Ahhh, hello.

Today I want to talk about beat up.

There tends to be two extreme ends of the spectrum…. Thre are those of us who have a crazy ideal that we are trying to live up to – typically one where we don’t make any mistakes and show up perfect in all the roles we play. None of us can ever really get there, but we are striving for it. The self talk may sound like:

“I have to be more present with the kids.”

“I need to make more homecooked meals.”

“I’ve got to catch up on housecleaning/laundry/yardwork….”

“I’ve GOT to loose some weight…”

We are AWARE that there are steps we can take to move in the direction of the life we want to create, AND, when we aren’t taking the steps, or aren’t creating this perfect life, we collapse into defeat. Awareness is high, beat up is high. It’s a tough place to find ourselves.

Or there is the opposite extreme. There are those of us that are shooting from the hip all the time and if everyone else can’t get with the program, that is there problem. We don’t see why anyone needs to be in a parenting class, or read a book, or doing any of the self help stuff, because we see the world clearly through our lens and know what to do in any given situation.

We are the people who don’t take any ownership of our kids behavior. The question when our kids get into mischief is often “what do I have to do to you to get you to behave?”

Personal awareness is low. Beat up is low, unless you count the beat up we do to others who make life hard for us.

Now, I don’t imagine that there are a lot of people in the second group listening to my podcast, because you all know how invested I am in personal growth and how passionately I believe in the ways parents influence the behavior they see from their kids. But I think it is valuable to consider those two extremes.

I think MOST of us fall in the middle.

We might have an ideal when it comes to parenting and how we shoe up in the world, but it is more of a compass for the direction we want to be headed, not necessarily a destination that we can ever arrive at.

We get that life is uncertain and unpredictable, and how we respond to what shows up matters and influences the unfolding.

We see our kids as their own separate entities, yes, and when things start going sideways we take a step back to consider what we may be doing to contribute to how they are behaving. We try to remember that our children are on their own journey, that they belong to themselves, first and foremost, and we get to caretake for the first part.

We do the best we can, AND, we get that the house isn’t going to always be clean (and oh man it is so nice when it is), meals aren’t always perfect (yeah for take-out and meal kits), AND it is impossible to be present for our family 24/7.

Lets keep our awareness high, friends, and the beat up low. Lets strive to be better, and embrace our imperfection. Let’s be ok with two steps forward, one step back – this is the dance of life.

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