My ideal speed of life is calmly full. I enjoy having a lot going on, but never too much where I don’t have time to rest or to love people well. I try to be done with any commitments by dinner time–and the rest of the evening is devoted to family time and hanging out with Mike after the kids go to bed. It is rare that we have something going on outside the house more than 1 or 2 evenings during the school week in this season of life. It’s too much for our kids and it quickly becomes too much for us.
During some seasons of my life, people look at me like I’m running in three different directions at the same time. My own mom will call me up and finally get around to mentioning how awfully busy I seem. She worries about me, just so I know.
And some seasons are too busy and the fallout ripples through more than just me. My kids get a little squirrelly, we run out of socks a few too many days in a row, we find ourselves eating out more than eating in. Those are cues for me that my time is starting to get too stacked. We each only have 24 hours in each day, and sometimes I try to outwit the most tenacious beast of them all, time.
But, in other seasons, I look crazy busy to almost every observer, but my inner countenance is joy and my pace is measured. I’m not frantic and it’s all moving along smoothly. My people are enjoying our home, we’re tethered to dinner time together around our table for six, and everyone feels taken care of and heard and seen. A lot of times we can catch things when they are just starting to get ragged and correct them. I call these the times when our lives are calmly full.
Mike and I take time to observe the “temperature” of our house every so often. We’ll note how each of the kids are fairing, how we each feel individually, how well we’re communicating and feeling loved, how well the house is running, and how well we’ve loved others. If any of those areas is ragged, our gears will start to stick and we find out quickly that it’s time to slow down. After years of these self-checks it doesn’t take long to realize when things are awry.
Here are some sure signs that we’re nearing an unhealthy point (there are MANY more than this list):
- There are piles on every flat surface in our house. I’ll start making piles and lose track of important responsibilities because they just get added to the stack. In my quiet moments, I’ll often start to worry about what I’m missing. This steals my peace.
- The kids are having a hard time getting to sleep at night. OUR kids generally sleep from 7pm-7am and if we start to notice a large shift in that–I know something is up and it’s time to pare back and get the kids resting well again. This may mean more quality time with them so they don’t feel the need to try to sneak it in after bedtime.
- It starts to feel like Mike and I are speaking to each other in different languages. Have you ever explained how you are feeling in a very plain way, but you get kind of a blank look in return? This sometimes happens when we start to get a little frayed.
How I start to get us back on track:
- Schedule at least 2 consecutive nights in with the whole family.
- Eliminate some of the options the kids have during the day. Put up some of the toys, put away the iPad, whatever to make the options slimmer and calmer.
- Be really really present with each other and expend the emotional energy it takes to “speak the same language”. Make sure everyone’s love tank is full.
What do you do when you sense the wheels are about to come off? How do you get back to baseline?
