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Something to Consider
OK. This week’s video is definitely not me in my most attractive moments. But I offer it to you in hopes that it will give you some levity in a season that can get quite stressful if we let it.
I have learned over the years to keep things in perspective – and the ones who have probably taught me the most on that are my kids. I took my inspiration – and my lead – from them on this one.
Enjoy!
For more on Lightening Up and Keeping Things in Perspective:
Lightening Your Load: Mind Over Matter
A Story About Lightening Up
Ever get to a place where everything feels way too heavy and burdensome? Well I’ve been there too. The above video features a story about a conversation I had with one of my children years ago that never fails to help me get things back into perspective. Scroll down for more resources on lightening up.
Here is what I said in the video:
There was a time in my life a few years ago where I was just CRAZY busy. I’ve always had a unique talent for over-complicating everything — making things WAY harder than they needed to be, and I was doing that a lot. I remember racing to get my kid at daycare and having him be the very last kid to be picked up right around 6:00pm. And he would look up at me like, “Mom, you’re finally here – I didn’t think you were actually going to make it.”
During this particular week, I had a lot of things falling through the cracks. I was behind on some major deadlines, I was not really feeding my family or myself very healthy food. I was just feeling like a lousy mother, a lousy wife, a lousy person in general — like I just couldn’t get things the way I wanted to, which back then was PERFECT. If it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t good enough.
I remember sitting on the couch with my toddler and he looked up at me and he said, “Mommy can I count on you?” And I thought “Oh my God, my two year old is questioning whether he can count on me! I must really be awful.”
And I looked at him and said, “What did you just say?” He said it again, “Can I count on you?” I replied, “OF COURSE you can count on me!”
And he looked up at me with his sweet little twinkly blue eyes as he raised his fingers to my shoulder to count with them, saying “One, two, three, four…”. I just remember looking down at him thinking “Oh my God!” and couldn’t help laughing. Suddenly everything felt lighter and better.
Now whenever I get in that place where I’m out of my mind overwhelmed – and taking myself WAY too seriously, I remember my sweet little boy at two years old — “one, two, three, four….”
For more on Lightening Up:
Lightening Your Load: Mind Over Matter
Illustration from Dreamstime by Nlizer.
