Can I Be Orange?

 

Sometimes I hate conviction.

Conviction is born as a subconscious nagging, a whisper in the back of your mind (or, perhaps, bottom of your heart?), rallying change. Usually the change is something not easy. It's something that is bred deep, ingrained in your being, the requires a push. A leap. A commitment to altering parts of yourself that had never imagined anything different. 

We hush Conviction, convincing ourselves that we are "going through a season "or  that we'll "work on it tomorrow." We find comfort that "everyone struggles with it." But our worst response?  "That's just who I am, so deal with it."

But when who we are affects are character, our parenting, our children, there are no excuses good enough to quiet Conviction. Instead we stare, unblinking, in a silent standoff. And what we don't know is that our greatest gift is when we blink first and Conviction wins. Our greatest gift is becoming so weak that we give in and entertain the notion that we can be molded, that we can change, that we can, in fact, be better.

A Conviction has been nagging on my heart for a while. It's come out in my writing from time to time, like this post. There have been times I've made the attempts to work on it, with some success. But it is so easy to fall back into old ways and patterns, grooves that have been deeply cut from years and decades of living. Our instincts know these grooves and it is familiar to journey along them. 

I want to make new grooves.

I've been under a lot of stress recently. Despite the fact that it's been my blog's moniker for a few years, the name Confessions of a "Stay-at-Home Mom" has become some what of a misnomer. Yes, I am still home, but I've taken on a lot of work - work I LOVE. This work rivals a full-time job, when pieced all together. And it can be a ton of (good) pressure at times. Add to that the decision to list our house, consider a move while also raising 2 kids and making sure to focus on our marriage?

Yes. Stress.

Stress is not a bad thing. But how it manifests itself is. And in my life, it manifests itself in yelling. As I shared in a post some time ago, yelling is something my family has just always done. It's how we talk, how we communicate, how we feel in control. Hubby's family is quite opposite, and being married to him has tempered me quite a bit. 

For this, I am grateful.  

I have been finding myself in recent months (years?) too easily defaulting to yelling as a means to communicate, particularly with my kids. And I hate it. HATE it. Hate myself for it. When I yell, it festers deep inside me. I sit in a puddle of guilt. I picture the wide-eyed looks of my girls as I raise my voice, and only imagine the image they see of me: a red-faced, teeth bared, wild-eyed monster.

I cringe just picturing myself through their eyes. 

Since we listed the house as of today, my stress has been heightened. And I was snapping at the girls all day. With every incident, I scolded myself internally, only to be undone at a whine, an indignation, a temper tantrum. I felt like I was trying to grasp a fraying rope. It is the most frustrating, helpless feeling - the feeling that you are an ineffective parent whose grooves are so deep that cannot change course.

Meanwhile, in the past two days, I noticed my friend Mychal of My Life in Mommyland sharing her victories at not yelling at her boys. I know she has struggled with yelling like I have, and with each Facebook post I became more intrigued. Earlier tonight I commented on her status, "I need to learn to do this. I'm awful recently." She responded by asking, "Did you read the post from Orange Rhino?" And she posted the link.

So I read it.

And cried.

The Orange Rhino started a blog when she challenged herself to not yell at her 4 boys for 365 days. In the post I read tonight, she shared the 10 things she learned when she stopped yelling at her kids.  And it was like looking through a lens at what I wanted my life, my person, to be like.  It was like the post was written for me, showing me what I could be like, if only I was willing to change. 

Have you ever read something that spoke to your soul at just the right time?

Conviction begins to whisper.

Or, rather, shake you until you can no longer ignore her.

By the end of the post, as scared as I was to admit it, I wanted to take the challenge. At least, I wanted to take a small challenge. So I read her post: 12 Steps to Stop Yelling At Your Kids.

So I am taking her advice at creating accountability.

I'm writing this here, I'm telling you. 

Because maybe I'm not the only person in the CSHM community who struggles with this. Maybe there are a few of you who hear Conviction when you read about the Orange Rhino Challenge. Maybe there are a few of you out there who might want to take on the challenge with me. Together.

I'm sharing this here, because if I write it, it's real. And I need to go forward with it. For me. But most of all, for my girls.

I'm sharing here: I want to take the Orange Rhino Challenge of not yelling at my kids. To be Orange. For 1 week. I'm starting small. Small victories. 

Who wants to journey with me?

I start the challenge tomorrow (although I am, of course, doing my best to restrain myself today).  If you'd like to be tackle a 1 week No Yelling Challenge with me, leave a comment, email me, message me. 

