Rising Above the Morning Grump: Honesty, Humility, and Healing
In our household, the policy is clear: telling the truth won’t lead to trouble. This principle works seamlessly, especially with a 9-year-old in the house. She willingly confesses and comes clean before we’ve even recognized an infraction. The aim is to build trust and cultivate an environment conducive to learning. We strive to create a space where each of us can express our truths, particularly when faced with difficult revelations. Some truths are inherently challenging to share, especially those laden with shame or accompanied by tough consequences. Here are a few personal truths that were particularly difficult for me to share:
- I feel like my brother’s death was my fault.
- I was raped.
- I think about killing myself.
- I shoplifted.
- I lied.
- I am attracted to you.
- I love you.
- I don’t know.
- I was wrong.
- I am gay.
- I miss you.
Any of these resonate with you? Are you harboring a deep truth within? What’s preventing you from sharing your truth? For me, it often starts with the small things. Here’s a minor truth that feels challenging to admit and share: Our 9-year-old had a difficult morning and it frustrated me. It might sound harsh, but it’s true.
I approached her wake-up excitedly, considering it’s Friday, pizza day at school, and the first day for our Advent calendars. Who wouldn’t wake up easily on the first day of Advent? Apparently, a 9-year-old wouldn’t. She hid under the covers, ignoring my questions. The longer it went on, the angrier I became. Being ignored hurt my feelings, felt like rejection, and my immediate response was to detach and fight back. I found myself wanting to be mad at her. Really? I wanted to be mad at our kid? Unfortunately, yes.
After taking a few deep breaths, I let her know what she needed to do to succeed this morning and left her to it. I checked on her a few times, secretly hoping to see her fail. Who am I, and why would I want her to fail? I wanted her to be wrong so I could be right. Ouch. However, she didn’t fail. She was up, teeth brushed, dressed, and ready to go. Why did this feel disappointing?
I felt disappointed because I wanted to be right more than I wanted to be loving. I aimed to prove that her waking up grumpy and ignoring me would create upset for her. I wanted her to fail so she wouldn’t be grumpy at me again. Yet, she turned it around and continued successfully. She schooled me this morning, for sure—a tough lesson to swallow. Observing my thoughts, emotions, and behavior, I continued to feel hurt and irritated as I made her breakfast. Knowing she loves cheese in her eggs, I deliberately omitted it. I was punishing a 9-year-old for waking up grumpy and ignoring me. Why was I behaving like this? It didn’t seem like me at all. What the heck?
This is a tiny example, and Lucy came downstairs right on time and in a great mood. She turned it around, and nothing major happened. She just woke up hard this morning. She didn’t stay up late, there was nothing in her routine to fix, and there was nothing wrong—she simply woke up in a way that upset me. I took on that negative energy and treated her less kindly because of it. By the time breakfast was served, I also turned it around, but it took a good 30 minutes for me, unlike her 5 minutes.
Why was this my response? Why did I want to reject when I felt rejection? Maybe this is part of the fight-or-flight response or a way I’ve protected myself in the past. Perhaps it’s easier to be mad than hurt. Regardless of the reason, I don’t want to continue with this pattern. When I experience hurt with my wife, child, dogs, family, or friends, responding in anger is the last thing I want to do. I want to change my response and react with honesty, boundaries, and love.
It will take practice for sure, starting with awareness. I’m aware of what I’m feeling and how I’m reacting—step one. Step two is acknowledging the impact. Responding with rejection, withdrawal, or anger damages my marriage and hurts my relationship with Lucy. It erodes the trust I’ve built with them. I’ve invested so much energy into these relationships, doing the hard work to earn trust, and I don’t want to do anything to undermine it.
I just had an Oprah “aha” moment. I pride myself on transformation, and if there’s anything I’m about, it’s learning, growth, and upliftment. This is another practice in transformation. I want to take negative energy and transform it into compassion. The Latin root for the word compassion is ‘pati,’ which means to suffer, and the prefix ‘com-‘ means with. Compassion, originating from ‘compati,’ literally means to suffer with. The connection of suffering with another person brings compassion beyond sympathy into the realm of empathy. The key is to walk alongside, not carry.
I had the opportunity to be with Lucy in her pain this morning. This would sound like, ‘I see that this is a hard wake-up for you. I know that’s tough.’ Or, ‘you’ve done an incredible job all week, and I wonder if you’re feeling tired on the last day of school this week.’ Instead, I picked up her pain and assumed she was giving it to me. I made up that she wanted me to feel bad by ignoring me. This is me taking her pain away from her, judging her for having it, and then chucking it back on her. It makes sense, and yet I understand this way of being doesn’t give me what I want—love, connection, joy, and trust.
It starts with the small things, noticing my tendency to respond to negative energy by taking it on and then feeling angry and resentful. The next step is understanding the impact. It damages my relationship and creates distrust and separation—opposite of what I’m going for. The next step is committing to something different. As I mentioned a few days ago, Jack Canfield’s success formula, E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome). I can commit to changing my response.
My response can go one of two ways. How I responded to the event (Lucy waking up grouchy) involved taking it personally, judgment, and retaliation. My response to rejection or negative perception has been judgment and retaliation. It’s tough to stomach and own. Not only do I respond to rejection with retaliation, but I also do it even when it’s perceived. Did Lucy wake up wanting to hurt my feelings? Of course not. Her wake-up had nothing to do with me. Her waking up hard needed love, understanding, patience, and compassion—qualities I didn’t provide this morning, making her job twice as hard.
Next time, I can do it differently. When I notice a similar feeling of rejection, annoyance, or hurt in my body, I can remember this and choose to respond differently. I can sit with the pain, not taking it on as either directed at me or my responsibility to fix. All I need to do is be with it. In changing my response, the outcome will be different. Imagine who I will be on the planet when I encounter pain and don’t amplify it or redirect it, but transform it.
When we witness and stand by someone in pain, we show respect. Being with them in pain without taking it over unconsciously communicates that we trust they have the power, wisdom, and ability to handle the challenge. Taking it over says that we don’t trust or believe they are capable. Sitting with pain builds trust, including our own pain. When we acknowledge our pain, own it, get honest about it, and speak it out, it transforms. The irritation I felt with Lucy this morning is gone, replaced with a deeper level of love for her. I’m so proud of the way she turned it around this morning. I want to clean up with her that I stole her cheese. I want to apologize and make it right. I have nothing in my heart for her right now except love and gratitude and the only thing that changed was speaking the truth.
