I had really been looking forward to my weekend…
I was very good and admitted I couldn’t possibly do it all so I had taken a weekend off from exercising and decided I was really going to enjoy it. Early in the week, I rescheduled my weekend workout with my PT and I planned to get ahead with my coaching work.
Then, during the week, plans changed. My daughter was sent home from school and asked to self isolate for 14 days because there had been a positive case of COVID in her class. By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, I was completely behind with my work and my infamous To do list looked very much “unticked”. I woke up feeling very sorry for myself and with a big lack of motivation.
The naughty elf had blocked the entry to the kitchen which made it even more fun and my eldest child was particularly grumpy. He rightly expressed with words what I was feeling inside… “I am disappointed we had to change plans”… “Can we really not see our cousins?”… “I am in a bad mood and I don’t want to talk about happy things”.
My sister called me and I had a little cry and she let me talk it all out, listened to my unaccomplished to do list and did not try to make me reason… she just listened – she is very good at that! After my chat with her, we all went out to the fields, for some fresh air. Except it wasn’t quite as idyllic as the pictures may suggest. It was more of a mud bath with a lot of complaining from my son who kept saying that he did not want to get into a good mood because he was so sad.
I was about to get annoyed but then I remembered my own conversation with my sister, I thought of my own conversations with clients when I coach… I remembered that I just needed to listen and give him some space.
After an hour of walking, he saw some snow still lying on the grass and his eyes lit up. We had a very modest snow ball fight and then my husband got us a hot chocolate. I was filled with joy and everything seemed better so I said to my son “I want to tell you something Matteo, which you will hopefully remember when you grow up: happiness is made out of small moments of joy, like right now. So, even if you are feeling sad, you can still find moments of joy”. He really liked that and he reminded me of a young teenager; his answer was “whoa, that’s big!”.
Today is not my ideal morning because I am working and not spending time with the kids. I am still in my pjs and writing my blog, preparing my relaxation class for tomorrow and also writing up my reflection log after my coaching session on Wednesday. It is not perfect but I am OK about it, I’m not fighting what I can’t change and I do have to get my work done because tomorrow home-schooling will restart!
So, if you are also having an imperfect weekend I hope you too find some joy in between tough moments and I hope you too can smile at yourself and remember you are doing a great a job! And if you are trying to feel better but you are struggling, remember you can always get in touch and discover how I can help.
In the meantime, I wish you all an imperfect weekend 🙂
Love, Ren