I have just realised that it’s been over three weeks since I last posted a blog.  I’ve been meaning to, it’s just that I’ve been so crazy-busy over the last few weeks that I simply haven’t been able to make the time to do it.

I’m not sure why I’m giving you excuses and reasons.  There’s no need to.  I am entirely responsible for my own time management and somewhere along the way I must have made choices about what were the most important things to focus on.  That doesn’t stop the quietly irritating little voice in my head telling me that I “should have done better” though.

In all honesty, I haven’t really got time to be writing this now.  I should be packing my bag for a weekend of working in London, answering emails that have been neglected for the last couple of days, writing in my daughter’s reading diary, hanging out the washing and any one of a hundred other things that ‘need’ doing.

‘National Stress Awareness Day’ and ‘World Kindness Day’, two events that I am normally pretty guaranteed to write a blog post about because of how relevant they are to both the work I do and how I try to live my life, have somehow completely passed me by.  The last few weeks have disappeared in a haze of clients and work and appointments and work and children and work and planning and work and commuting and…well, work.

I guess it’s kind of ironic that not being aware of how stressed out I’ve been feeling, and how un-kind I’ve been being to myself have led me to this point.  This point being me sat in front of my laptop frantically typing to get the words out of my head before I lose the nerve to write them.  This point being my confession that tonight I screamed at my kids during the bedtime routine because they were playing up and not listening to me and not doing what I was asking them to do.  I screamed at them so loudly that I scared them into submission.  They fell silent, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes.  Tears tumbled down their cheeks and they hung their heads in shame and shuffled off to their beds, clambering in with hunched shoulders and hiding themselves under their duvets, their body language demonstrating so clearly just how hurt and unhappy they were feeling.  It should be me hanging my head in shame, not them.  They did nothing wrong – they were just having fun, the same way they do every night.  And yet tonight…I lost it.  I was doing the best I could with what I had at the time, but this time what I had wasn’t enough.

Of course I went and apologised.  I spoke to each of my girls in turn, making sure they looked me in the eyes as I said sorry over and over and over again.  As I tried to explain what I’d been thinking and feeling, knowing that it didn’t excuse my behaviour and knowing that I’d be away for a whole weekend without the chance to really make it up to them and show them how much I love them.  They looked back at me with solemn and wary faces, not quite getting why Mummy was so upset and probably blaming themselves for what had happened when in fact it was all about me, not them.

This is not my proudest parenting moment.  It is a moment I would much rather forget, but I am certain that it will remain in my memory forever.  I’m pretty sure that it will be burned into my girls memories forever too and that is what is upsetting me more than anything.

I try so hard, all of the time, to adopt a positive parenting approach to raising my girls.  Most of the time I think I manage it, as does my partner.  We support each other in doing so.  And yet every so often one of us reaches breaking point.  Tonight it was my turn and the tidal wave of emotional hijacking overcame me so quickly that I was powerless to stop it, rendered helpless by rage.

It’s only with hindsight that I can realise and recognise all the little events that have led to this point.  Consecutive nights of sleeping badly, running and fighting my way through my dreams so that I wake up physically rested but more mentally exhausted than before I went to bed.  Taking on too much work-wise.  Trying to fit too many things into each day, each week.  Not taking the time to do nice things for me.  Not spending enough quality time connecting with the people I love.  Not doing the things I love to do.

It’s a valuable lesson to learn.  I work with many clients who struggle with stress, who never take the time to look after themselves and then wonder why they end up feeling bad.  I help guide them to recognise their ‘canaries’ – their own personal signals that tell them they are allowing their stress levels to get too high.  I teach them ways to bring those levels back down again.  These last few weeks, I’ve been forgetting to apply my own words of guidance to myself.  And now it’s affecting more than just me – it’s affecting my daughters.

And it’s going to stop.

Now.

It’s strange – here I am writing this post, setting out my flaws, my demons for all to see.  I don’t tend to write when I’m ok, when life is good and balanced and settled and positive.  Maybe that’s something else that needs to change.  This whole thing has taken me completely by surprise.  The weeks leading up to these last three crazy-busy weeks were wonderful.  Busy to just the right level, quality time with my most precious little family, feeling on top of things and good in myself – even (dare I say it?) at peace with myself.  I acknowledged it and was grateful for it.  But perhaps there was a teeny tiny part of me that quietly wondered how long it was going to last.  What would happen that would make it all go wrong?

I think I need to explore that further.

Now is not the time though.  Now is the time to sign off from this post, to finish getting ready for my working-weekend in London and then to tiptoe into my girls bedrooms and gaze at them as they sleep, marvelling at their soft smooth skin, their deep even breathing, their wild hair strewn across their pillows.  Now is the time to whisper to them once more how I love them so much that there are no words to describe it, to say sorry again for all the times I’ve shouted, to hope that their unconscious is listening.