“We need to choose who we want to be, how we want to parent, and the way our family life feels. This is a creative endeavor, a logistical negotiation, and a spiritual expression of our highest values.”
Key Points
- Build on Your Natural Strengths
- Creating Your Unique Family Rhythm
- The Beauty of Less
Thriving Together Caring For Yourself and Your Family
Mothers have such a central role in creating the environment of their home. This includes the emotional environment, the relational patterns, and the speed of life the family adopts. We are the gatekeepers on so many levels, deciding who and what gets to influence our sanctuary. I am often asked how I stay vibrant and raise sons who have bright eyes and are kind and present.
I have taken the time (and love!) to carefully note my process for this over the past 22 years and I am so excited to share it with you. Inspiring you and providing practical tools that will truly upgrade your health, your parenting, and your life is what I am passionate about. It’s up to us to create our life on purpose.
We need to choose who we want to be, how we want to parent, and the way our family life feels. This is a creative endeavor, a logistical negotiation, and a spiritual expression of our highest values. Here is a taste of the feast I have prepared for you.
Rather than being run down and exasperated, we can be vibrant in body and spirit creating a life we love with those we love.
Build on Your Natural Strengths– Don’t try to be a copy of another mother you admire. While it can be helpful to study her mindset, borrow her “tools,” and be inspired… you must integrate these into your natural strengths. If you are a walking party, let your home be the hub of the neighborhood.
If you are a planner, let your home radiate security with the flow of the familiar. Be YOU in your parenting style. At the same time, be willing to expand and grow in ways that will harmonize with your family’s needs right now. Find the sweet spot that celebrates and utilizes your best qualities and fuels growth in areas that will round you out as a person.
Shunryu Suzuki — “Each of you is perfect the way you are … and you can use a little improvement.”
Creating Your Unique Family Rhythm – Living in rhythm, a carefully chosen rhythm, is one of the joys of a life well lived. Too often, we live according to the rhythms we inherited, or are socially reinforced, or simply by responding to need after need and event after event. A life well lived for you as a parent, and for your family, is rooted in a consciously chosen rhythm. You need repeating themes, a baseline that carries through, time for individual creative solos, and the ability to rest.
Creating intervals of quiet and replenishment is the only way to create little humans capable of being still, who can listen and observe what is going on inside them and in those around them. In creating your family rhythm, you are intentionally carving out times to rest and strategize and you are creating times to create and interact. Both are essential.
Neither are possible to do effectively while being carried by others expectations or our own unconscious momentum. Regularly stepping outside the milieu is essential to thriving as a woman and as a mother.
The Beauty of Less – Most of us are over scheduled and over stimulated. When we commit (and continually recommit!) to simplifying and building our life around our deepest values, we create more beauty and a deeper capacity to enjoy our lives. We can simplify our environment by removing the accumulations of clothes, paperwork, and stuff.
We can simplify our schedule by putting our top 3-4 commitments into our schedules and leaving the secondary commitments to find (or not find) a spot after we have invested in our top priorities. We can find time for plenty of sleep, for 1-2 hours of self care, work, and life logistics if we don’t accidentally spend 4-8 hours looking at our phones/tv’s/computers.
The less we have/ do/ say…the more potent and intentional those choices are.
Next week, I will be offering part 2 in this series on “Thriving Together.” If you want to dive more into the topic (and summer is the perfect time to do this!)…
Please check out my new online course:
Thriving Together – Click Here
Cheering you on,
Rachel
P.S. I am offering an exclusive $15 off the price of the course to my email subscribers through July 31st, 2020. Just enter code SUBSCRIBER15 at checkout.