Everyday I try to meditate or focus my thoughts on 3 areas:

• I’m learning…
• I’m creating…
• I’m grateful for…

I tried to just stay with those words to see what they would mean to me, and as I rested with them I felt an amazing sense of peace. I felt the burden of twenty un-done tasks melt away. I felt the guilt from a thousand impatient words fade into nothingness. I felt tremendously hopeful about our future as a family and about my deepening consciousness as a mother, a woman and a Child of the Earth.

This is my Holiday message to all mothers who approach parenting with consciousness:

Self-care is not Selfishness.

The biggest lesson that I learned in 2012 is that when I put everyone’s needs ahead of mine I will never find happiness.  When I sacrifice my joy to bring someone else joy, I have done it wrong.  When I say “yes” but inside I am screaming “NO!”, I am not helping anyone.  When I listen to what other people want from me instead of listening to and serving my authentic needs and desires, I will be miserable and my relationships will suffer.

This is what I have learned and this is what I want all the other would-be mother-martyrs to hear and absorb.

When you take care of yourself, you are more able to care for others.

I don’t know if it was the Christian tradition that I was raised in or whether it was my own mother’s unique way of always serving others or whether it was a mainstream culture that doesn’t value authenticity, but somewhere along the line I internalized as one my deepest beliefs that I should always do what other people want me to do even if it goes against what is best for me.  I was easily guilted into helping others when in fact I was allowing myself to be the solution to their problems.  I was sacrificing my own goals, values and passions because I thought that it would be too selfish to do my own thing rather than assisting others in their goals.

I brought these beliefs to mothering and it didn’t take long for me to begin to feel lost, sad and resentful.  I thought that being a ‘good’ attachment-parenting mother meant always putting the child’s needs first.  It took me a long time to realize that when I am not acknowledging and meeting my own needs that I have little energy and love in my reserves for meeting the needs of my children.

A Mother’s needs are as important as a Child’s needs.

It wouldn’t surprise me if you have needs that you are ignoring in the name of doing the *right* thing for everyone else.

• Maybe you need to take better physical care of your body by eating better or sleeping more or taking the time to put on make-up or by telling yourself that you are worthy enough to spend money on a new hair style.
• Maybe you need to say *No* to some of the friends and relatives who have expectations for how they think you should be spending your time and energy.
• Maybe you need to end the pattern of sacrifice that you have created in your family and instead live by the values you really believe:  If you value Health, then that includes you too, not just your children.  If you value Compassion, then be compassionate to yourself instead of being your harshest critic.  If you value Freedom, then you must not lock yourself into old patterns of behaviour.  If you value Learning, then you must allow yourself to learn how to identify and take care of your own needs.  If you value Love, then love yourself.

You are an amazing woman, deserving to live your best life.

I can’t create a fabulous life for my children when I am too tired, too resentful and too overwhelmed.  I can only meet their needs when I am not running on empty.  The same goes for you.

I invite you to make this Holiday season a Season of Loving Yourself.

Put yourself on your list of priorities, and just watch how all of your relationships fill with joy and connection.  If there are people who don’t understand your choice to value yourself, you don’t have to justify anything:  they will learn (or not) their own lessons in authenticity and self-care when they are ready.

I wish you all great Joy.

May you experience the Power and Freedom of Authenticity.

Love,

Patti

You believe in living a life of Freedom and Joy, right?  But you’re not always feeling it, are you?

Me neither.

I have lots of moments–sometimes whole days!–when I let restrictions and negativity get in the way of my Freedom and Joy.  I’m still learning how to come back to what I value.  Maybe these simple thoughts can help you too.

