My Personal Rule of Six - Step Six

The Finale.

Only for today I will think of the matter at hand in the present moment, without trying to solve the future's problems or wish away the past.

At the risk of jinxing myself yet again, I'm going to say it here: I am not too bad at this one.

In general, I keep with today. I definitely *don't* dream into the future very much. In many ways it's a good thing: I'm not as disappointed when things don't turn out as one might have hoped, because I didn't do things like imagining my oldest becoming a ballerina or my second born growing up and going off to college. I don't have the loss of the dreams, because I didn't have any. Maybe I'm just hard hearted, but I think it has helped me A) deal with four very early miscarriages, and B) deal with my adoption (maybe I'm in denial *because* of the losses caused by adoption, LOL, but if you ever read my adoption blog you'll see I can blame everything from my headache to a hurricane in the Southeast on my adoption, LOL!). I don't link to that blog here for privacy reasons, but if you'd like to read it I can send you the link.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: staying in the moment. My one big weakness in this area is tending to expect the same behavior that certain children are notorious for. I will lump every bad thing they did this week into a larger problem in my mind instead of focusing on each individual infraction. For example my 3yo little spitfire could be trouble one day because she's hungry, another day because she's tired, and the third day because she's bored, but by day 4 I'm just "on her" about everything, thinking "she's horrible!" when if I could just take *that moment* and deal with *that moment* I could probably figure out the need and help her solve it. This goes back to some other Rule of Six steps, especially Step Five.

So my bullet point list for this step is short and sweet:
* take a second to step back in each situation, see the need, and try to solve it, instead of worrying that they'll "never act any better" or thinking "they are *always* this way! ARG!"

*****
Despite the fact that I've done a ton of difficult soul baring in the past week or so, I have enjoyed this series. I feel like I have the beginnings of a real plan and can already see some progress as I make miniscule changes around here (i.e. one one little thing or another when it pops into my mind). I think I might put all my bullet points together in one post or sheet to print out so I know where to focus my energies. Hopefully I'll actually have some progress to account for in the not too distant future, but if life is anything like it's been in the last 10 years, now that I have a plan and things are starting to look a teeny bit managable, something major will happen like a sick pregnancy, a big move, or any number of unmentionable difficulties!

Well, hmmmm, I don't want to end on THAT note but the baby is up and I can't think of anything else to say. Just think of happy things! ;-)