Creating Good Things In My Life

Is there even such a thing as real balance every day? Success is accepting what my situation is, and not forming judgment around it. Success is intentionally creating good things in my life. Success is centering my life on what matters most! We have even made peace with our brothers. He left a quick message and hung up. The obstacle is the way. Amber is a certified health coach and business coach. Have you ever noticed that women are harder on themselves, and on each other, than our male counterparts? For example, when a child shows up at school with unkempt hair or forgotten homework, which parent do we typically think should have been on it? Which parent feels the need to apologize if the house is messy when guests arrive? And they can take their toll. When these everyday fails are perceived as personal fails, we begin to distort reality. This distortion can lead us into a Perception/Expectation Cycle. We believe and hold onto a perception of how things should be at a certain age, stage, or situation in life. This creates an expectation, which in turn creates a success/fail outcome. Not when the neighbor’s child pulled straight As, a scholarship, and an Extra Miler Award at the school assembly.

Signed Sealed Delivered

Not that I’ve had such an experience. I listened, but didn’t hear the award for that one. Maybe this friend’s overzealous ways would rub off on my daughter. And then, the girl’s name was called again. My first thought was, Wait. And gratitude that my daughter had no idea about these awards. Her doing so would have meant endless organized carpools and afterschool errands to find perfect supplies for said achievements. I ultimately breathed a sigh of relief. But this is what can happen to us as women, wives, and particularly mothers. We set ourselves up for a Pass/Fail system. Thankfully, this process that I have termed layered learning has prepared me for the Big Fails. Without that everyday learning forged in the growth cycle of life, I might never have taken such meaningful emotional flight.

The Worst You Can Do

Unbeknownst to us at the time, that began our journey with Asperger’s Syndrome. At Ben’s young age, Asperger’s was hardly on the radar. But my mother gut knew that wasn’t the full story. That began the longer journey of finding solutions that worked for this wonderful, complex young boy. But, oh, the fallout. Ben was bullied, neglected, and mocked. After several years, my mother sense of failure became acute. But one experience put it in clear perspective. It was active, it was educational, it was good parenting. Within five minutes I knew I was in trouble. While the other moms sat quietly, I bobbed up and down like a kangaroo, not to the music but in chasing after my children. Others languidly watched their children clap, hop, dig, and even lunge in time to the music.

Something Special

Thankfully, a bludgeon to the head from a flying xylophone mallet brought me to my senses. From this Mother Fail I learned to go with my gut. To listen to my soul, to look squarely into my children’s eyes, and to do what was best because of love, not fear of peer opinion. That layered learning served us both well. I chose to homeschool him for a period of time, and we both survived. He went on to graduate from high school, with honors, and then to attend college. It is a wonderful place. But it wasn’t always. The day it became truly wonderful was the day I couldn’t move. It was letting go of enrichment classes and enjoyable walks, and developing a loss of excitement about my favorite things, such as writing or speaking. For someone who had demonstrated the lifelong zeal of an Energizer bunny this was devastating. So I needed to deal with it. At first came awareness, followed by acceptance, although I avoided the latter because it really wasn’t that appealing. First, I acknowledged that I couldn’t do what I used to do. I tacked a sign on my bedroom door from 4 to 5 p.m. To myself, I repeated the mantra, This too shall pass, and Do half of what you think you can, and Where is my chocolate stash? Through prayer, scripture reading, and intentional pondering time, I gave myself hall passes to do less than I had before, shoving away the attending guilt. Over time, I felt my soul begin to heal. I’m not well. That was transforming. As I added natural supplements, massage, acupuncture, and bioidentical hormones, my body responded like a starved teenager at a pizza party. Last, I set boundaries in the three kinds of health to avoid a repeat experience. When I’m in a community, church, or school meeting that involves volunteer assignments, I choose which will actually work for me and my family, and keep my mouth shut for the rest. Such layered learning is not new. Listening to our body and soul, partnering with the divine, and speaking truthfully, create what is powerful. Put the two together and you get someone excited about helping women and families live purposeful, organized, and joyful lives. And you get a dilemma. At one point in life, I had produced four children in eight years and felt the aftermath. I love my children fiercely but those years are mostly a blur. And yet, those were also formative days when I was mostly unaware of the basic blocks being built in their minds and souls. Like the spring clearing after a numbing winter, my soul began to unfold and tentatively bloom. My dream of being a speaker and a writer returned with a deeper force. I dabbled with some church speaking assignments, wrote a few articles, and sketched a great many incoherent ideas. On the high of those early successes I gave in to a sudden surge of excitement. I contacted my city’s university, then their community education director, and talked her into giving me a shot at teaching a community class. I’m in Africa!