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My Parenting Journey: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
“These are the days that we’ll want back…” I was on Instagram, trying to figure out what kind of reel I wanted to assemble for my new coaching account, and it offered me a template with the above lyrics as the theme song. It made my eyes sting and get blurry to watch video clips of my son riding his balance bike up and down little hills while my husband ran behind him; to see his tiny, smiling face splotched with bright red pasta sauce; and to gaze at our sunny, family selfie during our last trip to the Ventura coast. The funny thing is, I still remember all those moments pretty clearly. And they didn’t necessarily bring tears to my eyes when they were happening. In fact, those beautiful little moments were both preceded and followed by little annoyances, melt downs, hunger pangs, and emergency potty breaks. Cuz that’s real life. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t compare your everyday to someone else’s highlight reel.” Well I think it’s worth mentioning that is it similarly skewed and unfair to compare your everyday to your own highlight reel. Because if you look closely at your highlight reel, it’s simply your everyday moments dressed up for the occasion. That’s where the good stuff is, after all. All those moments that make up the highlight reels? They live like diamonds in the rough, imbedded in the present moment… all around us… all the time! So next time you’re feeling dulled out, and you’re tempted to get a little dopamine hit from scrolling on Instagram… why not practice making a highlight reel in your head instead? Right where you’re at. During those every day, diamond-in-the-rough moments: Catch yourself having a good hair day? Wink at your image in the mirror and take a mental picture of how cute and playful you look. See your 4-year-old smile sweetly and gently touch his infant brother’s face? Frame that life clip in your mind and let it warm your heart in real time. Thinking of that song you used to listen to in the shower while getting ready to go out with your girl friends in college? Put it on during your morning commute and belt out all the words at the top of your lungs! You’re driving to work anyways, might as well make it fun! Maybe instead of habitually looking back on moments to enjoy them, it’s worth making a new kind of habit… one that challenges us to look inside the moment we’re already in anyways, and find enjoyment now! Right now. After all, each of us is the curator of our own internal experience. So where do you want to add a little more enjoyment to your experience today?
As I begin this blog, I’m looking back at the intentions I set as an “Empowered Parent” just starting the Transformational Parenting Coach Certification through the Jai Institute for Parenting . We were encouraged to set our intentions by grounding into our strengths first, which I love! So often, self improvement begins with zooming in on what are our weaknesses. While I believe it’s important to be aware of one’s weaknesses or “blind spots”, I find it much more motivating to start with what I already do well. In my Jai workbook, I described my strengths as a parent like this… “I feel deeply and am a great combo of sensitive and fierce. I’m brave enough to ask the big questions and create a life by my own design.” On a recent episode (#414, to be exact) of Kara Loewentheil’s Unf*ck Your Brain podcast, she discusses the notion of a person “finding their purpose”. She describes that one of the big mistakes people make in this area is in thinking their purpose is something that is fully formed, outside of themselves, and they just have to “find it” or “figure it out” and they’ll be set. Wrong. Instead, Kara encourages her listeners to think of their purpose as something that is developed over time as one follows their internal compass toward those flickers of interest or curiosity about the world around them… Those things that excite them or bring them joy… Those thoughts or ideas that give them goose bumps… She uses the metaphor of those little flickers being the kindling for the flame that becomes a living and breathing “life’s purpose” that one brings into existence, little by little. This resonates with me so much! From learning to speak Spanish to leaving the US to be an Au Pair in Spain; from travel nursing across the country to getting my master’s degree in San Francisco; from saying an easy yes to marrying the love of my life to saying a determined yes, everyday, to being the imperfect mother I am to two amazing young boys- these little (or sometimes not so little) decisions have shaped the person I’ve become, whether I meant for that to happen or not! This process of following the flickers, in a round about way, is also what brought me to coaching! When I first learned of coaching, it was via Kara’s version of feminist mindset coaching. I had zero interest in becoming a coach at the time, but my mind was completely blown by the idea that I could influence my own thoughts and feelings, on purpose, in order to create more of what I wanted in my own life! And let’s be honest… as a first time mom, I was trying to create some sort of peace of mind that I was going to survive this crazy roller coaster of a mental illness they call “motherhood” without totally screwing up my precious, tiny human beyond all repair!! Dramatic? Maybe. My actual lived experience? Absolutely!! So if this resonates with you, then follow that flicker and sign up for my newsletter! I’ll be sharing my thoughts, insights, and humor, out in the open and free of charge, as I work myself through the twelve weeks worth of content that I offer within my Individual Jai Parent Coaching Package . Come check it out for yourself!
