Parenting Transformation Journey – page 17 (click here for page 1)
(Originally posted August 14, 2013)
All day yesterday, my 11 year-old son hoped I would find time to take him fishing. I had already picked up some hooks and bait the day before with the money he gave me, and he couldn’t wait to use them.
But yesterday was too hectic – my business commitment I thought I’d finish by 10:00 am took me until 5:30 pm instead. And his older brother was already in line for me to take shopping after I was done.
It was around 2 or 3 when my little fisherman asked again if we could go, and I finally had to say, “I need you to be okay if this doesn’t work out. I would much rather be fishing than doing business, believe me. But this is a promise I need to keep, and if I’m worried about how you’re feeling, I’m going to be stressed, and it will be harder for me to think. Are you going to be okay if we don’t go today?”
He said, “I’ll be okay if we don’t go today.”
I turned to his little sisters and said, “What about you girls? I need to know if you’ll be okay, too, so that I am not worried about you. If I’m not worried, I’ll be able to work faster.”
They both replied, “We’ll be okay if we don’t go today.”
Of course they were disappointed, but supportive. Talking it through with them like this was my attempt to pre-teach and help them accept a “no answer” calmly. I was proud of them for it.
I realize this sounds dangerously similar to the times when I was full-time building my business and I would say something like that to put my kids off. But the difference back then was that coming back to them was usually a token effort just so I could check it off the list and get back to work.
I always professed to want family time, but if I’m going to be honest with myself, I recognize that my actions showed otherwise. I had a really hard time breaking the pattern. It took a total emotional collapse to reboot my system and set me on a path to a more congruent existence. I’m grateful it happened, though, because now I only work my business about an hour a day, sometimes even only a couple hours a week. I’m not addicted to the work anymore, nor the charge I’d get from feeling like I was changing the world.
I truly don’t mean to diminish my work, because I know it was important and necessary for me to do at the time. But I’m just grateful that the joys I’m finding now in full-time motherhood are even deeper and longer lasting. When I receive emails from readers that describe what my books or materials have done for them, I’m super happy and I feel tremendous fulfillment and gratification that all of those hours, and the blood, sweat and tears were not for nothing. Like this one:
Hi Leslie 🙂 First of all, I can’t tell you how much your book [Portal to Genius] has changed my life. I know you hear this all the time, but I still have to say it. I have been an executive business coach for many years and … I have read every self-help, motivation, inspiration, sales book, etc…on the market and have been a reader of this type of material since I was about 25 years old. I am now almost 45. 🙂 I have even held seminars, workshops, training sessions, etc…about the power of the mind and “change.” I have trained groups as small as 3 and as large as 4,000…and NEVER have I felt the way I do right now…since I read your book just 4 weeks ago! I can’t thank you enough! In fact, my husband & I had been writing our own book for the past 2 years, never that thrilled with the content, but desiring to finish it because we know we can help people with their health. As soon as I read Portal [to Genius], I gave it to my hubby, he read it the next weekend, and we’ve have been writin’ fools ever since. The writer’s block has ended and we can’t stop…the ideas just keep comin’!!! I have referred your book to a total of eight people now and I would say half of them have reported back to me, concurring with my sentiment! Nicole K., Ph D
But as much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting emails like that, (I really do!!) the thrill and joy only lasts a short time, and life marches on.
On the other hand, when I participate in helping one of my own children have a major breakthrough (which, interestingly enough is rarely of the variety that my business is even about), my gratification is pure joy, and I literally relish in it for days. I’ll sometimes even fall asleep rehearsing the victory and how it played out for several nights in a row. Even months and years later, I know that those are the breakthroughs that I will remember the most, and in which I will take the most pride.
And it’s not because of any praise I get for helping, it just from watching the children experience a change.
Most of the time, they don’t even realize they grew.
Like when my son didn’t show up for work on time because there was a miscommunication about his schedule. When he got the text that asked, “Aren’t you coming in?” he just about had a heart attack. It was his first job, he had only been there a week, and his brain kept firing shots of terror through his body, with all the ‘what ifs’ about what the consequences might be. As we raced to get him there (7 hours late), I tried to assure him that somewhere in this awful experience there is a seed of something good.
He shot back, “How can this POSSIBLY be good??”
I had no answer. Only that it’s a true principle, and that somewhere there was a blessing in it. I didn’t know, maybe just that it was good he learned this lesson (whatever lesson it was) on a first job instead of a career job later when he’s trying to support a family.
He was convinced that everyone there was going to hate him, because he wasn’t there to do his part when they opened, and then for 7 hours, his team mates had to cover for him in a really stressful environment.
I practiced being calm for the both of us. Prayed for him that the good would be found. I knew that there was something good in it, because that’s one of the laws. I just hoped he would find it.
Then at the end of the day when I picked him up he was flying high. He told me excitedly about how everyone was really understanding, how the misunderstanding about the schedule meant that it was never posted publicly, so for those 7 hours nobody but his supervisor knew that it was him who was missing, and then because he was so late, he was there for some unexpected emergencies, and it was better for everyone that he worked the night shift instead of the early one. He came off heroic instead of delinquent.
Best of all, he got some BIG praise from his supervisor for showing up 7 hours late instead of not at all. He had faced his terror instead of just writing the day off, he overcame the fear of the unknown, grew in self-esteem, gained experience in communicating with people who he thought hated him, and saw real evidence that the law of polarity is actually true. The experience changed him. I saw him grow two years in just one day, and I felt joy.
So back to the original story…
I finished my work without guilt, because I knew that the day was wide open, and I would not even be tempted to work. I knew I’d be able to spend some real time with my kids; and besides, I was ready for some recreation myself.
