Tuesday, August 5, 2025

When Life Gets Messy, We Get a Little Messy Too

Learning to notice when we’re dysregulated—too quick to anger, too short on patience—is the first step to coming back into ourselves

Blogs National

By Sue Siemens, Regional Director, Cambridge Member Centre

This summer, my family and I made a big move: from the hustle of the city to the calm of the country. We traded honking horns for chirping crickets and corner stores for gravel roads. It’s been beautiful, exciting, and—if I’m honest—a little bananas.

Even the chickens—yes, they came with the house—were stressed. For the first two weeks, they barely laid any eggs. We think they were stressed out from all the new people, activity, and general commotion. It also could’ve been our four-year-old twins wildly chasing after them for hours on end. Who knows? They were, in their own feathery way, dysregulated. Honestly, I felt the same.

Our usual rhythms had been shaken up. There are boxes still to unpack, new routines to learn, and everything feels . . . unfamiliar. We’re happy, yes, but also a bit stressed. And that stress sneaks out in funny ways. The kids are bickering more than usual. The adults snap over silly things, like who left the hose on and drained the well (it was me). Frustration bubbles closer to the surface than it used to.

It made me think: whether you’re working on a busy construction site in the hot summer heat, caring for residents in a care home with not enough staff, or at a kitchen table full of puzzle pieces and unchecked emails, our emotions follow us. When life gets messy, we get a little messy too. Learning to notice when we’re dysregulated—too quick to anger, too short on patience—is the first step to coming back into ourselves.

Daily I’m reminding myself that all the strategies we teach our young kids, I need them, too. Go take a few quiet minutes in your room. Go scream into a pillow if you need to. Take five deep breaths, so deep you can see your belly puff up like a balloon. Sometimes, we all need to hit reset, and find our way back to calm, our way.

The chickens are laying more eggs now, and we’ve started to settle, too.

So, if you’re feeling a little scrambled (pun intended), know you’re not alone. Look for the joy, and laugh where you can.

Life is stressful and chaotic. That’s just part of being human. But remember that even in the chaos, if you allow it, you can still grow.

When Life Gets Messy, We Get a Little Messy Too

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