We'll do it together!

Thanks again to Orange Rhino and to Mychal for sharing :)

Old Yeller

I believe most people have things about themselves they wish they could change.  Some of these changes may be aesthetic: hair, clothing style.  Some changes may be physical: losing weight, gaining endurance for exercise, eating better. Some changes may be mental: learning a language, enhancing the ability to remember things. 

There are other parts of us, though, that live deep within.  Parts that were born long ago, and over time have nestled themselves into the very essence of our beings.  Parts of us that are particularly dark, ugly or unhealthy, and we are so entangled and snared by them, that it is very difficult to be free from their grips. Parts that make us disgusted with ourselves.

So: My name is Steph. And I'm a yeller.

I don't want to be a yeller. I think yelling is an awful means of communicating.  It's something about myself that I despise, maybe even embarrassed of.  But it has become an instinctual way of communicating, particularly when I am flustered, excited or upset.  

I grew up in a house where yelling was a common and acceptable way to speak to one another. So, growing up, yelling is how my parents would communicate their anger or frustration to us, or how my sisters and I would heatedly interact.

I never thought much of it until I married Hubby.

Hubby grew up in a more soft-spoken family. I don't think I've ever heard one of his family members raise their voice.  They are more quiet in they way they go about things, which is quite the opposite of my family's interactions.  

When we got married, Hubby and I had a huge learning curve ahead of us.  I liked to process or talk things out, often heatedly.  He tended to keep things inside, and refused to raise his voice. It was natural for me to speak loudly.  If I was upset, raising my voice happened almost automatically. If I was telling a story excitedly, my voice would get louder and louder.  Hubby would kindly (and quietly) let me know that the decibel level had gone up, and I immediately lowered my voice. 

Until he started pointing it out, I had truly no idea that I was a yeller.  I mean, I knew I yelled, but I was unaware of how often or how passionately I would raise my voice.  Words can be hurtful, and saying mean things is something I've always attempted to stay clear of.  But LOUD words can be just as (if not more so) hurtful.  And I was surprised to find how I had hurt Hubby from time to time merely by the audio level of my words.

So, I've worked on it.  And I can proudly say that I've come a long way in terms of my yelling (and Hubby and I have made great strides in our ability to communicate with one another).  

Becoming a parent, though, has really put my resolve to the test.  

Once Little Chica turned two years old, and started asserting her own independence the way toddlers do (i.e.: NO), it was very easy to slip back into my Old Yeller ways.  Sometimes I reasoned with myself that I raised my voice to get her attention in situations where she might hurt herself.  But that is a slippery slope. Over time, I subconsciously was yelling simply out of frustration.

This has been a growing problem.  Hubby and I had a discussion about it a few days ago.  Now, I don't yell all the time. It's not like I'm screaming at my kids from sun up until sun down.  But in moments of chaos, frustration or defiance, I instinctively slip into yelling. And I know that many parents struggle with this.  I can't tell you how many times I've gone to playdates, and we all recount our yelling mom fails from the past week. Secretly it's nice to know I'm not alone in my struggles. 

I believe it's a defense mechanism: when we are at the precipice of not knowing what to do in a situation (child rebelling, defiance, etc), yelling gives us the false sense of security that we are reestablishing authority.  When, in reality, it is only putting a rift between me and my kids (and teaching them bad communication habits as well).

Some days are worse than others.  I know Little Chica, who is creeping up on the 4 Year Old mark, will mimic my tone at times. She is learning to raise her voice when she is frustrated. And the idea of raising a Yeller breaks my heart. I want my children to know how to communicate affectively and compassionately. I want them to know that yelling does not accomplish anything, and does not magically give anyone power.  I do not want my kids to develop means of coping and communicating that involve empowering themselves at the expense of disempowering others.

And it starts with me.

As the mom, I need to be the example.  And when yelling is so engrained into who I am, into my natural instincts, it takes every fiber of my being to have the focus and awareness not to yell.  

I've made an intentional effort this week to raise my voice less. It's hard to be that aware! I have to constantly be thinking ahead, catching the emotions before they get out of control.  It means stopping the emotion as it builds, taking a deep breath, and redirecting my desired course of action (which is, obviously, yelling).  I've made some progress, although I haven't been perfect.  

But I will continue trying, for the sake of my kids.

What are the deep, entwined things you desire to change about yourself? Your parenting?