How Intentionally Changing My Lens Energizes My Parenting

Just as my youngest child spilled their bowl of Rice Krispies all over the table and the floor someone else yelled:

“Mum, one of the cats has thrown up in its bed. It’s disgusting and I am not cleaning it up, it’s gross!”

My eldest child then proceeded to go on a rant about the fact that there weren’t any decent snacks for school (true) and just to cap it all, my husband walked into the kitchen apologizing that something had come up in his diary which would have an impact on my day, and not in a good way.

Aaaaaarrrrrhhhhhh…

In a split second, my nice “rosy” morning took a turn for the worst! Suddenly my lens was not quite a rosy as it had been and I was now seeing things through a dirty, mucky one and I’ll add, angry and frustrated into the “view”.

The kids went off to school, I cleaned up the mess, did some shimmying and juggling with my work commitments and sat down to my day job.

Nothing was going well, I was in such a bad mood. I couldn’t see straight and I had no clarity as to my direction. As for the report I was working on, it was just not happening…

Two hours went by and I was still stuck seeing things through that angry, frustrated, dirty, mucky lens. My mind was totally contaminated from the events of the morning and I just couldn’t get past it.

My day was driving me crazy, my kids, cat and husband were still driving me crazy despite the fact they had long gone…

My AHA moment was when I realized that it actually wasn’t anything other than myself who was driving me crazy. My family had not intentionally done any of it. It was “my choice” of lens that had me stuck here: my choice of lens.

The saving grace was I was aware of it. Only I could get myself out of this mindset. No-one else could do it for me.

I was choosing to let my day be sabotaged by about a 10 minute period of time where nothing had gone particularly well. I was stuck seeing my day through the wrong lens and I was in the process of letting 10 rotten minutes sabotage the remaining 710? Really?

I decided there and then to change my lens. I was going to choose the clear lens, in fact I decided to choose a rose tinted one to really help me get out of my funk and reset my perspective

I closed my eyes, took a couple of deep breaths and intentionally swapped out the dirty, mucky, angry, frustrated lens for the rosy one. I let go of the bad start and things started to move forward with a new lease of energy and enthusiasm. I have to say that I was even surprised at the almost instant turnaround!

It has without doubt been one of the better things I have done and the more I do it, the better I get at it. There will always be challenging times and I have to get through them but I was in a particularly bad habit of letting them totally hijack me. This simple thing helps me reset my perspective.

Having a clean slate for fresh moments along with a clear lens really helps me deal with challenges but the biggest, most positive change it brings, is that my kids don’t see me as stressed out and fried and it honestly brings more joy and aliveness to me as a Mom.

What do you do to reset your perspective and clear your slate? One of my clients loved this concept so much that she is going to recreate the photo from this post and leave the three glasses on her countertop to remind her to keep changing her lens! Love it.

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