{"id":39,"date":"2013-01-18T15:46:34","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T20:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2016-01-21T13:28:34","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T18:28:34","slug":"mommy-mantra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/18\/mommy-mantra\/","title":{"rendered":"Mommy Mantra"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hindu tradition, a mantra is \u201ca sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities,\u201d (thank you to thefreedictionary.com).\u00a0 I\u2019ve recently been utilizing my own mommy mantra.\u00a0 The mystical powers of my mantra are not always effective but nonetheless, I find myself using my mommy mantra more and more frequently as my strong willed 4 year-old tests the limits of my sanity.<\/p>\n

The typical calling upon my mantra goes something like this: I catch Honeybun\u00a0doing something she knows she\u2019s not supposed to do. \u00a0I very nicely, even saying \u201cplease\u201d, ask her to stop or find something else to do. She ignores me.\u00a0 I politely ask again.\u00a0 She grunts, swats or glares at me.\u00a0 I tell her I mean business (\u201cHoneybun, I am not asking you, I am telling you\u2026\u201d).\u00a0 She responds with a snide remark.\u00a0 I take her to her room for some \u201clonely\u201d time.\u00a0 She screams and yells at me the entire walk and busts out her most angry crying when I leave her.\u00a0 Sugarplum cannot handle life without Honeybun\u00a0so tries to follow her into the room. \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0screams at Sugarplum.\u00a0 I politely ask Sugarplum to leave Honeybun. Sugarplum yells \u201cno!\u201d at me.\u00a0 I use all my best tricks to try to coax Sugarplum away from the door.\u00a0 Sugarplum begins hysterical crying while Honeybun\u00a0continues to scream.<\/p>\n

Cue mommy mantra.\u00a0 I close my eyes, I initiate deep cleansing breaths and repeat in my head \u201cI love my children, I love my children, I love my children.\u201d\u00a0 I chose this mantra not because I ever forget that I love my children or even because I need a reminder.\u00a0 I evoke the power of my mommy mantra in order to suppress the negative feelings I may be having about my children.\u00a0 Feelings, mind you, that never over power the love I have for my children but that may cloud my vision for a short time.\u00a0 Feelings that can make me act in a way that I\u2019m not proud of or that will cause overbearing mommy guilt later in the day.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI love my children, I love my children.\u201d\u00a0 I open my eyes just as Sugarplum lays her head in my lap, still crying and starts up with her own mantra \u201cI want my daddy!\u201d\u00a0 I gently stroke her back and wait for Honeybun\u00a0to come to her senses. \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0emerges in the door way, cowering like a scolded puppy.\u00a0 Sometimes she apologizes for her behavior, sometimes she doesn’t but either way I just leave it.\u00a0 We have all gained our composure and for at least a moment, all is right in our world again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Hindu tradition, a mantra is \u201ca sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities,\u201d (thank you to thefreedictionary.com).\u00a0 I\u2019ve recently been utilizing my own mommy mantra.\u00a0 The mystical powers of my mantra are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[406,405,73],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-family-life","tag-daily-life","tag-mommy-mantra","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10081,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/10081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}