Once when my children were eight, six and two, I didn’t have just a bad mothering day. I had a bad mothering week. I yelled at my kids, they misbehaved more, and my frustration level hit the roof. On Saturday, my husband told me, “I’ll take care of the kids. You go take care of yourself.” I grabbed my car keys and journal, then dashed for the door.
I ended up at the outdoor chapel of a retreat center. I gazed at a cross with the backdrop of a lake beyond and cried and prayed and journaled. For three solid hours. I walked to my car with a new lightness in my step, and it struck me that I couldn’t wait to return to the life I’d run awaysome of the practices that women told me helped them the most.
