Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Anger Management

It's been a while. I've been dragging myself along the past few weeks, and blogging has been at the absolute bottom of the priority list. Ava is having some extreme sleeping difficulties along with some teething and nursing trouble. For the past few days, I've been slowly sinking into a pit of unshowered despair, convinced that this phase is never going to end.

And then I got angry at myself. Really angry. How dare I complain about a few weeks or months of little sleep? I have a perfectly healthy child, and I should be grateful that she isn't crying out in the night in pain or fear. How dare I complain about her nursing difficulties? I know that I have an abundance of food for her and she is in no danger of becoming malnourished. Why is my patience running so thin? I have a wonderful husband who is loving and helpful and encouraging, and I am blessed to be able to stay home with Ava during the day (which affords me the opportunity to sneak in a nap every once in a while).

When I decided to pop open Google reader during one of Ava's increasingly rare naps this morning, I knew it was no coincidence that one of the first posts I read was this.

Wow. How pertinent that her anger was also directed towards herself. (I also love that it touches on the issue of complaining, which is one of my Lenten resolutions. You can probably guess how that is going for me...)

I'm going to be meditating on this quote today.

"The beginning of freedom from anger is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of soul; and the end is the imperturbable calm under the breath of unclean winds."
~St. John Climacus


And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll just hang this in the bathroom: