Tag: mother/daughter

Slow Your Mojo

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

I was part of a discussion yesterday, at one of our local adorable boutique stores. We were having a conversation about the start of the new year and yesterday’s gorgeous, illuminating full moon. Everyone was talking about how this year feels like more of a slow, yet steady start out of the gate. We’re definitely in a forward motion, but not at a frenetic pace.

Interestingly, a young turtle appeared in front of our house, by our garage door yesterday afternoon. He was easy for my daughter and I to pick up, and to move into our backyard, closer to the lake. The turtle’s self protection was to clam up into his hard shell. The turtle knew that he would never be able to outrun us. He knows that his own pace is slow, deliberate and steady, with a hard armour of protection surrounding him. The turtle played to his strengths, and so he stayed closed up into his shell, until he realized that he could trust us to help him to get to a better place.

Perhaps this is a good allegory for this upcoming year, or at least the start of this year? One woman in the discussion said that she does not like to say “low energy” or “low frequency”, because unfortunately we have given “low” a negative connotation in our society. Instead, she uses the terms “slow energy” or “slow frequency”, because sometimes it is important to slow down, and to pay attention to the road ahead and to the direction which you are taking. Another woman chimed in with this thought: “You can only go as fast as the slowest part of you.” This made me think: What is slowing you down? What is holding you back from marching forward? Do you have heavy baggage that needs to be let go? Are there cords that need to be cut? Are there parts of your bodily and mental health that need to be healed, and to be nurtured, before you move on down the road?

The moderator of the discussion suggested this journal prompt written below. I am taking my slow, sweet time meditating on my own answer to this prompt. The answer hasn’t become apparent to me yet, and that’s okay. Stews and soups that have simmered for a long time, tend to make for the best melding of ingredients, resulting in the tastiest of concoctions. Here is the prompt (and we all giggled a little bit, because although this was a groupshare event, this prompt does not necessarily encourage ‘sharing”):

What is something this year, that you will keep to yourself for yourself?

My daughter went “to town” furiously writing her answer right after the prompt was announced. I mentioned to my daughter that I noticed this fact, and she was immediately forthcoming with sharing her response to the prompt with me. My daughter told me that she likes her evenings to be completely “chill.” She doesn’t like when most of her evenings are filled with activities and stimulation. My daughter likes to ease into nighttime. As a freshman in college, she recently came to the realization that she had lost her boundaries around this fact, and she plans to go back to school with a firmer, protective shell around her personal needs. Wow. I love my girl. It is times like these in parenthood when you see the blossoming of your children turning into adults, and you open up your mind to all that you can learn from them, too. It also makes me realize that just like how baby sea turtles inherently know to follow the light to make their path to the sea, so do our baby children inherently know to follow the light of their own souls to find their path to the vast adventures of life that lie ahead of them.

And I would add to this, “and at ease with your own pace.”

Say It Directly

Two of my daughter’s good friends are involved with a charity tennis event this weekend. My daughter never wanted to be involved with this particular affair. My daughter, not wanting to be involved, had nothing to do with the actual event, or the people, or the cause. My daughter loves to play tennis, loves her friends with all of her heart, and she thinks that the cause is a good one. It’s just that she has been over her skis with so many activities. She just had four, deeply impacted wisdom teeth removed. She has wanted, all along, to use this particular spring break for rest, healing and spontaneity. But, her fear of disappointing her friends was eating at her. My daughter inadvertently lead them on. She kept them wondering. She knew she didn’t want to be involved, but she didn’t have the heart to say it. And in the end, her biggest fears came true, anyway. Her friends were angry and hurt and confused. And so when my daughter was headed to her dear friend’s house yesterday, with a donation to the cause he was playing in the tennis match for, in hand, and with an apology ready to burst from her heart, she said to me, “I messed up. I should have used direct communication.”

And my heart swelled with pride, looking lovingly and understandingly at my daughter who is just a few days from turning eighteen. I said to her something along these lines, “Baby, if you learn the direct communication lesson this young, you will be lightyears ahead of the rest. I wish that I had learned to “use my words, kindly but directly”, starting into my early adult years. It would have saved me, and many others a lot of confusion and heartache. It’s hard to see it, sometimes, because we are so afraid of hurting people’s feelings, but direct communication is the kindest, most honest, purest form of communication that leads to healthy, trusting relationships. Using direct communication makes you a person of integrity.”

When she came home she told me that she told her friend the same thing, “I messed up. I should have used direct communication.” And of course, he forgave her.

12 Direct Communication ideas | quotations, me quotes, wise words
A lot of problems in the world would disappear if we talked to each other instead of about each othe… | Learning quotes, Thoughts quotes, Positive quotes motivation

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Women of Excellence

The good news is that my daughter’s COVID test was negative yesterday. We all sighed a big sigh of relief. She works at a local credit union. It started as a summer internship and they asked her to stay on and work part-time during the school year, which happens to be her senior year of high school. I was hesitant about this, for time management reasons, but my daughter loves working there, so my husband and I acquiesced. Recently, one of my daughter’s female managers got promoted, and she was moving to a different location. Upon leaving, the manager wrote a hand written thank you note to my daughter, in which she wrote that my daughter is “a woman of excellence.” I love that terminology, and this is not just because I am a proud mama. One, I love women who support and mentor other women. This is a rarer phenomenon than it should be. Second, I have honestly never seen that terminology in writing before. “A woman of excellence.” What does that mean? I want to be one. I want to be called “a woman of excellence.” I want to believe that I am “a woman of excellence.”

I looked up the word “excellence” in the dictionary. It means “the quality of being outstanding/extremely good”. That’s pretty general, right? I think that we all have things that we are extremely good at, and we all have areas that we could probably work on. Maybe we don’t care enough about certain traits, to work hard enough to become excellent at them. There are certain areas that I do believe that I am “a woman of excellence” and then there are other things in my life that I believe that I am more likely to be called “a woman of sub-standards.” To be “a woman of excellence”, does that mean you have to be good at everything? That feels like a lot of undue stress and pressure, and perhaps, a lesson in frustration and futility. Perhaps being “a woman of excellence” means knowing yourself, knowing your values, and your priorities, and your purposes, and being excellent at these things. I’m not really sure. All that I know is that I would like to be one. I would like to be known as “a woman of excellence.” And I also know that I am grateful that another woman acknowledged and appreciated this quality of excellence in my daughter, besides just her adoring mother. That was an excellent thing for that woman to do, for a young woman coming up in the world behind her. And this vital encouragement is something that all of us “women of excellence” are more than capable to do, for the future generations of excellent women, for whom we are paving the way. If this encouragement and inspiration for young women is the only area that we choose to be excellent at, I am convinced that this will be more than enough.

“Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.” – Anonymous (probably written by an anonymous person of excellence and humility)

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi

“Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.” – Ralph Marston

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.