowly and exhaled on a long, slow sigh. I looked at the clock. 6:34. 

 

She spoke again: Take 10 minutes and just breathe. My angsty thoughts argued that there wasn’t time for a break when panicked glove-and-coat-seeking chaos loomed and carpool drop-off was less than an hour away. Her response was simple: Make time.

 

I’ve learned to listen to my inner voice when she takes charge. I lay down on my bed and set my Insight Timer app for 10 minutes. As peaceful guitar music played, I took a moment to reassure my angst that I wasn’t forgetting the disastrous consequences of my inability to find gloves and coats before we needed to leave the house at 7:15. That’s right. You will figure out something. And then began to focus on my breathing. 

 

I noticed the space between my inhales and exhales was short. I noticed my lungs were opting for quick and shallow breathing instead of slow and deep. I intentionally filled them to capacity on the next inhale and held my breath for a few seconds before slowly releasing it. 

 

As my breathing calmed, I found myself recognizing my body’s stress experience. I felt blood rushing in my head and pressure at my temples, an indicator that a tension headache was brewing. I felt jaw tension and tightness in my lower belly. I felt arm and leg muscles that were preparing for battle. I inhaled slowly and visualized myself exhaling stress. 

 

About three minutes into this process, I felt my jaw loosen and the pressure around my temples dissipated. I felt my muscles release their tension and settle into the mattress. By the time the ending bell sounded, I found myself restored. Centered. Balanced. Reset. Ready. I felt the smile in my inner’s words as she said: Now start again.

 

When I went downstairs, I saw two handsome, 10-year-old faces peeking out of hoods of heavy coats. I asked about gloves and four, gloved hands appeared from their pockets. “We’re ready, Mom.” I responded: “Yes, you are, loves. So am I. Let’s go.”

 

Thinking back on this morning, I realize that my wise inner voice was quite intentional in her instruction to take 10 minutes, which seemed an unreasonable time commitment for the very tight schedule I had. The ten-minute focus on my breathing allowed the mental equivalent of closing multiple, open browsers that were consuming energy and slowing down the efficiency of my mental processing. With less browsers open, my brain processed information more efficiently and I accomplished much more in less time. And I began my day in a centered place. 

Dr. Ayres’s Counselor’s Corner blogs are intended to address readers’ questions about parenting, self-care, relationships, motivation and other psychology-related issues. They are not a substitute for professional advice or therapy. If you have topics for future blogs, please send them to jayres@rawsonsaunders.org. Names and identifying information will be protected.