Talking to Myself!

Speak to those who are listening.

Do not get upset with those who aren’t.

Don’t waste your words on people who are not open to what you have to say.

Do not get angry.

Do not rebuke.

Do not take it personally.

There is much I do not know or understand.

Pay attention to the ones who are curious.

Pay attention to those who have wisdom and listen carefully to what they are saying. Bent knees, pivoting in thought.

If they redirect, it may mean they have more to share that I do not know. If I don’t take it personally, I won’t dive into the #2 pit which hijacks my learning space and disrupts open thinking by engaging the voice of shame and guilt. By paying attention and hanging onto what may be perceived as disagreement, I am permitted to discern later where the truth lies.

Learning that not all should be trusted for a variety of reasons.

Not all are ready

Not all have been trained

Not all are like me

My Pollyanna attitude wants to believe the best, giving a blanket of trust until given reason not to and quite frankly that lesson can be painful. I need to move more slowly, watching for indicators, eyes open for red flags, taking responsibility for who I trust with my perspective. By taking the conversation as far as possible according to the audience, I can hold on to my peace. I feel like this is new to me and perhaps others have known this for a long time. Oh well better late than never.

Honestly everyone masks until they don’t. How can we know of these masks? They are a mystery. They reveal themselves in conversations and actions. Behind the masks sit lies, we all have them, no one is immune. With an equal playing field, judgement makes the scene dangerous. The only way to release the bondage of the mask is to find and be your true self, giving permission to authenticity. The mask is our false self. Taking off our mask is a lifelong journey.

That change of heart, giving birth to the true self. most probably doesn’t occur until life lessons have brought us to our knees. Generally, this will occur in midlife somewhere but there are many exceptions and honestly many may never get there.

When dealing with the youth we must understand that they are on their personal learning curve, an ego developing space and guess what, we all had to go through it too! We must understand that these things cannot be taught by example. Each one must personally experience this growing of ego. We must respect them. Recognize that they are doing what we did when we were their age.

Yet we must hold them accountable in a healthy parenting way.

When we are done raising our children can we pivot the way we lead into a more general correction.

Do we move from teaching in order to prevent mistakes into walking with them to process the mistakes?

Do we walk beside them?

Giving them permission to be their own person with their own identity, allowing mistakes to occur because that’s the only way to discover limitations? If we aren’t falling in the process, if we don’t fail at times we never know how much we can accomplish.

For us moms who have kids that enjoy pushing the limits we need to spend lots of time on our knees.

Praying that God will protect them and reveal to them the difference between curious stretching and reckless decision making of which this is a very fine line.

If our children become so conservative in their decision making to stay safe, they will not reach their potential.

This is incredibly challenging for a mama’s heart! Our hearts resist letting go, we want them to be safe and happy but to them our desires may feel controlling and limiting.

We all need to keep learning and growing in order to thrive in life.

When we let our kids go, it may feel like a cutting but it’s really a pruning. A time of transition, a new growth, a new season, in which we get more freedom to find out what’s inside of us yearning to come out.

If our primary identifier is mother, this is so frightening.

We are so much more…

Do not fear!

Grieve if you must!

But don’t get stuck!

You’ll life is just changing!

This is a new beginning!

Press on and Hold on!

Joy comes in the morning!

Stay Blessed ya’all!