Day 9: BEDTIME, Stress-express or Decision-Express

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the backchat ‘’it’s time to sleep now, I will not play this hanky punky games with you’’ to exist within and as me especially in the evenings before the kids go to bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create expectations within my mind on how bed time for my kids should be like i.e., I want to take them to bed, give them a hug and a kiss and they go under the covers and sleep without jumping out or wanting to play or come to my bed etc., what really happens is the opposite of my expectation whereby, one of my kids jumps out of her bed soon after I put her down while I tend to the other one, I put her back to bed and she jumps out again, sometimes, they both want to run around and play with their shadows, other times, one of them simply want to hug me and be in my arms and kiss me and talk.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that my children like resisting bedtime and from this thought, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to force them to go to bed and sleep not seeing and realizing that, bedtime is a process that follows a series of moment to moment events that lead to bed time and instead of thinking and imposing, I should teach my children to make bedtime a decision by actually walking this process with them in real time, teach them and show them that it is bed time and not make assumptions that they know and therefore expect them to comply because them knowing is again another one of my expectations, I should directing each moment as it unfolds ensuring that, who I am within myself is stable, calm, quiet and really here with myself as well as with them until the moment when they are comfortable in their beds.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see just how my reality with my children cannot and does not fit within my expectation, in fact it’s the exact opposite.

From within this backchat and expectation, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react in irritation and anger when the kids did not meet my expectation of making bedtime ‘smooth’.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the expectation of my kids going to bed on time without resisting exist within and as me, from within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect my children to go to bed when I want them to and expect that they should not resist and when they resist, I react in anger and irritation.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to direct these bed time moments every evening instead of suppressing my reactions towards the bedtime routine.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realize that, my daughters just want to spend a little more intimate time with me in bed before they go to sleep and that, there is nothing good or bad about them wanting to spend some time with me and therefore, my reactions usually lead me to pushing them away by wanting them already in their bed positions and already begin to sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilt  that I am a bad mother when I push my kids away when they just want to spend some time with me before bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to from within anger, raise my voice and yell at my kids so they can stop moving and go to bed on time.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realize that, in the evenings when I am tired and my partner is equally tired, I tend to easily react in irritation and anger which I suppress and when I face this same point every evening, I just end up accumulating a lot of emotions towards bedtime from within which I go into and anger outburst.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use being tired as an excuse to rush within myself and therefore end up wanting to rush everything and everyone to go be quiet by sleeping so I can rest and bring the rush to an end.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that, when I rush within myself, I actually end up creating a state of stress within me within my body and from within this state, I tend to rush while doing things within my reality like taking the kids to bed and I know very well that, when I rush, I always tend to miss many physical reality point and thus, I do not consider all points equally, I don’t consider everyone especially my children and what they really need in terms of assistance and support before bed and when I miss all these points, I miss myself and the opportunity to make a decision from the starting point of what’s best for all is also missed and therefore, I just create a series of unpleasant living experiences for myself and my family and this is simply unacceptable from me.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to, when and as I see myself about to react in anger because my kids won’t go to bed as I expect them to, I shall stop and breath and will not allow myself to participate within the anger for I see and realize that, when I am reacting in anger, I go completely blind from what is really happening right in front of me within my physical reality, as well as I go blind on what is really happening within me that lead me to reacting in anger in the first place and take responsibility for it because reactions like anger are always a result of much more happening within my mind that I have not brought my awareness and attention to. herein, i commit myself to investigate within myself by bringing my awareness out of anger , stepping back and investigating what mind processes I have bees accepting and allowing my participation that lead to my reaction and take responsibility for these process, be it thoughts, backchats, expectations, imaginations, etc., apply self-forgiveness and commit myself to stop and change these points within me.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to, when and as I see myself about to create expectations within my mind of having my kids go to bed smoothly without any resistance or without them wanting to jump around and play, I shall stop and breath and will not allow myself to participate within such expectations for I see and realize that, these expectations are not based on physical reality, they are my mental reality and therefore are not real and when I impose/project my mental illusions in the form of expectations onto physical reality, I simply end up creating conflicts within and without that in the end create an a living moment that is not based on what’s best for all, because then, I only see my expectations and move from within the starting point of these expectations and here, I can’t give myself the space to see what’s really real, because, what is really real and needed my directive principle is seeing that my kids were busy moving in all sorts of directions except their beds, they wanted to spend time with me, play with me, hug and kiss me like they sometimes do before bed, and as directive principle, I would have allowed this and if not, I assist and support my children to go to bed without exerting my anger and irritation onto them and forcing them to go to sleep.

