I was at the end of my rope. I'd had enough of the kids' whining, crying, fighting. Every little thing was irritating me and I felt like I couldn't stand it. I needed a vacation from the kids! That was it!
My next thought: OMG, you're a Three Principles practitioner and you think you can't stand your kids without taking a vacation from them?!? You know your kids can't make you miserable and a vacation can't make you happy! You are totally missing the point, and you are a failure! You can't even practice what you preach!
(You see, we all fall for the illusion sometimes. Consciousness makes our thoughts look really real to us. Understanding how it works doesn't mean that it stops working.)
And then another thought popped into my head: When you're in a bad mood, all your thinking is liable to be negative. When the bad mood passes, the negative thinking will pass too, and you'll be able to stand your kids again without running away from them. All you need to do is lay low for a bit and wait for your thoughts to straighten themselves out, and...well, hopefully you'll be fine.
And so it was. Within only a minute of having this last thought, my thinking quieted down, and suddenly, to my genuine surprise, I truly no longer felt like screaming and running far away.
The afternoon continued on and I parented as needed, and all was well.