Be the Change You Want to See

So often we go through our parenting journey stressed out, overwhelmed and depleted. We ask why is parenting so difficult? Why don’t the kids listen? Why do I always find myself yelling? Why can’t I get this parenting thing right?

This is all due to our social conditioning and the lie we have all been conditioned to believe – parents control their children. With this belief we do what we know to GET kids to behave. We do what was done to us, in most cases. We swear we are not going to do it like our parents and then - we find ourselves doing it the same way or some form of it. 

Our early relationships shape the way we see the world, how we handle stress, and how we show up in relationships. As I have heard Dr. Becky Bailey say, “We can only soothe as we were soothed, see others as we were seen, and provide safety as it was provided to us UNLESS we consciously choose to learn new ways and PRACTICE them.” When we become the change everything else falls into place. We cannot and should not change others. 

The way to change is self-love. 

When we love ourselves we are able to then and only then fully love others. When we see lack within ourselves we see lack in others.  When we see lack in others, we see lack within ourselves. We live through fear. Fear of not being enough, fear of not having enough, fear of our children not being enough. We then act through fear trying to control others and situations.  We try to change our children’s behavior, we try to change our partner. The only one we can change is ourself.  When we change how we see ourself we see others in a new light too.  Love travels from the worthy to the worthy. When we find our worth through self-love we see the worth in others. We no longer have a desire to change others because we see their innate value. We take charge of our own lives and thus feel more in control. We allow ourselves to unfold as we were meant to rather then becoming who we think we “should” be.  We allow our children to become who they are meant to be rather than who we think they “should” be.  We focus on solutions rather problems. We allow life to unfold as it is without the need to control outcomes. 

Self-love is a journey. An unfolding. Beautiful. Uncomfortable. Exciting. Scary. Its all the things. Self-love is feeling ALIVE. Alive means feeling – EVERYTHING. The good. The bad. The ugly. It is the only way to emotional freedom. 

Self-love is a life-long journey. Here is a few things to get you started.

• PUT YOURSELF FIRST. If you say you don’t have time, I say, you can’t afford not to. Time is like money. Where are you going to invest it? What are you willing to invest in? When we fall into the belief that we need to take care of everyone else and everything BEFORE ourselves we will not live our best life.  We will not show up as our best selves for our children or our loved ones. INVEST IN YOURSELF.

• SPEND TIME WITH YOURSELF. Get quiet. Get to know your inner world. What are your thoughts. How do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body?

• FEEL. We are conditioned to suppress feelings for the sake of not upsetting others. We learned that feelings get in the way, that feelings are not important, that they are uncomfortable so get rid of them. The problem with this is that feelings are actually our internal navigation system. Our feelings bring us important messages. Shutting them off, shuts us off to our higher selves. This causes a disconnect. Do you ever feel that you just can’t or don’t want to connect with your kids? I think many of us do although we never talk about it. We feel shame for feeling this way so we shut that down too.  The disconnect with our kids is because of the disconnect with ourselves. So feel. Name the feelings. Many people cannot name a feeling.  Often we name thoughts instead. Such as, “I feel like you don’t like me.” “I feel like I’m not doing a good job.” “I feel like my children just choose not to listen.”  These are all thoughts not feelings.

  Feelings are words like – sad, happy, frustrated, disappointed, excited, etc. Get an emotions list here 

• JOURNAL. There is something about putting pen to paper that is magical. Dumping your thoughts out on paper gets them out of your head so you can actually process them and allow them to go. We get attached to our thoughts and believe them.  Many of our thoughts aren’t even true. We make up stories in our head to make sense of our world. WE ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS. They are thoughts and thoughts can be changed. Our thoughts create our feelings which drive our behavior. If you don’t like the way you feel, change your thoughts. Sometimes its difficult to just change a thought so that is why it is important to write them out in order to release them. 

Just think if we all love ourselves a little bit more there will be more love in the world. Right now the world could use a little more love. 

Wishing you well on your self-love journey and becoming the change you want to see. 

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