Wednesday we’ll begin the treat of working together for 3 weekly sessions on parenting for any of you wanting to look directly at our worst moments with our kids. We meet 10:00 am-11:30 am Pacific Time. Sign up at the link at the end of this Grace Note.
You can’t clear it all up in 3 sessions, that would be unlikely….but you can apply the sharp tools to sit with what troubles you most deeply about your child, and take your very stressful beliefs about your child through this profound questioning process we know as The Work.
And it may be simpler than you think.
Long ago, when my kids were young I noticed one of them in particular was driving me bonkers.
I’d get so surprised by her blunt comments. I’d say something like “lets go to x movie tonight” and she’d reply “I would NEVER see that movie, are you kidding me?!”
I had a gigantic belief that she shouldn’t be rude (and this definitely was rude). She should respect me. She should respond to what I said. She should want to spend time with me.
I remember once reading a book out loud, and she got up out of the bed we were lying on together, crawled over me, and left the room.
When I asked her, as I heard her feet patter down the hall, where she was going, she called over her shoulder “Oh, keep reading, I’ll be back in a minute!”
It was hilarious.
I thought she should be captured by every word and not want to miss a single thing I said out loud. But her mind didn’t think that way.
She wasn’t like me (gasp)!
Sometimes, people think that if you question thoughts about your kids needing to love your suggestions, or mind you, or respect you, or not talk back….
….that you’ll become passive and vacant and have no inner authority and you’ll turn into a marshmallow parent (gushy sweet with no clear boundaries).
But that’s not what happened for me at all.
I found, when I questioned the beliefs, one at a time that “my daughter should like my suggestions, never be rude, and speak to me respectfully”….
….it was amazing to sit with who I would be without these thoughts.
It did NOT mean to do nothing. I was still moved to interact with her at an intimate, caring level.
I noticed when I believed these thoughts, and she said “no” to me, I had a hissy fit. I was actually fighting with a 9 year old.
(Yoo Hoo! Where was the parent here?)
Who was I without those thoughts, though, using my imagination to wonder what it would be like if I didn’t have to have it MY way?
I noticed a sense of letting go, relaxing the grip of how I demanded she behave with me. I realized I was in this with her. She was the kid, I was the parent, but that didn’t mean she had to conform to every single thing I wanted.
Perhaps I had been a bit rude. To her, but also, to myself.
Turning the thoughts around: I should like my own suggestions, I should like my daughter’s suggestions, she shouldn’t like mine if she doesn’t. I should speak respectfully to her, to myself, to the world. She shouldn’t. She doesn’t know how, and she could learn how from my (new) example.
These were so wonderful to try on and really find clear, solid examples for all of these turnarounds. Of COURSE I didn’t want her to always do what I said, like what I like. That would be an automaton, like my little slave who gave me approval.
I actually LOVED that she spoke up and voiced her opinion. I want her to do that for the rest of her life and not be stuck in people-pleasing or people-resisting.
I also wanted to speak up for my own suggestions, being very solid and clear with my requests without becoming 9 years old if I don’t get my way. She gave me fantastic practice at growing up and being the loving, very clear parent who saw her as extremely capable of respect for herself and for other people (including me).
Maybe she hadn’t known how to be open and respectful, because, um….where would she have seen a huge high level of love mixed with very clear boundaries and willingness to say “no”?
Heh heh. Not with me. If she didn’t do what I said….before The Work, I went to WAR (it felt like an explosion inside, of anger).
Yep, that daughter has been one of my gurus.
And the fun part?
While she still feels like a challenge, she’s an incredible, powerful, independent, feisty, direct person. The kind I always admire because it’s so easy for them to tell it like it is.
Who knew.
Two spots left in the Parenting and The Work class. $60 for three weeks. Register HERE. Wednesdays 10 – 11:30 am PT. You’ll dial in using a phone or your computer (audio only, not video). I’ll guide you through The Work from start to finish.
“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
Much love,
Grace