Hi Sweet Friend🤍!
I sincerely hope you are beginning the holiday season with excitement and a sense of peace–remembering to let go of some of the pressures you may have felt in years past.
My goal this year is to relax into the holidays and flow with the schedules and tasks and busyness rather than try to control it or be ahead of it all…if that makes sense?
As a formerly super anxiously attached girlie, I can still sometimes struggles with this. Anyone else??
One of the things I need to work on in order to achieve the aforementioned goal–that I have been REPEATEDLY reminded of lately–is that I do NOT, I repeat DO NOT, need to be perfect.
Neither does the house.
Or the presents.
Or the food.
Or my clothes.
This list literally goes on and on and on.
Lately I have been really digging into why I get so frustrated or stressed on my days off because it wasn’t logically making sense. Like I have nothing to do but play and care for my kids.. Why am I losing it with a capital L before we leave for the park??!
Well, it’s because my expectations are honestly ridiculous.
Sometimes my anxious attachment tendencies lead me to believe I need to be PERFECT in order to be valuable. That having it all together is what ensures that I am good enough and worthy of love and connection.
It’s almost like I think someone is watching and grading or judging my “performance”. So when things don’t go smoothly and easily (and when is this ever the case with two toddlers lol) I feel like I am failing or in trouble or like it’s just unacceptable. It is so frustrating!
In reality… It doesn’t matter. LOL. Read that again. It does not matter. No one cares if we leave the house at 9:08a or 9:38a. No👏🏼 One👏🏼 Cares👏🏼. It literally doesn’t matter.
Yet here I am continuously treating these situations like we just missed a flight. I find myself getting too frustrated and this isn’t the type of mom, or person frankly, that I want to be. And why? Well because I set expectations in my head that are unnecessarily rigid and I resist flexibility. (I totally get there is a time and place for sticking to schedules and being timely… but a casual park trip is not that).
My little anxious attachment wounds are hanging onto my expectations for a sense of predictability and order and perfection as a means of feeling in control and, thus, safe. But instead of safe and calm, I am actually feeling out of control and angry and like I just can't keep up.
So here’s what I’m changing as we start the busyness of the holiday season:
- I am reminding myself at the beginning of each morning that flexibility can actually bring peace.
- I am asking myself, “does it actually matter?”
- And I am taking literal breaks to step away for a minute and just breathe, making a BIG sigh on my exhale and imagining letting go of expectations.
So if you find yourself, like me, feeling pressured, irritable, and on your way to turning into the mom version of the Grinch a little more each day as we cruise towards the holidays, know you’re not alone AND we can make intentional changes to have a better experience of this time!
Feel free to DM me on Insta if you can relate at all–I love hearing stories from women that are IN it with me!
In your corner always🫶🏻,
Connect with me on the gram! 👇🏼
Stay tuned for information on my course: Anxious to Secure--Healing Your Anxious Attachment--Coming in January 2024! 😘
