Day 13: 21 Day Parenting Challenge

Thank you Martha, Betsy, Asha, Shelly, Carrie, Helen, Jennie, Crystal for your sweet words. I considered erasing that last post, so raw it felt, and then as I'd open the screen and receive another message from one of you, my timidness eased. I am so grateful for your willingness to just "be with" me. 

And to all the rest of you, thank you as well. Just for being here.

Another quote from Robert Gonzales:

We enter into life seeking unconditional love. And as young children, every one of us received something other than unconditional love. When this happens, that beautiful, innocent, naturally loving, creative force in us is wounded and pulls back from life and is contracted. We create defensive structures that exist in our body, brain and heart to protect ourselves from being hurt again. We also create habits and all kinds of strategies to manage our pain or completely deny it. Whatever those habituated strategies we create, they serve to encapsulate and protect something that is very precious in us, that deeply authentic, vulnerable part of us.

Here is our challenge today:

Step one: Write down any experience in your life of unconditional love. Describe it in detail (or remember it if you aren't writing). Bring back that feeling in your body.

Can you think of one? It is possible that you cannot. If not, first, feel that. What's it like to never have experienced that. Then, if you can, imagine what it would feel like to be loved unconditionally. Where you can do NO wrong in the other person's eyes. It is not that they are praising everything you do and complimenting you, not at all. It's that you are completely accepted, not evaluated (either good or bad), you are simply allowed to be you and loved for that.

Step two: Imagine yourself  that beautiful, innocent, natural creative force pulsing through you and guiding your every thought, feeling, action. Just imagine that! (As I have been feeling so contracted, scared, sad these past few days, as I envision this in me, tears come and a smile as well.  I can feel the cold, hard defenses melting and my chest opening and body relaxing.)THAT is who we really are. What if we acted like we KNEW and BELIEVED that all the time? whoa.)

Step three: Find a picture of yourself which is that. This is mine. Look at it often.

Comments

[Angela]

this one made me smile, i now have a picture in my head with hands in the air, wind against my face, and rain pouring down, my best friend and soul mate by my side, feeling that love and knowing how free and secure i felt. i want that for my kids, and i want that for myself, all the time.