Share your JOY!

One of my favorite parenting articles of all time is Glennon' Doyle's Don't Carpe Diem. 

She rejects the idea of "enjoy EVERY moment with your kids!" (because that's close to impossible) and gives us another approach: acknowledge that a lot of parenting is HARD but that there are some truly incredible moments. 
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Those times when time stops and you are just in AWE of your children, your life, or just in a moment of pure joy. ​

As human beings, we're programmed toward negativity bias: 

The negativity bias is a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events. Negativity bias occurs even when adverse events and positive events are of the same magnitude, meaning we feel negative events more intensely.

While it was important evolutionarily, it can take over and be all-consuming (like, in the middle of a global pandemic). Which can negatively impact so many parts of our lives and steal our joy. 

One way to shift away from our negativity bias is to really lean into the good moments when they happen. Let yourself soak into them. The sweet face of your baby when they finally fall asleep, the deep comfort of a hug from a loved one, the wonder in your toddler's eyes when they learn something new... 

And who better to share some joy with than a community of other mamas who are in it with you? Who might also need the reminder of all of the wonderful moments amidst the giant mess of a world we're living in...

Let's break down some of our negativity bias on a community level (while still acknowledging that parenting in a pandemic is SO hard).