Mindful Mrs.

It’s Friday!  Welcome to ‘The Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife’ where I document my love/hate relationship with my current occupation.

Have we all heard about ‘Mindfulness?’ 

It’s about being in each moment.  It’s suppose to keep you from dwelling in the past or agonizing about the future. 

It’s hard work.  Every thought and action needs to be recognized and acknowledged and then released.  Then you move on to the next moment and do it again.  And then do it again. 

It’s exhausting. 

But it’s not just recognize, acknowledge, release. 

Recognize, acknowledge, release.  Recognize, acknowledge, release.  Recognize, acknowledge, release.

You also have to decide whether these thoughts and actions are helpful to you.  Are you stuck in a routine that is unhelpful and perhaps even harmful to your wellbeing?  This is the hardest part.  This is where you have to suck it up and recognize, acknowledge and release routines that you may very well have spent months putting into place.

I mean, I have invested a lot of time in my morning coffee-TV-internet routine.  But it may very well be unhelpful.  Actually, that routine may not be unhelpful, but the one that follows could be the problem. 

After my coffee-TV-internet routine, I hit the shower and an hour later I am dressed and tressed.  This is where things start to go a bit pear-shaped. 

I gather the work together on the kitchen table and then I notice that the dishes need to be done, and then that the floor needs to be swept, and then I remember that Nigella is on, and then I notice that the living room is a bit cluttered and needs a spruce (a clean, not a large conifer).  It goes like this for a few hours, and then, before I know it, it’s 4 o’clock and getting close to traditional quitting time.  But of course, as I am a housebound housewife/freelance geographer I don’t actually have an official quitting time.  However, despite my somewhat untraditional upbringing, I do have a soft spot for tradition.  So, at 4 o’clock I begin putting away the piles of work I got out earlier and prepare for my evening routines, a run (if weather allows) and dinner fixings.   Then Pete is on his way home and its couple time. 

So If I am following the recognize, acknowledge, release prescription…

I recognize somewhere between the showering and the run, there may be a problem.  I acknowledge I am doing my housewife work and I am not doing my freelance geographer work.  I have yet to release the pattern. 

Or maybe it’s the guilt I have to release.  I read somewhere that guilt stifles creativity. 

I have been feeling guilty about enjoying Housewife Ariel more than Dr. Ariel.  This guilt keeps me from doing any work for Dr. Ariel.  Granted, some of the work I don’t want to do and am only doing because I feel guilty. 

I don’t like being a quitter.  I have quit quite a few things in my life, but there are other things that I should have quit but held on until the bitter end.  And that doesn’t go well. 

So instead of quitting, I am releasing.  That sounds better right?  I am releasing the patterns and activities that are unhelpful. 

Recognize, Acknowledge, Release. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I recognize a particular growling in the belly, I acknowledge that I am hungry and haven’t hit the breakfast part of my morning routine yet, and there is some leftover cake in the kitchen that is begging to be released from its Tupperware.