Letting go.

There's been a lot of talk about letting go this week. In particular letting go of the fear ... of letting go.

What is it we imagine will happen if we let go?

Less control means all sorts of things: possibilities such as change or good stuff or ... nothing. What I notice with anyone dealing with the prospect of letting go is that they are so sure, so focussed, so convinced beyond doubt that only bad things will come of it. They are so fused with the idea that control is their only option for survival (even though it is making them miserable and exhausted) ... that to let go and release their hold on everything they control will obliterate them. They will no longer exist. They will dissolve. They will fall apart.

What's missing from this story or view of the world is the whole picture. There is no consideration of the possibilities. There is no acknowledgement that there might be other options, other consequences, other results. There is just the simple, long held and fiercely guarded certainty that it will all fall apart.

Letting go isn’t the end of the world.  http://tinyurl.com/3f6xw85.

sarah xx

Learning from our children.

I am amazed and filled by the clarity and simplicity of the writing, vulnerability and insight on the http://www.scarymommy.com blog. The latest offering of  http://www.scarymommy.com/learning-from-teens/ is a reminder to all of us, not just those with teens, that we need to look at our children as people, individuals - with their own ideas, desires, wants, needs, likes, inspirations, tendancies and trends - and to allow them the space to express those.

Setting aside our own vulnerabilities and fears, our own need to 'fit in' or fit the mould will set us all free - the children AND us mixed-up and mis-guided adults. The idea that we raise our children to fit some socially acceptable grouping or list of attributes and behaviours is a spirit-crushing and creativity debilitating assumption about their inability to work things out for themselves over time with our guidance (not direction).

We need to back our kids and ourselves. We need to trust the process of becoming. We all went through it. We are doing the best we can if we remember to keep ourselves awake and conscious. We will achieve more for our children by focussing on teaching them to stay awake on the journey of life - and to trust themselves and their learnings.

sarah xx

Control.

A hallmark of mental health is the ability to be flexible. http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/10/03/the-illusion-of-control/. - this is great. think about it.

The pursuit of control, and its associated consequences, make up the greater part of my work.

Letting go is the focus for so many of us. Of course, achieving a more flexible state of being and awareness first requires a letting go of the fear of what will happen when control is not longer pursued. A viscious cycle indeed.

sarah xx

Parenting just about ruined it all!

Don't get me wrong, being a Mother rocks! but not in that "its all perfect and I love it every single moment of my existence" kind of way. More in a "holy heck this is hard work and I am learning constantly and don't know what I am doing most of the time and boy oh boy this can be so incredibly confronting and painful" kind of way.

I was so desperate to do a great job and be a "good" mother that I almost immediately started taking the role of Parent way - and I mean waaaaaaaaaay - too seriously. We are told by wise Others that as the Mother, we are the only one who can Mother our child in that special way. While this is surely true, there is quite a difference between the role of being Mother, and Parenting in terms of how much or how little those roles become part of our identity.

I became a Mother, and at the same time took on Parenting as my new, permanent, all-pervasive job and identity. I parented my children, initially in that particular style of an anxious new Mother, and was doing OK (now that I look back without all the anxiety I felt at the time). Then I started parenting my husband. And my parents, and possibly even at times my friends. That was a lot of parenting. I was also parenting myself: playing the critic, pointing out the faults, suggesting new and better ways of doing it all etc. I was exhausted!

After a short while, I got really sick of myself - which I am sure is not hard to imagine when you think about being parented 24/7 without a break for coffee! Even a coffee break had the Parent there reminding me that I was wasting time and I needed to do this quickly so that I could get on with tidying up or being a Mother!!!

As the saying goes,

    "Change only occurs when the pain of staying the same becomes too great"

I am so relieved it finally did! After just about destroying my sense of self, my relationship with my children, my relationship with my husband and becoming way too uptight and Parent-like for friends (who stuck by me nonetheless - god love em!) I realised that all this Parenting was leaving no time to be the Adult Sarah. And that while I was being Parent Sarah a huge amount of the time, I was also switching to Child Sarah when it all become too much.

Now I Parent the children - but not anywhere near as much as I used to. Now I spend more time as the Adult and very little time as the Child. And boy do I enjoy life more!

What role are you spending most time in?

Sarah xx

The choices we have.

This is my reality and no one else lives in my world. I create it as I go - with my thoughts and feelings and beliefs. Just as I can create experiences I welcome, I also create those I don't welcome or enjoy so much. All of it is an illusion. All of it can be approached differently.

I can change my reality by taking responsibility for it: which simply means "accepting the ability to respond". I guess from there it goes:

• accept that I have the ability to respond,
• then choose how I want to do it.
• stay on track by asking at every step "is this what I want to be doing?".
• check in with Self each day to reflect upon the choices I am making about how I respond to the life I am creating as I go.

What I have been doing up until now seems so basically human. This sounds initally like a justification (excuse) but what I want to convey is that 'human' itself sounds so limiting and limited to what have until now appeared to be these socially acceptable boxes we live in, viscious cycles we expend so much energy racing/wandering around.

It's ALL our choice: how we proceed; how we respond; how we translate information into our own words and meanings; how we then use those translations to respond. We can do this creatively, positively and energisingly (is that a word yet?), or negatively in the same old way - using the latest 'evidence' (which is simply our own translation of events) to reinforce our position  - a position that keeps us stuck in that place of not evolving, of instead fusing with our translation and believing we are justified and right in doing so.

When we begin the journey of noticing how our thoughts and feelings keep us fused, we have the opportunity (which was and has been, and will always be there) to make conscious choices about whether we continue to hold tight onto the ideas, thoughts and feelings we have (perhaps to our own detriment) held onto so long in the belief that they are reality/truth/right ... or whether we acknowledge them, then continue on our journey living alongside their presence but not fusing with them, not letting them be the basis upon which we make our choices about how we respond.

It's up to us. We are the ones making the choice.

Sarah xx