Close to Losing It!
It was one of those days at work. My to-dos list was looking insurmountable while I clearly didn’t have enough hours in the day. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about my presentation, starting in a few hours. My head was already splitting and the last thing I had the capacity to deal with was my 4 year old’s raging tantrum about which socks to wear to school that day.
After bickering for around 20 mins over many different options that were all turned down, I turned to my husband and said “I just can’t do it today!!”. He dropped what he was doing, immediately walked over to the doorway and said to our son, “mommy is getting overwhelmed today, so can I drop you to school?”. My son looked over at my face, raising his head while still sitting on the floor amongst a heap of socks, and nodded “okay, you can.” My husband then asked me to take a break.
I took a deep breath, guilty for failing my son and not being the patient mom that I ALWAYS am , and announced that I’m going to take a walk after helping my son get settled in the car. My son nodded, still confused to see me in that state (instead of his usual calm, patient mom) and got ready to head out in the next one minute.
Reflecting on the morning later in the day, I felt so grateful for the understanding and empathy that my husband and son towards me. My husband had an equally chaotic morning, if not worse, but he stepped in immediately at my call for help. My son agreed to let dad drop him after recognizing (with dad’s help) that I was overwhelmed and even cooperated by getting ready promptly soon after. Lastly, I had the wisdom to recognize that I needed help (though I couldn’t name my emotion until my husband after did) and used my words like a grown-up at the right time— before getting to the breaking point.
Needless to say that we don’t diffuse even half of our conflicts nearly as effectively. Most of the times, there’s yelling involved. But this incident made me realize how we can potentially turn at least a few of them around through empathy, perceptiveness and teamwork.
