Intentions & Purpose
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!
