Jul 13, 2012

Lightening Up

There are worse parents than me.  No doubt there are better parents than me.  But I don't know of any parent who spends more time and energy thinking about parenting than I do.  This is more a confession of psychosis than a one-upmanship.  I'm still surprised, often, at how hard this shit is.  With all my life-long love and dedication to children, with all my advocacy work, with all my education, I find myself at a loss with the job of parenting.  One of my dearest friends is battling breast cancer.  She's handled chemo, double masectomy, and now radiation.  She told me yesterday that parenting is harder than any of it!

I am working on not taking the battle of wills personally.  I engage in almost constant inner-dialogue to this effect.  "Don't take it personally, he doesn't mean it, he's just a kid, breath, take a break... Oh, you just broke his slingshot in a fit of rage... oh, the downward spiral of guilt and blame, ok try breathing again... forget it, you suck at this."

It occurs to me that all this thought and energy on my improved parenting may not be benefitting the kids one iota.  It occurs to me that the part of me so affected by how my child behaves may be my ego.  I believe in parenting with unconditional love, but I may not have the self-confidence to do that quite yet.

Recently I participated in a guided meditation.  I was following along with the imagery of the field, the sun, and the trees when I received a divine message, which I absolutely needed to receive in my life at this moment.  The Heavens had spoken, and in no uncertain terms proclaimeth unto me this lasting truth:  "You have got to lighten up."

Amen.   I spent the rest of the meditation with a huge grin and tears streaming down.



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