I’ve had a lot going on at work lately, and I have come to realize how much I internalize stress. Not only did I manage to injure my back doing yoga last month, I continued to have tight muscles (moreso than usual) for weeks after.

My massage therapist is like a bartender, I tell her. She asks about what’s going on in my life, and as I tell her all my woes, she finds my physical reaction in my body. It’s amazing, the connection between the brain and the body.

I’ve always carried my stress in my shoulders. But now I’m finding I have tight hips, so clearly I’m carrying it in other places.

After a particularly bad bout of stress, my therapist told me to envision a rose, and put the thing that’s stressing me inside the rose. Then blow it up. Watch the rose explode. I began practicing this immediately, and it seems to help keep me from tensing up quite so much.

The older I get, the more valuable I realize my body is. I want to take care of it now so I don’t end up a gnarled ball of tight muscles when I’m older.

Photo: bottled void on Flickr

Max is going through another bout of arguing with us a lot. It’s frustrating: he’s just like me, so I engage him and argue back. I’m finding it difficult to stay calm and get the upper hand. I’m trying to just not do it.

It might be as little as “You put your toy upstairs.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Go check.”

“I didn’t!!”

It goes ’round and ’round like this. Grr. It’s like he’s a teenager already.

And he’s starting to get angry more often. He’s never really done that. Sad and frustrated, yes, and we know he’s a sensitive child. But he stomped up the stairs growling like a 16 year old, and The Hub and I just looked at each other and said, “What was that?”

I feel like we’re moving into uncharted territory, and as parents of a singleton, we don’t know what’s normal. We worry he suppresses his feelings too much (like when a kid was punching him in the stomach every day and he didn’t mention it for a week) and that that will come out in a bad way later.

I’m looking into books that can give us tips for how to navigate this rocky part of our lives. Any advice?

Most of us live quiet lives. No violence. But this week I’ve had two events that touched me, though I wasn’t directly involved (calm down, Mom).

Our nephew, who is also 6, witnessed the death of a 10-year-old who was trying to catch the bus in Gulfport, MS. Somehow he tripped and ended up under the wheel. The entire busload of kids got off the bus (I think the bus driver was too freaked out to think to keep them on) and they all watched him die.

Our nephew was naturally distraught. I can’t even imagine how this will affect him long term. It sickens and saddens me.

Then in our neighborhood yesterday, a schizophrenic man beat the crap out of his mom. I didn’t even know there was a schizophrenic guy living down the street. He broke her back and messed her up pretty badly. As a mother, I can’t imagine the emotional pain she’s going through, in addition to the physical.

Sorry to be a downer today. It’s just that it jolts me into reality when something so.real happens so close to home. May you not have the same.