"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." A.A. Milne

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Permission To Grow and Flourish

There is a wonderful blog out there http://www.theorganicsister.com/. Tara is such a cool and fascinating woman. I love her honestly and the authentic way she lives her life. Recently, she wrote a blog about the things she is going to give herself permission to do. I absolutely love the idea. I did my own list. I copied a few of hers but I doubt they will be lived out the same way so I thought that would be okay.

Here is my list:
1.Wear clothes that make me feel amazing and beautiful. I am getting rid of the last remnents of soccer mom clothes in my wardrobe. It is so not me! I love gauzy cottons, joyful silks, beautiful colors, and I will admit it, sparkles. Somewhere along the line I unconsciously bought into the idea that I had to wear some specific mom uniform. This appears to have been tied in with the fact that my next birthday I switch decades. Well, I don't care anymore. I am a momma, I am almost 40, and I am going to wear sparkly, rainbow fairy wings if I want to!
2. Pursue hooping as if it were my profession. I don't want to be a professional hooper but I want my passion to be at the same level. Hooping has been a gift from God to me. There are few activities that give me more pleasure, more unadulterated joy, more hope and freedom than hooping does. I want to pursue this art with all the passion and zeal it deserves in my life. I hope to become amazing in this to me.
3. Stop justifying our parenting. We are really different parents than most around us. We practice attachment parenting, we believe in grace based discpline, we don't spank or use shame to motivate our children, we don't use cio, we cosleep, I practice extended breast feeding, you get it, we are pretty crunchy in our approach. This upsets alot of people. Well, I am not going to justify this anymore. We have prayed, researched, talked, thought, on and on and on. There is not one thing we do with our children that has not been well thought out by both John and me. These are our decisions for our family and that is all there is to that.
4. Do nothing. This is so ridiculously hard for me. I am always jumping up and down like a jack rabbit on a sugar high. It keeps me more wound up than I think is good. I am going to make a conscious effort to learn to sit and do nothing. I want to laze out in the backyard and watch my babies play. I want to curl up on the couch and just listen to my husband withou seeing a to do list over his shoulder. I was to learn to truly rest and relax. I want to be calmly present.
5. Learn to be okay with a messy house. I am a recovering perfectionist. It is not healthy at all. I think this practice will lead to more joy in the lives of me and my children. I do not like that often I see the mess rather than the fun. I practiced this today and it was wonderful. We had such a good time.
6.Surround myself with joy, beauty, and inspiration. This definately includes people! These are the things I plan to seek this year. There are some amazing people in my life and I truly hope to know them much more deeply during the coming days.
7. Fearlessly live up to my potential. This year I am going for it more than I ever have. I am jumping into the abyss and learning as I go. You may want to stand back if you are near me, it could get messy.
8. Revise, add, or takeaway from this list as I see fit. Because this is really what it is all about. I am giving myself permission to be free. If something isn't working, I want to change it and move on. No reason to fuss and flutter about, just revise and get going again.

What about you? Are there things you need to givc yourself permission to do this year? Do you feel the same longing to set yourself free? Are you going to do it?

2 comments:

  1. The learn to be okay with a messy house. I so got over that years ago. When I discovered Erin was a messy girl. LOL

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  2. I need to give myself permission to let go of past failures and mistakes.

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