1. Listen to your body.  Recently I started to DREAD reading to my daughters at bedtime.  Everytime they would ask I would cringe.  I couldn’t figure out why I had started to dislike what used to be one of my favourite activities.  So one night I read to them while deliberately turning my attention to what was making me so resentful.  Halfway through the book I figured it out:  I was tired.  My eyes and my brain and my body were simply too tired to make sense of the words on the page.  I explained this to my children and now we spend extra time in the dark just talking and cuddling and telling stories.  It is much more peaceful for me, and I have regained Freedom and Joy at bedtime.
2. Find and dispel the fear that is holding you back.  I have days when it seems like all I say is ‘NO’.  No, don’t do that.  No, I’m not doing that.  No, not right now.  No, I don’t want to.  No, you can’t have that.  No, I’m done.  Sometimes ‘NO’ comes out because of laziness or busy-ness.  But sometimes it simply comes out without any thought because a pre-existing fear makes ‘NO’ the standard answer.  For example, last week I was in the house dressing my my 2-year-old son to play outside when my 8-year-old daughter called in through the front door, “Mom!  The ball went across the street.  Can I go get it?”  I was about to say ‘NO’ when I caught myself and instead I looked for my fear.  Was I afraid for her safety?  Of course not!  She has crossed our street many times on her own when I was outside.  I was afraid of what the neighbours would think if they saw her out by herself.  So I said ‘YES!’.  I dispelled the fear when I realized that it was actually much smaller than my trust in my daughter.  P.S.  We don’t live on a busy street.
3. Look for a connection with another person.  Sometimes making a constant effort to create, sustain and develop connections with certain people can leave me feeling empty or disconnected from other relationships.  Reaching out to my Partner or a friend is sometimes just what I need to feel refreshed and renewed.  I also try to include a little bit of one-on-one time for each child to assess if there is someone with whom I feel the need to create a deeper connection.  Even a few minutes is often enough to renew my spirit.
4. Let go of your old story.  Recently I became totally embittered towards Partner-Guy while my old story of how I don’t deserve anything good and Nobody understands me replayed in my head.  It took me several days to realize that I had fallen into an old pattern of beliefs that had nothing to do with him.  When I stopped believing my old story I was able to see that he was the same guy he had always been and that he wasn’t trying to wreck my life after all.  Amazing!
5. Give yourself a change.  Do your routines and obligations sometimes make you tired and bored?  Did you used to enjoy an activity that has become just another chore?  Change it up.  For example, this spring I started buying the groceries after 7 years of leaving the job to Partner-Guy.  He’s happy to avoid the hassle and I’m happy to get out of the house. 

Freedom and Joy is usually hiding around the corner and if I will just move out of whatever rut, routine, story or comfort-zone that I have built myself into, I can usually find it back.

What do you do to recharge when the daily grind has zapped your Freedom and Joy?

There is nothing like the newborn babe. Unwashed. Fresh from within. Pure. Innocent. A changed world.

My most delicious memories of my daughters and son are of meeting their needs in the middle of the night during their early days and hours. In the darkness I feel like the babe and I are one person, and like we are the only two people in the world.  Sometimes I feel like we are every mother and baby in the whole world. In those moments I feel completely competent, completely alive, that living is synonymous with loving.

When Holly (now nearly 7 years old) was just a few hours old, I was laying in East General Hospital at 4 in the morning. Partner-Guy had gone home and I was reviewing the previous 2 hours and how we had unexpectedly ended up in the hospital after planning a homebirth. The birth had been traumatic for me–she had nearly arrived in an ambulance, and once in the hospital there were doctors, nurses and paramedics all yelling at me to do the exact opposite of what I knew was natural and good–but for little Holly it had been natural and good. In the darkness of that moment, as the snow fell on a quiet city, I felt like the most powerful woman in the world. If a lion had come into that hospital room I could have torn it limb from limb (and I’m sure that the attending doctor knew I was capable of it!!) That too was a defining moment for me.

Jasmine (now nearly 5 years old) was born at home, and it was not until she was a few weeks old when I was sitting in the rocking chair in the quiet darkness of the living room one night that I felt complete peace. I don’t think I had ever thought much about the meaning or feeling of peace before that moment. I had had such a history of anger and resentment in my life that the concept of peace was not even on my radar. That moment of peace with my tiny little Jasmine brought me to a place of forgiveness, another great lesson to make me a better person and a better mother.

Julian’s birth (28 months ago) brought me to my knees:  he was perfect in every way except that I wasn’t confident that I could raise a boy!  His presence forced me to surrender all my preconceived ideas and expectations of myself and my children.  His tender need for my love taught me how to let it all go.  I was able to welcome the freedom of loving him as I released the old idea that I needed someone other than him to love.

Julian, about 10 hours after his birth

Because of these moments of awe I know that there will (someday) be another newborn in my life. It just seems like I have so much more to learn from my children.

P.S.  Dear Friends:  I’ve been gone from here for a while I figured out some new things going on in my family.  A lower online profile was an essential part of this transition.  I look forward to more regular contact with you again!

