It’s now over 10 weeks after the birth of my second son and even though I’m in an amazingly good space compared to when I had my first baby, I can’t deny that exhaustion is setting in. – Recently this resulted in me dropping my phone down the toilet. I think that is proof enough!

A few weeks ago we were due to go to dinner at my parents which me and my elder 3 year old son were really looking forward to. But then my husband got home and said he was too tired to drive. After much emotional tooing and froing we made an attempt to go, but the traffic was bad and my husband decided to turn back.

I was very upset and thought that my 3 year old would be so disappointed he would throw a massive tantrum that would last until bed time. How wrong I was! – In fact it wasn’t him that had a complete meltdown it was me! I felt very emotional and upset and my thinking started running wild!

From my understanding of the 3 Principles I know that thinking creates feelings. -The fact that I couldn’t go out brought thinking and feelings of inadequacy and frustration at not being able to drive there myself (because I’ve never passed my driving test). – This spiralled into thinking I had from the last time I was on maternity leave about being reliant on my husband and not contributing enough to the household . – Which spiralled further downward into more insecure thinking about our future which led to more and more mela-dramatic thinking until I was inconsolably sobbing away in the heart of a mela-drama that I had created for myself in my head.

My toddler on the other hand adapted very well to the idea of not going out. He ate the dinner we had conjured up for him and through his joy we managed to have a relatively enjoyable family dinner together and I gradually snapped out of my melodramatic low mood.

To me this shows how low moods can lead us into spirals of negative thinking, and it’s funny how such seemingly inconsequential happenings as a cancelled dinner can lead us into old habits of unhelpful and upsetting thinking. – The key is that if we can have the foresight to recognise this as our thinking and not see it as real, it doesn’t have such a hold on us.

In this instance because I could see my thinking for what it was – ie thinking that came from being in a low mood then it only lasted one night. Whereas in the past the line of thinking I went down that night would have lasted months.

We all naturally go through ups and downs and I know that some compelling negative thinking will be back soon and it may last longer next time. – But deep down I know it will only last as long as I take it seriously and I’ll drop it when I’m ready to, whether that be in a minute, an hour or several months. To me just know this is really comforting.