A HA! Moment

I got to thinking about my post from the other day...What is the key to keeping a sense of gratitude and open heart amongst the "real life" stuff. We all can agree whether you have one child, three or more(god bless your soul) life gets hectic as a parent. Finding the time to write blog posts or even follow through with a single thought requires strategy. Preparing meals, running errands, making phone calls, cleaning house while juggling the needs, and tears and wants of the little ones is exhausting and stressful. That's the bottom line, no sugar coating there. I racked my brain, tied together some info and something hit me.

The real reason I get so frazzled and lose sight of my inner peace that I work so hard for is..."the picture in my head of how it's supposed to be." Louise Hay, author and spiritual teacher, believes that the word "should" needs to be eliminated from our daily vocabulary. For example, as I'm typing this very post there is an inner voice saying I "should" be doing laundry, I should get my Epicure stuff organized, I should pay the bills, I should be outside enjoying the day....The stress starts to build.

As I am spending time with the kids, so often I am not present because I'm thinking of all the other things I should be doing and there goes all sense of inner peace out the window. I should be more organized like her, I should be having more "date nights," I should be losing weight, I should do more crafts with the kids, I should have more personal time, I should go grocery shopping, my kids should be more tidy, Keenan should be crawling, my husband should...and so forth and so on.

If I could stop "shoulding" all over myself, there would be less stress. This moment just as it is with no shoulds, no judgement, is perfect. I think I need to be fully aware and present more in my every day. How do you do that? Well that's a whole other blog post... But for today I am happy with my new found self awareness. Are the "shoulds" stealing your inner peace?