What is mom rage? It is when the stressors of motherhood – an endless list of household duties, work, child tantrums, etc. get the best of an already tired and exhausted mom. This constant level of underlying stress leaves a mom frazzled with little to no patience left.
Soon enough she will end up snapping, often times at the ones she loves the most. And so enters the guilt phase. She thinks to herself, “I’m a bad mother. Why couldn’t I just stay calm?”
Let that mom guilt go. As moms, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be the perfect image of a calm, cool, and collected mother. That mother only exists in fairy tales. The real mom is caught up in this viscous cycle of rage and guilt more times than they would probably like to admit.
How do you break the cycle of mom rage and guilt? In this article, I will walk through a simple strategy called the “Three P’s” that helped me to take the reins of control back and put the dragon of anger back in its cage.
Build a Buffer of Patience
They key is to address the stressors well before the moment of impact – to build a buffer of patience that you can continually draw from.
Picture a balloon that is filled with all of the negative emotions that you carry with you. Over time, that balloon is slowly filled with anxiety and stress. However, the balloon has a limited capacity. Once it gets too full, it will burst. That is the moment anger is released.
Many times, the buildup of negative emotion happens so slowly that we don’t even realize it until it’s too late. We walk through life with a constant feeling of floating anxiety. It’s a spider web of multiple things that bothered us throughout the day or week. Our negative emotions become so tangled up that we can no longer identify what is truly bothering us.
We always feel like we are on the edge of anger, ready to burst, but we don’t know what led us there in the first place.
Just before our balloon bursts, our mind and body is trying to tell us that we’ve reached the limit of our mental capacity for negative emotion. We need some sort of relief – which manifests itself as anger.
The key is to let the air of negative emotion out of the balloon over time well before it bursts. We do this by creating a buffer between negative emotion and anger – this is the space where patience exists.
More buffer equals more patience.
How do we build this buffer? I call it the Three P’s to Patience – Pause, Pray & Plan
Three P’s to Patience
1. Pause
When you notice that something is bothering you, take 10 deep breaths. With each breath, imagine the red balloon of negative emotion slowly deflating. This will help you to clear your mind and take control over your emotions in the moment.
2. Pray
If you can, find a quiet spot and ask God for the patience and strength to navigate the problem at hand. You can also memorize and recall a quick bible verse in the moment. One of my favorites is James 1:19-20 “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.”
3. Plan
The final step is the most important one – Plan. When you have a moment of uninterrupted time to yourself, take a few minutes to identify and evaluate what led you to the moment of anger. Then come up with 3-4 things that you can do to proactively address what triggered you in the first place.
For example, for many moms, bedtime routine is a hot spot for anger. It’s the end of the day, no one is listening to you, and all you want is the kids to go to bed so that you can have alone time. Ask yourself, should I be starting the routine earlier? Is there a wind down routine I can implement? Is there a reward I can give the kids for getting in bed by a certain time?
The key to the the planning step is to shift your mentality from one of defeat to one of problem solving. Experiment and tweak your plan until you find something that works. There is never one single solution to the challenges you will face in motherhood.
Motherhood is a long game, one of inches. We take one day at a time and do the best we can in each moment knowing that God will strengthen our steps in the most challenging of moments.
Let it Go
Once you have gone through the Three P’s, let the moment of anger go. Write the moment when your balloon burst on a piece of paper and tear it into pieces. Say to yourself “I release you.” As you do this, picture your balloon of negative emotion deflating.
Over time and with practice, The Three P’s will help you to stop the slow build of negative emotion, build a buffer of patience and finally take control of mom rage.
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