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Lisa came into my office a few days ago in tears. "Life's just out of control, that's all" she said. Three days earlier she had experienced a melt down. After working at a local food pantry, she took one child to gymnastics. Then she picked another up from school and drove her to piano, ran back to her oldest daughter's school and picked her up. She went back to gymnastics, back to piano, then drove her oldest to a birthday party at 5:30 pm. After that, she would swing into the grocery store, find food for supper, go home and make dinner. But her melt down disrupted the evening.
"While I was driving to the birthday party, one of the kids began to complain. I snapped. I pulled the car into the nearest driveway and started screaming at all three girls in the back seat. My 7 year -old told the 9 year -old to 'shut up' and my 12 year- old started yelling at my 7 year -old because she said that she should never say 'shut-up.'
" Suddenly, I burst into tears. The car became stone cold quiet. I turned the car around and went home. No birthday party, and we had canned soup for dinner. Do you think I'm turning into a child-abuser?" she finished.
No, I reassured her, she wasn't a child abuser, just an overcooked Mom like the rest of us. But here's my question. Why are we Moms compelled to live so frenetically? Let's face it. We've all been in Lisa shoes.
If we peel away the excuses we make for overscheduling ourselves and our kids, we're left with the real reason we do this: fear. We are too afraid not to be busy. Adding complexity to our lives and raising our anxiety levels has become a past-time for mothers- particularly conscientious mothers. We sign our kids up for tons of things (most of which they don't want to do), fret about which school to send them to and stuff their lives and ours with too many things and then worry about how we'll pay for it all. I think we've all gone a bit mad (myself included.)
So I have a radical proposal. Let's simplify our lives as moms. Deep in our hearts, we hear a small voice beckoning us to slow down and let go of the madness. Usually we ignore it, but I think it's high time we pay attention. We can do this. Learning to live more simply means learning to let go of things, activities and even relationships which are making life too muddy. It means setting priorities for our lives and our days and living like we mean it.
Simplicity occurs on two levels. First, there is an inward simplicity which occurs in our hearts. In this inner simplicity, we do some soul searching to figure out what we purpose to do on this earth the short time we're here. It means establishing real goals and focusing on them. The second form is external simlicity which means putting feet onto what our hearts have decided. Here, we remove activities and things which are preventing us from living our priorities. External simplicity means going into our closets and giving clothes away so we have less to wash. Maybe it means switching jobs so that we have more time with our kids, or cutting our kids' extracurricular activites in half so they can come home and play board games in the afternoons. The working out of it is different for each one of us.
I propose that we have at it. I am going to grab my calendar and a pen and start deleting things which are stressing me. Then I'm going to start getting rid of stuff. Yikes. This feels scary. There's that fear again telling me that my kids and I really need the stuff we have and the activities we do. But I'm not going to bite. I'm going to move ahead because I don't need to be afraid. I suppose the reason that simplicity is a discipline because it requires a bit of back bone. But I have it and I know that you do to.
