I'd say for years I have been pretty much against all forms of yoga, Pilates, running, and any type of exercising anything in general. Sure every now and then I get the urge to "be healthier" to "set an example" for my kids. Well that always goes into the toilet after a while. I either get to busy with life or just plain old give up because I cant stand it. My therapist had told me for years "work on your breathing, exercise, meditate, take time to yourself" and I've always been like "sure sure, i'll get right on that." and I don't.
It's not really because I don't trust her, and its not really because I don't want to (although I was very against yoga for a while) I just always forgot about it. I mean after how many years of just reacting when you're mad its kinda hard to stop and be like wait I need to take a breath, or I need to remove myself, or even just think about what you're saying or doing. Well I guess for someone with an anger problem it's difficult. Plus when I'm mad the last thing I think I have is some kind of anger problem, I always just think I'm in the right. (Most of the time I am regardless of how I "handle" it.)
Recently though my therapist has been pretty admit about these "techniques". She has been showing me videos and telling me about statistics of people who use these techniques and are seeing vast improvements in all aspects of their life. I took it with a grain of salt and kinda knew myself enough to be like yeah I know there's no way I'll remember to try that.
Except this time I did. Ok, so maybe it was when Lil got mad, but still. It's progress. So here's how it went down. There were about 2 small instances within a day where Lil started to get upset and I stepped into the situation and told her to take a deep breath. It seemed to help pretty well. Well I didn't know how well it was going to help her until a night or two later when I was making dinner. It started off with her being hungry (she's like me, she gets angry when she's hungry; really really angry) so when I was preparing her plate and put butter on her corn she had a full blown melt down.
By melt down I'm talking full blown screaming, kicking, thrashing, spitting, snotting, running around like a mad person kind of melt down. Now usually my response is scream back. I mean I can handle a lot of things but that high pitched scream is not one of them. Not to mention I'm not good with any type of confrontation despite how young the person may be. But I looked at her and thought how irrational her response was. And I just couldn't handle it. So I stopped what I was doing, looked her in the eye and said "Take a deep breath." She did. Then I told her to take another and another and another. And with each deep exhale I saw a little more of the crazy leave her eyes. Within seconds she had stopped her hysterical temper tantrum and was right back to the sweet little girl I love so much.
I mean this happened in seconds! I was astonished (which does not even enough to describe what I was feeling). Here I thought something like this would take multiple attempts, lots of practice, maybe a little knowledge. But there it was, just like that it changed. It was so simple.
HOW? How could it have been SO SIMPLE? I stood there for a moment in shock. I wasn't sure how to respond. I was ready for a fight but it didn't come. It was over almost as quickly as it started. And that's when I realized that I've been yelling for 4+ years for absolutely nothing. I have hurt my ears and Mike's ears, stressed myself, my kids, and Mike out. I have taught my children to yell in response when I could have just taught them to take a deep breath.
So the next thing I thought to myself after the shock wore off was that it was probably a one time thing. I thought that it would probably take a while for them to catch on and do it on their own. Tyler seemed kind of resistant to it. As Lil was doing that he looked at me like I was crazy. And I felt that way too. I'd driven myself crazy for years. I had begun to teach my kids to be crazy and here was the answer, a simple breathing technique.
So regardless of how hard I figured it would be I jumped on that wagon so fast and rode that thing down the hill at warp speed! And guess what? I have been doing this with them for about 2 weeks? And you know now they do it on their own. Tyler will see Lil getting angry and he stops and says take deep breaths Lily. Or if she is resisting he does it, even if she is doing he does it, and it happens the other way around too.
And we don't just do it when we are mad. We change it up sometimes and wave our hands in the air and then bend low to the ground, we do big breaths and small breaths just to practice it for when we are mad. The best part about it all is when I see them doing something to upset me I do the deep breaths with them and I calm down to. Just like that my blood pressure drops. My therapist told me I should be the poster person for mindfulness. I would be, that's how incredible it was. That's how much I'll use this from now on. And it wont stop there. Eventually I tried yoga and it helps, it helps a lot. Not only with flexibility but just in general, you feel better. It pains me to admit that because as much as I love doing hard labor I hate exercising. But I do it (sometimes, I try to do it more) and the kids do it and its good for them too.
I may not be one of those parents who goes out of their way to make sure every single thing my kids do is healthy but I have been trying a little bit more to be one of those parents. I know, I know. I was probably abducted by aliens recently right? But whatever. I know some things need to change for me and for them or else we are gonna head down a bad path. And I refuse to be one of those parents with an obese kid sitting in front of the TV playing murder video games all day and night. Nope not happening. We will be happy, and healthy, and not killing anyone except for ants and spiders that are stupid enough to come into our house.
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