I have prided myself, as a single mom, in being self-reliant. I can do it all has been my motto! Hand me a challenge and watch me power down and make it through. Phew! Even writing about it makes me tired. Where did I get the idea that it was an asset to hold it all up? I’m sure it was from childhood but why I’ve carried it all these years is a mystery.

Quitting my job, pulling my daughter out of school and supporting a friend after the sudden death of her husband has brought me to my knees. Uncle, I scream to the universe and then I realize I’m the one who is holding up this crazy concept. The universe is offering grace, at all moments, I just have to be open to accepting the truth. Yes, I am a single mom and it is easy to buy into the illusion that it is all up to me. Shutting the door to grace only makes life harder. Opening the door can also be challenging because when it opens, the support rushes in. Can I accept it? You bet! It is time we all live in the absolute truth and open to the abundance and love which is always available.

As I open, I relax and my daughter relaxes. As I live in the truth, my daughter does also. I choose to live in grace, showing her the way. She is supported in life. She is grace! It is really this simple when I choose to see it this way.

Practice: Today, see if you can slow down, relax and open to grace entering your life. Watch what happens to your children as you open and receive the support that is always there.

I never would have thought the best parenting I’ve done could be seen, by some parenting experts, as the worst. Whew, does that make sense at all? I continue to notice situations where I’ve had the least agenda is where my daughter is thriving.

An example is bed time. My daughter has never been given a bed time. (This was my parenting no no) Being a single mom, I found, on most nights, by 8pm I was toast. So, instead of setting a designated bedtime, for my daughter, we would both start heading upstairs around 7pm. She never questioned this movement because we were doing it together. We would begin, our routine, together and from 7pm to 8pm was our sweet cuddle time. Bed time was always a seamless event in our home. We went down together, and if I needed to get back up later, I would.

What I witness, now at 10 years old, is her being able to regulate bedtime knowing when to go down and when to arise. She doesn’t need me, as an external force, to guide her. It’s actually amazing to watch. Now remember, I had NOTHING to do with this as far as being the external dictate. I was tired and needed to go down. This is what I mean as being an accident and not a conscious decision to parent in this way. I was just relaxed and followed my own internal rhythm, which she picked up on, and the relationship became the primary connection, not getting to bed on time.

The more I relax, focusing on our connection rather than parenting the “right” way, she flourishes showing me the true nature of parenting: pure joy…..

Practice: Begin to notice, in your parenting, the areas where you have very little agenda about how things are done. See, if in these areas, your child is relaxed and able to take on their own agenda, showing you the way.

This week I’ve noticed, when having an agenda, my daughter, simply refuses to engage. Today, coming in from the grocery, I asked her to unload one of the bags. I’d taken her to lunch, bought her a sweet treat and driven her to a friend’s house so I thought asking her to unload one little bag would be a piece of cake. Well, the truth is, I felt like she owed me this one small little favor since I’d given so much earlier. Ahhhh…the agenda reveals itself.

Now you might be thinking, hey Leslie, you are just teaching her how to help out at home….or maybe you are thinking she is going to get the wrong message if I don’t require her to help out. And if you are, all of these thoughts run through my head as she growls and says she won’t unload the bag. I take a deep breath and try my big voice saying, “Meili, it is just one bag and I want you to unload it now.” Growling she starts emptying the bag but slams the goods on the table refusing to put them in the fridge.

I feel intense heat rising in my body, as I engage my trigger, seeing clearly my words are not producing the results I desire. I know, in my heart, what I’m about to say is NOT what I want to say but before I can stop out spews. “Alright then, I guess I won’t be taking you to lunch or getting you a treat anymore.” As those ugly words come tumbling out of my mouth, the dreaded blackmail move engages. As I look at my precious daughter I know this is NOT how I want to teach her to get support. Remembering, I’m the role model, I take a deep breath saying, “wow, what just came out of my mouth, isn’t what I really wanted to say.” What I wanted to say is, “I love you and I see you are in a big hurry to get out the door to your friends.” And the moment I open into a receptive place, including her agenda in the space, she looks at me and says, “I’m happy to help you, mom.” Ah, can it really be this easy? Only when I remember to stay open, taking responsibility for my agendas, knowing she is not here to serve them.

