Happy Thanksgiving American friends...hope your day was filled with good food and fun with those you love.
My day was a series of ups and downs. Waves of gentle family bliss rolling into crashers that knocked me flat...
A lovely start to the morning...waking before the older boys with Ryan in my bed (hubbie works shift work and is absent) then hopping into Noah and Liam's bed for a morning hug before we got going. Then the first wave of chaos as everyone absolutely fell to pieces trying to get out the door. Twenty minutes of gathering things, meltdowns over jackets and shoelaces and an escaped Ryan who chased a big pheasant into the back yard ended in missing the school bell and a scary snapper of a Mother.
yes, that is me today, basking in my snappy glory
Then nice times. Coffee and scones with a friend and Ry followed by fun exploring at Winners, a stint in a photo booth together and a leisurely grocery haul at Superstore.
Round two of chaos began with a boy who wouldn't go down for a nap, putting away hoards of groceries, meeting in the basement with the contractor to pick doorway sizes and placements and walking a rather long walk to the bus stop in under 45 minutes total! Then the bus arrived less one son, who decided to walk, forgetting we had an appointment to make. So we waited for him to arrive then hoofed it up the huge hill home in a hurry only to hop in the car like maniacs to get to the chiropractor! Now Mother is sweaty and snappy.
Good energy comes back at the Chiropractic clinic and everyone settles into normalcy. I am building wellness in my boys that they will carry always and feel glad.
Noah helps prepare a yummy chicken dinner and we eat quietly and have good conversations. I throw Rudolph on so I can do the clean up and start a soup stock while Noah begins his homework.
Here comes another wave...crash. The movie ends and the boys start fighting over the most senseless things possible and threaten my very sanity. A printer won't print homework and the jumble of cables I try to sort makes me want to sob. An overtired two year old chooses not to sleep and there is not a soother to be found anywhere! Hollering comes from downstairs and someone is slapped and someone gets poked. I holler back and it's useless so I ignore and it passes.
Story time arrives and Liam and I savor the first chapter of a new book while Noah does his daily Wii fit session. Finally, I coax Noah into the shower and give him a bed time snuggle absolutely relieved but regretful.
Why can't things be nice all the time...are they going to remember me as a horrible Mom? Is there a way to let all these things slip by calmly without becoming a marijuana addict?
I make myself some rye toast (really good German Rye bread) with a skim of butter and raspberry jam and tea and hop on line to seek distraction. I read todays GOOP by Gwyneth Paltrow and feel like I am magically having a free therapy session with snacks in my own home!
Today the newsletter is on Parental Acceptance and offers the wise words of three different experts. It's speaking of our parents but I reflected it back onto my day as well and it was enlightening. Here is an exert from the first scholar/author Michael Berg:
Our parents are one of our greatest catalysts for change.
All the personality quirks and negative patterns created by our parents are, in fact, exactly what our souls had asked for in the upper worlds, where they chose the mother and father to whom they would be born. All the good and bad things we experienced growing up are meant to lead us towards a change that each of our souls needs to go through in order to achieve the purpose for which it came into this world.
Some of us are born to parents who judged, ignored, or hurt us. The choice for us becomes, are we going to be a slave to our past – “Why did they do this to me?” – or are we going to grow from the pain – “Why did I need them to do this to me?” One focuses on blame and victimhood; the other puts us in control of our lives.
Too often we ask the wrong why, and it becomes very difficult to move on.
We are meant to change the way we react to our parents’ behaviors. If we are responding now, as we did as children, clearly we are not growing from the situation – and we are missing an opportunity. The goal with our family is to get to a point where we can deactivate the buttons that our parents and family know all too well how to push.
This is a great way to gauge how much of a correction we have made. How diminished is my reaction? How much kinder can I be, even in the face of those old patterns and habits that our parents have? If our reaction changes in small or even great ways, then we can know we are achieving our correction.
But if we are many years out of childhood and yet still blaming our parents and reacting to them in the same old ways, then we are not correcting and doing the work we came here to do. However, if we have developed and evolved, then our reaction to our upbringing will be different. When we realize our soul needed to come into this particular household in order to break through, to grow from, and to become the person we need to become, we begin to let go of the anger, blame, disappointment – and all the guises of the victim mentality. When we realize how necessary this was for us, we can then forgive and grow thankful. Ultimately, when we reach this level of thankfulness, having gone through the stages of change, transformation, letting go, growth, and forgiveness, we come to a point where we can start helping our parents....
This part stood out for me from the next writer's paragraph:
That being the case, the tools we need to engage are consciousness and compassion. Consciousness is the ability to step back from our own agendas and automatic behaviors and see the wider pattern; without this capacity, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle claims, “All relationships are deeply flawed.” Compassion is the capacity to move beyond our own sense of entitlement and victimhood and move inside the other person’s heart...
Wow, so many things to think about. I can't think of a single friend who doesn't have a major beef of some sort with their folks. If these small parts of the whole piece interest you, I suggest you read on. Find the whole newsletter here at GOOP in the BE category.
I'm off to read it again and say a little prayer that my boys will release their images of me as Snappy McSnaperson and remember only the stories and snuggles, as I cherish many childhood memories.
BE okay with being a sometimes shitty parent to your kids, let go of your own sense of entitlement for your parents to BE just as you need them to be. Eckhart Tolle makes me swoon and I am going to try and move forward each day with Consciousness and Compassion like nobody's business.
Thanks again Gwyneth, how jealous am I that you are surrounded with such wisdom? GOOP is such a powerful tool to nourish us all. We are thankful.
Enjoy friends.
