Intentional living takes practice. Life's distractions and overwhelming demands can quickly detour us to our programming, allowing us to drift from the intentional, thoughtful responses we desire to experience. Too often, when I speak with mothers, the regret for having "lost it" on their kids is heartbreaking. The frustration experienced with children's behaviors is often more accurately stemming from frustration with their own lack of self control when it comes to healthy behaviors and emotions. 

Having Grace for ourselves is a critical practice if we desire to extend it to others, especially our children, who know our "buttons" better than most. This season, notice your feelings...notice your face. Allow yourself a moment to take a deep breath, count your blessings, and smile. 

Remember, your children and your cells are listening. 
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Your smile CHANGES the world around you and with any luck, brings a smile to someone else...and someone else...as the old saying goes, "smile and the world will smile with you." 

May your joy only increase as you learn to tune in and CHOOSE your thoughts. 

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When my oldest began to challenge me in ways I didn't know how to cope with, I leveraged the experience I had in his birth. It was intense. It was HARD. I tore and resisted. I had no idea what to expect other than I'd be stretched beyond what my imagination could have prepared me for...and I was. 

Because my mother was a midwife, I knoew labor could be painful. I was raised watching birth videos while she was in the midwifery program at Emory and in fact, had watched her give birth to my little sister. Laboring with my 1st born, the nurses said "honey, don't you want something?" I thought they were offering me an ice tea or soda...drugs were simply not on my radar. I knew I had what I needed to "do this hard work"...and yet, it WAS HARD....so has been raising him...and releasing him.

I couldn't have known how far deep in the well I'd go to birth that boy nor that I'd need to dip that deep again and again and again. Parenting is STILL the most challenging and most beautiful, the most painful and most miraculous opportunity I've been faced with. Still, nearly 34 years later after experiencing that birth, I am learning about my strength and facing my fears. I still return to the knowing the depth in me required to participate well.

You're not alone...and deep in the well, you're not alone there either. You'll see the light of day, you can trust that...and you'll likely dip deep again if you're being honest and not taking the "something" that will keep you from really experiencing the depth of the challenges you're facing; you'll see God in the well...you'll experience a wisdom IN YOU, coming through you that you couldn't have seen without your willingness to go "there."

Onward, momma - experience that strength, face those fears.
"Don't you want something?" 
​No thanks - I have that Something, I have what I need IN ME to do this. 

I've been recalling my dreams more lately. I'm not certain the cause, but it could be that my "allowance" of wine has decreased significantly since the anniversary of Mom's death. I knew my increased consumption of wine and bagels is not sustainable for a healthy life, yet gave myself a year of comfort foods and relaxed shoulders in the evenings if wanted. 

Recently, in a dream, my youngest daughter and I were rolling around in a glass ball powered by our peddling. The balls glided over the surface and we smiled at each other, waving as we crossed paths. We were tooling around and it felt easy, relaxing and even productive as if were accomplishing something, seemingly intentional in our directions. 

Decades ago, I took a workshop about interpreting dreams, read some books and have since maintained a curiosity about what my brain is doing with these experiences. The night that followed, it wasn't the dream that I recalled as much as the "lesson" I recalled learning in my dream. I woke with an analogy; my mothering to my children is like a pacer (and / or rabbit) to a runner. Parenting as a pacer and coach, someone who can see and set safe pace, but reflects the child's experience, eventually more and more, dropping off the track to let them find and run their own races. 

This doesn't mean we aren't invited back on the track, maybe it's a new race like their own version of mothering, nor does it mean that we aren't still near(ish) to watch their race (journey, Life, adventure). As I've "run" (completely figurative - I'm a walker, not a runner) with my babies, my youngest is "running" more and more independently. I am embracing the opportunity to find my pace as it includes theirs less and less. For more than 33 years now, I've chosen to hold / mold my tempo to honor and keep theirs too, gratefully have been invited in after some have stepped away and back again. 

I suppose the awareness comes with a greater intensity partly because my youngest finishes elementary school this year. (a school my kids have attended since 1990!) She is, more and more, learning about self-management. She tells me when she's ready for bed, that she's bathed and brushed teeth. She monitors what homework is due when and what supplies she needs for school. Next year, she'll use a locker and by all indications, will be ready to succeed in a middle school setting of class changes and 7 teachers. 

Please don't misunderstand, we watch to ensure that she (and we) are practicing healthy choices, but the "management" of it is very different. Remembering to stop tying their shoes when they can do it themselves can be challenging (and painstakingly exhausting as we wait for them to do it). Same for setting bedtimes and other important practices for well-being. Personal responsibility that we want our kids to grow up with not only has to be taught and modeled, but also has to be practiced. 

This isn't an unfamiliar shift. Her siblings (4 of them, some in their thirties now), all made these leaps, but she's the baby and there isn't someone behind her that I'm walking in those closer "paced" seasons with anymore. More and more, I'm walking at my own pace and not embodying their races inside mine, but rather able to cheer them on.

This comes too as I miss my Mom, my biggest cheerleader. We "ran together", having some kids near the same ages, and I'm learning to count on her Sprit, more and more releasing her form. (that's another post for another day) 

I know that I'm not alone. I never have been...especially not when I chose to leave her pacing me as I set out away on my own adventures decades ago.I had to find my pace, my authentic expression of this Life. Our mothering is like that of a pacer, yet we have more responsibility to know ours than controlling theirs. We are, after all, more than a Mom. 

Do you have reminders of what works for you; what your healthy "pace" (and energetic, physical, emotional, spiritual space) is? If you need help determining your healthy (s)pace, especially relative to including your work, kids, creativity, health, self-care, etc., please reach out. You're not alone in this, but you are responsible to learn about what you  authentically thriving and healthy looks like; responsible to adapt and adjust to the changing terrain of your Life. 

I'm allowing myself to be curious, not critical about the changes happening in my (s)pace, especially regarding my participation with my kids. Having held the awareness of "running" along side them, sometimes pushing or pulling, sometimes sitting and resting talking through a challenge, I'm trusting their inner wisdom as I am reminded that I had to find mine...and still am responsible to cultivate my relationship to it, .

May we all be well and run a good race.
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