Practice: Become aware when you meet resistance in your child. When you do, ask yourself if your agenda is playing out, determined to defend and justify its position. See if you are willing to drop your agenda, open to receiving your child and then see what happens. Let me know what you find out!

Ms. Purejoy aka Leslie

My daughter has struggled with homework for the last year. Unfortunately, I struggled right along with her, which only added to her stress. When I finally backed off and managed my own anxiety she had the space to find her way.

Last night she had 3 pages of questions to answer, which was a real stretch for her. She was creating a character for a writing project. I kept gently nudging her to start and yet she clearly had her own timing. I thought, in my head, she’ll never get this done but sat back and worked with my projection onto her.

She finally went to bed around 10pm saying she would get up in the morning and finish. Of course, I thought, yeh right, I’ll believe that when I see it. Amazing how those thoughts just push their way into my space.

I woke up around 7am and went in to wake her and lo and behold (trumpets here) she had been awake since 6am working on her questions. I’m sure my jaw dropped to the floor as I had to eat all of my earlier thoughts Oh, how I love having my perceptions busted!

Practice: Today, watch your thoughts around an area in your child’s life where you judge they are behind. See if you can work with your projections inside instead of projecting them outside onto your child. See what happens!

Ms. Purejoy aka Leslie

I’ve learned raising a beautiful, strong authentic daughter requires I live and parent from this place inside myself. Learning to trust myself andrelying on my internal wisdom, instead of using techniques to control my daughter’s behavior, has been challenging.

It has taken a leap of faith and a devotion to making our relationship the number one priority. Being a single mom added an internal pressure to “take it all on” and what I’ve learned is to “give it all back”. Using that pressure to fuel my passion has given my daughter the greatest gift I have which is me in all my glory

This looks like dropping my agendas for her life and taking the time to hear her desires. Waking up every morning open and available to dancing the dance of relationship seeing where it takes us. What a gift.

Practice: Today, see if you can drop your agendas, for your child, and enter into their world, listening and opening to their agenda. Open to their authentic desire to connect and ride the wave of joy.

When I adopted my daughter 9 years ago, I promised to be the BEST parent I could be. Honestly, I was afraid to be a mom, so I waited until my forties to adopt. Even though I love children, I was always afraid I might not be able to be the mom I always dreamed I could be.

So, I began the journey of the “try too hard” mom. I rarely found myself relaxing and enjoying the time with my daughter because I was always “trying” to do the right thing, feed her the best food, give her the greatest care… I was so far ahead of myself, I rarely slowed down and just sat on the floor with her.

When I finally slowed down and looked myself in the eye, I was able to see I didn’t need to be perfect. She didn’t care! She didn’t see the messes I saw or thank me for making sure she ate right. She just loved my hugs and kisses and jumping into my arms whenever she saw me. As I took the time, to love myself, for who I am not all I was doing, our relationship
grew and our hearts opened. Today, we cleaned the house together, playing and loving being together.

Practice: Today, instead of focusing on all you haven’t done, take a moment to look in your child’s eyes and see the love pouring toward you. Try letting go of one task and dedicate that time to sitting down on the floor and making a “little” mess! See how it feels!

Today, I am feeling the tenderist place in my heart.  As I open to this exquisite place, my heart breaks open to an even deeper place with my daughter.  Often, when I’m busy and trying so hard to ‘keep it together” as a mom, I notice that my heart closes.  Even though I can still feel my love, for my daughter, I don’t feel I’m acting out of that love.  It’s as if, in my need to be responsible and keep it together, I separate from my love.  Often it feels like a deep chasm and I can’t find the bridge back to love.  When this happens, I start to focus on the things my daughter’s not doing, more than our connection.  It’s as if, I imagine if only I can get her to “do” all the things I need her to do, then I can open to love.    I make our loving connection second on my priority list.  I’ll move toward love, after everything is done!  What a funny creature I am!

