I found this in my archives, and it’s never been posted. So here goes…
I’m probably not qualified to say the words I’m about to say. I probably should say it with less certainty than I am going to, but sometimes the best coaches don’t play the best?
Now that I’m done disqualifying myself… I heard myself giving my 17 year old a lecture yesterday, and I had to write it down because I needed to hear it myself. I was both giving him my boundaries for showing up to life and school this year. And I said, “Honey, you won’t get everything you try for in life, but you certainly won’t get anything you don’t try for.” And maybe that’s not all true either. But I heard myself. And I thought… Damn, girl. Do you do that? Do you know that?
My son said, “That’s fair, mom. I get it.” There were other boundaries in play, but felt good that he thought it felt fair.
I don’t know so much about parenting, but I probably know more than nothing. You know, I try to learn and grow every day. I try to see myself clearly and stretch. And it’s been this weird Gumby game of knowing who I am more, and standing by that. It’s also been about needing to change old habits once I see them.
That’s a lot of work, and the process reminds me of a great yoga class. Lay down and rest, stretch and move and make it all count. Hear some coaching instructions and realize you’ve been doing that pose incorrectly for the past three years and feel the change in your body when you do it correctly. Realize THAT’S how it would be most beneficial to your body and mind!
And then realize you didn’t lose anything by not doing it right, but you did benefit from continuing to try UNTIL you made the pose even MORE!
I don’t know if I tied it up nicely. But with tears in my eyes, I realize that the only thing, the ONLY thing that makes us better, stronger, more peaceful, more at home in our own bodies and lives is showing up each day the way we are. That’s it. Just the way we are. Because we certainly won’t find all the answers today. We certainly don’t need to see all the things we could be doing better, because when it’s time, we can make the change, the subtle change, the gargantuan change, the change, whatever it is.
So much time will pass, and it will be so easy to judge where we’re at. But also, it is so beautiful to hear yourself say something so effortlessly, to shine the light on something that is now present in your body and might need to be heard outside your body too! We can keep it there and continue to show up to it. We can continue to grow and change and see movement and growth in one another.
You simply can’t be ahead of where you’re at. And that’s the greatest gift ever. Be here. Be wherever you are. Give whatever you have. Love with whatever you’ve got. Adjust where you feel change is to be made. Celebrate the good. Ease judgment on the things you don’t like.
It’s all been said before, but sometimes it flows into a moment, like a silver thread, and I try to write it, in case it appeals to me in the future, in the now. I write, in case the tears it conjures are not just mine.
With love,
CC
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