Dysregulation, Gratitude, and an Expansive Mindset

Whew, took a week off from all things Parenting in Process to work on finding a bit more balance. Because prior to last week, I was feeling quite unbalanced, not unlike the edges of burnout.

Having been through burnout last year, I was able to recognize these feelings and work towards preventing it from overtaking me. So…I took the week off to refocus, recenter, and rebalance.

One of the things I was struggling with was constantly feeling like I was bumping up against dysregulation. For me, I visualize this as floating down a river. The river is regulation and the shores are dysregulation. My raft was skidding up along the shore constantly, never fully coming back to flowing smoothly. (similar to Dr. Dan Siegel’s model of the “River of Well-Being”)

I was finding that this constant dysregulation was leading to lots of overwhelm, stress, and resentment. And my go-to coping mechanisms here were to distract myself, numb, and dissociate/disconnect when things felt hard (mainly in the ways of scrolling endlessly, overworking, and watching lots of reality TV). The problem was that none of these things actually helped to stop the dysregulation that was happening for me, just to push it out of my view. This seeped over into parenting because it’s all interconnected; I was irritable, distant, and really struggling to connect with E.

So, I took the week off from work, with the goal of figuring out how I can find more balance. Balance with work, social media/TV use, self-care, keeping up with housework, etc. I went back to my basics, the things that help nurture me. I picked up some fiction books, and leaned into reading instead anytime I had the urge to pick up my phone. I spent time outside, sitting with the sun on my face, going for walks, etc. I tried listening to my body and going to bed when I was tired instead of staying awake just to have some time alone. I woke up a bit earlier to give myself time to journal for 20 minutes while I drank a glass of water. For the record, I’m not a big journaler, but I know how much it helps me clear my head of the circling thoughts.

Basically, all of these little things added up to intentionally choosing things for ME, which is a way of reminding myself that I am worth it.

The week naturally led to lots of reflection. What exactly was so dysregulating? Why was my system not able to get back to baseline? I think there are lots of reasons, but the main one was that the amount of stress and pressure on me was far outweighing how much I was taking care of myself. Essentially, I was pouring more out than I was back in. The dysregulation came from many places: husband’s busy schedule with his coding program bootcamp meaning we get very little time for ourselves (not to mention each other), trying to keep up on all of the household chores (mainly falling on me at the moment because of his current schedule), putting E’s emotional and physical wellbeing at the forefront of everything else (at the expense of our own, which then trickles back down to her…oops), and the dumpster fire of dysregulation that is being a content creator on social media (comparison, trying to play the game of the algorithm, urgency, not-enoughness, etc).

So I needed less of the dysregulating stuff (at least the parts within my control) and more of the things I find regulating: reading, journaling, being outside, moments to just breathe. Because the resentment, the negative thoughts, the overwhelm, the dissociation, it didn’t feel good. I decided that what I wanted to do was to cultivate more presence, more joy, more connection. But my negative spiral of thoughts was keeping me from it; the endless to-do lists, the sense of not doing or being enough, the building resentment of the invisible work of motherhood. I came back to gratitude. That if I can find gratitude, for the big and the very mundane, the joy, presence, and connection would follow.

Here’s the word I kept coming back to: expansive. If I could come up with a more expansive view of what it looks like to find joy, to connect, to hold gratitude, to be successful, etc, it would make it all more attainable and accessible in my everyday life.

So that’s what I’m working on. Finding radical gratitude, for the ups AND the downs. For the messages that dysregulation sends, to helping me getting back to myself. For all the minute details AND the grand things in my life. For the small everyday parts of being a parent, being a partner, being a human.