Today, notice when you are truly moving toward your child from a deep, open loving place.  Then notice how you are moving toward them when you are running late, they won’t do what you want or your just overwhelmed by the day!

Being a single parent, I get overwhelmed with all the things my daughter leaves around the house.  I am always picking up something that shouldn’t be there.  One of my biggest irritants are those long clear, tube popcicle wrappers.  Of course, I buy boxes of them in the summer and leave them in the freezer for all the neighborhood kids.  They love them and yet I get a little crazy when I find those wrappers all over my house.

Every time I’d find one, I would feel my irritation rise and then I’d yell  at my daughter, “why can’t you put these in the trash, they are driving me crazy.”  I would make my usual threat that I was not going to buy anymore  if she didn’t throw the wrapper in the trash.  Of course, the next time I was at Costco, I’d buy the box again.

Then one day, as I’m about to yell about the wrapper, I stopped and said, “what if every time I saw one of these wrappers I saw it as a note from you saying I love you.”  Well, my daughter loved this and said, “yeah, what if it was written in big letters, I love you , mom?”  We, both got a kick out of this.  The next morning I went down to the kitchen and next to the trash was a wrapper, folded up with a sticky note wrapped around it with a big I love you mom written on the note.  As I picked it up, the joy inside welled up and I knew I’d found another way to see and irritant as a reminder of love.  That wrapper sits in my kitchen window as a reminder.

The ironic part of this story is, my daughter has started putting the wrappers in the trash!  Go figure!

Being a single parent,  I move into overwhelm when I have too much on my plate.  Trying to make sure that everything gets done, often doesn’t leave a lot of down time to take care of me.   Unfortunately, when I am overwhelmed, my daughter, joins right in.  She can’t keep her equalibrium when I am drowning.  Those are the times when we both go after each other, nagging and criticizing.

Bringing awareness to these times, is the first step.  Even though I can’t always shift the state, I can at least acknowledge it.

Example:

We are going on a raft trip this week, so I am totally overwhelmed, trying to pack all the gear and see clients before leaving town.  Of course, the more overwhelm I feel, my energy field is anything but welcoming.  So, instead of helping, my daughter heads out the door to play with friends.  I feel even more burdened and by the time she comes in I am frustrated and ready to go after her.  As we are sitting at the computer, trying to download my camera, I get frustrated and start making some noise.  My sweet girl is sitting there next to me and she says, “Mama, take a deep breath.  You can breathe through it.”  This alone, brings a smile to my face and I start breathing.  She looks at me and says, “I think I’ll breathe with you.”  So here we are, sitting together breathing and smiling at each other.   Suddenly, my overwhelm is managable and my relationship with my daughter is at the forefront!  We giggled our way to bed leaving all the gear for another day.

What we focus on is what we will see.  When I find myself focusing on all the things my daughter is doing that I judge as negative, I often find even more.  When I’m tired and down on myself, I can walk in the house and within 2 minutes see everything that she hasn’t put away or hasn’t done to help out.  Even if she walks in with a huge smile on her face, I am energetically focusing on all that she hasn’t done.  What a downer!

I’ve learned, that this happens because of my own self-judgment.  As a kid, I didn’t like chores either and I was told over and over how selfish I was.  So, if you ever think, trying to get your child to do chores by shaming them, think again.  To this day, I still don’t like chores, and yet now when I don’t do them, I do the internal shaming.  When I focus on all the negatives and what I’m not doing I project it out onto my daughter.

As a single mom, I’ve had to learn to focus on what I am giving, and what I can take care of in one day.  When I’m able to do this, I’m able to focus on my daughter’s “greatness” and all that she gives me, just by being alive.