So I took my 18 year-old to work at 7:30 am, and ran home again to get his name tag. (On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is totally calm, I’m happy to say that I managed to stay up around an 8, even though returning for his forgotten name tag was not exactly what I wanted to be doing.)
Before I reached home the second time, I called the fishing preserve to ask about their hours. Since they had been open since dawn already, I was excited to surprise my youngest three with the news that we should go ASAP.
My 11 year-old son was super excited. We have a lake in our backyard, and he’s already caught countless fish there, but mostly only catfish, and only for catch and release. The lake we were going to is behind the library where you can catch about 5 different kinds of fish (including trout, which is what he really wanted), and, you can take them home to eat them.
So off we went.
While I was following them through the brush to find the best spot, I thought about how hot and uncomfortable I was (weather report says it was effectively 97 degrees), but how much in a rush I wasn’t. This is where they wanted to be, and I was mentally prepared to go along with it for a couple hours. I didn’t have something else on my mind that I “needed to get back to”, and I marveled that I had come so far. Two years ago I couldn’t get work off of my mind.
One of my previous parenting mentors (Matt Reichmann), always taught that if you want to have more power as a parent, you’ve got to play with your kids. When I was so caught up in work, I always had trouble making time for play. It’s getting easier, though, and I’ve noticed that the more I play with them, the less I have to correct them. Bottom line, they simply behave better when their emotional buckets are full, and their buckets stay full the more often I play with them.
I was also reminded of a video clip that put a smile on my face. It is simple but profound:
I love when the blogger said that “children aren’t something you collect because they’re cuter than stamps, [mothering is] not something you do if you can squeeze the time in, it’s what God gave you time… for.”
I know you may be thinking, “Yeah, that would be nice, if I didn’t have so many stresses that keep me from living that way…” because that’s what I thought for twenty years.
Well, I finally figured something out. When I was really ready to make that shift, when I was finally committed to living it no matter what, I had to let go. I had to let go of what people might think of me. I had to let go of the need for my lifestyle to look a certain way. I had to be ready to make the necessary sacrifices to claim it. I had to check my own priorities.
We downsized our home. We sold some extra cars. We rearranged a lot of things to make this work. I don’t get my nails done any more. I make my kids work for things. If we have to choose between getting a new coat of paint on the car or investing in our children’s education, we choose their education.
Through my work I learned with absolute certainty that we really can have anything we want. We could have a new car if we wanted one badly enough. We could replace some old furniture if we were passionate enough about doing that. I understand the principles of success and the law of vibration, and how our results are a reflection of our application of those principles. But I also recognize that for every desire, there is some effort that is required. So I had to ask myself, what am I working toward? For what purpose do I invest my best time, money, and attention?
What I really wanted more than anything was a peaceful home and rich relationships with my husband and children. And now I’m finally directing my best efforts to my own family. It takes a LOT of time, and it takes effort. Sometimes I still say “no” to a profitable opportunity here and there because it is a distraction at the time from my primary focus. But so far, nothing else has been this rewarding.
So you can imagine my surprise when, after ‘letting go’ for about a year and a half, that the business began to grow on its own. Other resources also began finding their way to us more freely. I began to recognize a real correlation between the calmness I felt, and the increase in the flow of money and opportunities into our lives.
There were still stressful situations, but choosing calmness and trusting God always seemed to cause the problem to melt away entirely, or turn it into something unexpectedly good. In either case, we were okay.
Stay calm, be still (in your heart), and think of God as a loving Father who will take care of you. Trust Him with your life.
No, it’s not easy to raise a family, and it’s not easy keeping Mom home from work if that’s what the goal is. But it’s possible if you want it. Opportunities will come to those who work tenaciously toward their worthy ideal, whatever it is. I promise you that. The answers may not come when you want them to, but God is never late.
(If you’re struggling with money issues, then you can get some new hope by reading The Jackrabbit Factor, and then coming back to browse some of the favorite posts on the right side of this page – they’re mostly about dealing with financial stress.)
So anyway, there’s my thought for the day: Raising a family is not something you do if you have time for it, it’s what God gave us time for.
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3 Responses
My friend Liz posted a comment about this on Facebook that I thought was worth sharing here. She said, “As far as the idea of telling someone you need them to feel a certain way so that you can feel a certain way…I don’t believe in doing that. With children it’s problematic because you’ve just set up a scenario for them in which they are no longer free to feel what they feel, they must now feel what you want them to because YOUR feelings and your work are depending on it. They may chose that on the surface, but they may still feel disappointed and now feel they have to hide it in order to support you. I just don’t agree with that, it closes doors instead of opening them. BUT that said, I really love what Leslie is doing and the energy she’s putting into creating something really positive in her family.”
Here was my response: “Thanks for your comment, Liz. I can see how that came across. My point in sharing that piece was to show how I tried to talk them through it in an attempt to pre-teach and help them accept a ‘no answer’ calmly. I appreciate your point, though, because it gives me an opportunity to think it through and add a little clarification. I knew they were disappointed because they had already expressed it through the day, and they knew that I knew. There were no hidden feelings. This was just the point where they had to come to terms with the fact that it was not going to happen, and see if they could accept a “no answer” in the way they had been taught. I realized that it was going to be better if I was straight with them so that they wouldn’t keep hoping even beyond dinner and bedtime – that definitely would have been worse. Thanks again!”
Wonderful, Leslie! I’m SO delighted that you “get it!” This is truly what life is all about: our relationships. Because you were open to be taught, the lessons came to you.
THANK YOU!!! This is perfect after the emotional dump I laid on you the other day ((((hugs))))