I see that, before bed, Crystal loves to hug me, and kiss me, and touch me and above all, simply talk to me while in my arms, she really does enjoy this every single evening and I see that, when I am tired, I tend to want to move fast within myself and hence without inti my without where, I want fast results i.e., putting the kids to bed fast and them sleeping fast so I can sleep as well, but it is obvious that, this fast movement is my mental pace, my physical reality pace with the kids is much slower and requires me to consider my children’s needs as well as my needs and fulfill all the needs the best way possible. I also see that, I always do enjoy spending ‘quiet’ time with my kids before bed and this quiet time goes out the window when my partner and I are tired from a busy day. I also see that, being tired from having had a busy day is absolutely no excuse to not remain calm, stable and quiet within myself while directing my reality.

Therefore, I commit myself to assist and support myself to move even slower in the evenings when I am physically tired, to remain within the quiet and calmness and stability of myself, my breathing, my body and from here, also assist and support my kids to also slow down, calm down before they go to bed.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to embrace the evening moments before bed as they come, to not create any expectations, to simply move moment by moment, one breath at a time, really be with myself and my kids, hug Crystal, embrace her in my arms, share the hugs and kisses and the talks, sooth her with my voice, my words and myself, really be tHERE with her, for her, as her and finally put her to bed, because I see that, each time I do this, she always goes to bed without resisting, bedtime becomes a decision she makes and not an imposition from me and actually this usually doesn’t take too much time as I perceived in my expectation.

I commit myself to assist and support my myself and my partner by coming up with an agreement on how we can assist and support our kids together before bedtime by stopping the excuse of ‘we are both so tired’ from within which we both end up reacting, fact is, despite our tiredness, we must find a way to take responsibility for our children before and during bed time, by really giving them some time and attention that will assist and support them to transition to bed easily.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to when and as I see myself about to rush within myself to fulfill certain tasks like putting the kids to bed so I can rest, I shall stop and breath and will not allow myself to participate within the rush and will investigate the energies that are present within my body from within which I create the rushing state within and without myself, apply self-forgiveness and let go of the energies for I realize that, rushing is a state of mind that I participate within and as especially during the moments when I am tired, I also realize that, when I rush, I only create strain/stress within my body which is already tired and  here, I compromise the opportunity of assisting and supporting my body in equality and oneness to be in a calm, quiet and stable state of being even while I move and fulfill my physical activities, I also realize that, in the moments when I feel physically very tired, to really breath and slow down, to physically move even slower, for I have noticed that, when I move this slow, I actually enter into an alignment with the movement of myself within and as my body and this movement eliminates any extra stress/strain for my body and actually support my body to rest better than when I rush within and without.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to when and as I see myself about to react in guilt after I have done something to my kids that I perceive as wrong, I shall stop and breath and will not allow myself to participate within the guilt for I realize that, when I go into guilt, it is out of self-judgment that I am a bad mother and as long as I judge myself and remain in guilt, I cannot the mind programs that led to the point of self-judgment and guilt and as long as I cannot see these mind constructs, I cannot take full responsibility for them, stop them and change them/change who I am within them and thus, my physical reality will not change either, therefore, I commit myself to assist and support myself to investigate what it is that I am accepting and allowing to define who I am instead of defining who I am in every moment of breath within the principle of equality and oneness as what’s best for all.

I commit myself to teach and show my children slowly but surely that, bedtime is a decision they can learn to make and not something I impose onto them out of my very own reactions.