Recently, I was a full time single mom for three months. Three months of being their protector, provider, and parent 24/7.
My mama has done it for thirty years.
How she did it, I’ll never know.
I have spent sixteen years working with kids, teens, and the adults who are responsible for little souls of our world.
From personal experience and professional training, here are three things I would have said to myself, before my Suns wriggled their way out of my vagina.
Grow
Your boys are your teachers, your little mirrors, the tiny Yodas who will call you on your nonsense.
You’ll be triggered, exasperated, distracted, overwhelmed, confused, exhausted, and stunned into silence.
You can be annoyed by the lessons or you can learn from them.
You get to choose.
But, honestly, growth is the best choice you can make.
For you and for them.
Appreciate
They are glorious and good. Savour them.
Stop doing the dishes, making lunches, folding laundry, driving to lessons, cleaning toothpaste off the mirror, picking up Lego, scrubbing pee from the toilet seat, wiping grease off the walls, and picking up shredded bits of paper from the craft project you thought was a good idea for long enough to appreciate just how great this gig is.
Surrender
It’s not all up to you.
Your job is to show up and do the best you can with what you have and what you know.
Give it all you’ve got to keep them alive and create conditions for them to thrive, for sure. But, you must accept you don’t get to control how it all turns out.
These precious humans have path all their own. They are on an adventure, just like you. Give their souls space to do what they came here to do.
…
Above all remember – what you do to yourself, to others, and to the planet … you do to them.
How can you not make it all about Love?