One of this year's Lent practices is to not yell.
My kids laughed on Fat Tuesday and asked if I was going to scream all night to get it out. We chuckled. I'm glad we have such an honest relationship.
Naming things. Confessing things has a way of both disarming them and also opens the road to forgiveness, healing and spiritual growth.
During my long sit in the infusion center, I thought about moments that I yell and how I might re-route myself. I went through the day and week and thought about patterns. Times of day, triggering events.
Anyone who is a parent can name the usual suspects - late for school in the morning, disdain over a hard cooked meal, a giant mess in a recently cleaned room, children playing with yet another one of my keepsake items that is irreplaceable and holds deep sentimental value, not getting to eat or take a shower, homework forgotten after a million reminders and promises that it was in fact in placed in the backpack when clearly it is still on the floor under the table... being touched too much.. like way too much. The list is endless.
It's that skit from SNL - I'm going to need to to get off the shed. Go ahead and get off the shed. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET OFF THE DAMN SHED!!!!!
And when I compare myself to me last year or five years ago, I want to say I've grown in this regard.
I think one of my biggest victories was realizing that I would often yell at my kids following some public event where a stranger shamed my mothering. Embarrassed, I would turn and yell at my kids in the car on the way home for acting so badly in public. When I recognized this pattern and named the feelings of shame and embarrassment, I was able to confess this to my children and explain my feelings. Now, in such situations, I can get in the car and simply tell the kids what happened, what someone said and how it made me feel. And honestly, if they were out of line in their behavior, they share in my moment of sadness.
And so as I go at another round of this, I look in the mirror and see myself. I can have compassion on the overwhelmed, overworked mom who needs a break at the end of the day and I can try to create space for her to rest. I can also be honest and straight-faced and look at my pride and my sin and name it for what it is.
Yelling in motherhood is complicated.
It's both a natural totally normal part of parenting and also it is not. It's so hard to draw the line and yet so easy to see the moment I accidentally cross it. Like "oops, that was too much. I did not mean that."
And for that moment... the oops i went to far. The wooooh, something deeper is going on with me... for that moment, confession is a powerful tool to name the beast, to understand it and to practice self compassion and forgiveness. It is the chance to own my sin and turn my heart from it. It is a chance to see myself as God sees me and to give myself a break. And is a chance for me to teach this deeply important spiritual practice to my children.
Lent is a season to go inside and name our dragons. To wrestle with them. To get to know them. To live with ourselves and to grow from that place of self knowledge.
But it ain't fun. So balance it out with a dance party while you put away dishes. At least, that's what I sometimes do.
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