Recently I became a father. A life altering experience to say the least. But yet a lot stays the same. At the time of writing my newborn is 6 days old. At the time publishing my son is now 6 months old. And yet, with his inability to actually speak and only communicate with his body, he taught me a very valuable lesson.

Having to wake up in the middle of the night you really have to focus on everything you do and you have to do it right. It all starts with the preparation: Placing diapers, wet wipes and fresh clothes on the dresser, taking him out of bed, undress, clean, change diaper and put him in fresh clothes if they smell funny or he puked on them. Every night the same pattern again and again.

Seems simple right?

I highly believe that all human behavior can be changed with some effort or sometimes with a little more effort but that depends on the circumstances. I don’t believe in those ‘but that’s just me/how I am’ excuse. Us humans act from two intrinsic emotions. Love and fear.

Fear helped me get over my fear.

So back to my son - because I’m drifting (“You’re doing it again…” my mind softly tells me).

I have to admit I’m scared. Scared of dropping my son, scared of breaking him, bumping him against something, dropping his head causing whiplash, basically because he is so fragile. Turns out babies are very flexible. And for a reason. When looking at the nurses that took care of him the first couple of days - they know how to hold him and take care of him. Knowing this also took part of my fear away. The other part came in the form of a realization I had. A realization that made me not want to multitask anymore.

Patterns and rules are my only freeing prison.

Say what? Yes.

The ritual I formed almost instantly because of this fear helps me in such a way that it makes me feel relaxed enough to not be bothered by that fear. When putting up ‘safety nets’ I release myself from these fears. This is what I mean by ‘rules are a freeing prison’.

New parent realization: When I’m relaxed, my son is relaxed. He feels instantly when I’m is stressed. When changing him I cannot be doing something else, I have to focus only on him. And have only time for him. Focus on him. I cannot be on the phone with someone and try to change a diaper while putting lotion on his skin. Phone calls are not important, and if they are people can call back, leave a message or a text. Or not. “Mind - here’s to you - Focus on one thing, all you other things - form a line. I’ll deal with you later”.

Looking back at the past six days - the pattern I described formed so quickly in my brain mostly due to the fear I had against it. This is now fully embedded in my system for years to come.

Subsequently this fear is now gone.

Oké I lied a bit. Almost gone.