Will you turn on your imagination for me for a minute?

Imagine that your husband is really, really afraid of needles.  Not only will he never get the flu shot, he is terrified of having to give blood for a blood test.  You’re worried that his fear is going to have a negative impact on his health.  So you decide that the way to alleviate his fear (not that he asked you to get involved) is to go to blood donor clinics all over your city.  You think, Not only will the regular exposure to needles help him with his fear of needles, but he will be doing something good at the same time!  Not surprisingly, your husband resents what you are making him do.  He goes along with it because he feels powerless in the face of your determination.  It becomes easier to deal with the needle, but he still hates it and now there is a distance in your relationship with him that wasn’t there before.  Nevertheless, you consider the experiment to be an success.  To ensure further success, you continue to make him attend blood donor clinics.

Imagine that your mother, who is getting older but still lives independently, is starting to resist attending family events.  When you visit her, she is happy to see you and enjoys a lively conversation, but if too many people visit at the same time, she becomes withdrawn or sometimes argumentative.  You decide that she needs MORE exposure to groups of people in order to get over her anti-social behaviour.  You arrange family dinners with your siblings, you take her to a resort with your children for a week, and you host a big birthday party for her in a restaurant.  There, she yells at you and you feel embarrassed.  The next week you bring her to a neighbourhood BBQ and she sits in her lawnchair and cries.

Imagine that your brother is a smoker.  You buy him a pack of cigarettes, and when he lights one up you tell him that he should stop smoking because it is bad.  He says that he will stop.  The next time you see him, you buy him a pack of cigarettes, but this time, before giving them to him, you tell him that smoking is bad.  Then he lights one up.  The next time, you tell him that smoking is bad and that he should stop smoking BEFORE you give him the cigarettes.  He waits a while, then lights one up.  Now you tell him that you will stop buying him cigarettes unless he stops smoking.  He is angry and begs incessantly for the cigarettes.  You give him the pack and tell him again to stop smoking.  He lights up a cigarette.

Do you find these stories to be ridiculous and unrealistic?  They are exactly the way that mainstream culture teaches us to treat our children.

In the first scenario, it is the same as sending a child to school who doesn’t want to go.

In the second scenario, it is the same as expecting an introverted child to constantly ‘be a friend’ and get along with a diverse group of children all day, every day.

In the third scenario, it is the same as having a child who grabs or hits or swears when with other kids, and you repeatedly tell him/her to stop and then you keep sending him/her into groups of other children.

Dear Mothers and Fathers, isn’t it time to stop letting school get in the way of our relationships with our children?  Isn’t it time to stop the great school experiment of behaviour modification?

School will not fix your child.  It is an experiment in conformity.  Children who exhibit what many adults call “anti-social behaviour” will probably display even greater anxiety, withdrawal or aggression in a situation over which they have no control and little emotional connection to those around them.   I just don’t understand when a parent says that they hope school will teach their child self-control or ‘help him come out of his shell’ or ‘improve her social skills’.  What are they really saying?

Do you know what ALWAYS works to modify the distressed behaviours of our children?

Love.

Kindness and Patience.

Empathy, Validation and Empowerment.

Attention.

Connection.

Time.

Sometimes a parent will notice a change or improvement in a child’s behaviour after attending school for a period of time.  Perhaps we could just observe that maturity evolved naturally over that time, rather than assuming that school was a magic medicine?

Who is more capable of giving love, kindness, patience, empathy, validation, empowerment, attention, connection and time?  The parent of one, two, three or four children or the teacher of twenty-five?  And do you want your child’s anxiety, withdrawal or aggression to be erased by control, punishment and repetition or to be eased through love, attention and patience?

Parents, it is no secret that school is not the magic elixir to ‘fix’ your child.

I choose to give love, attention and patience to my children.  I am not trying to FIX them, only to FLOW with them in a life of Freedom and Joy.

Are you ready to give up on school and start a fresh connection with your child?

This week I was on the phone with a close friend who was stressing about getting ready for her son’s birthday party.  To add to her stress, an extended family member was giving her some grief and she was getting pretty agitated.

Looking at my calendar and seeing less than 10 things on my agenda, I asked “Do you want me to bring you a couple of baked mac’n'cheese casseroles for your party?”  She said, “Are you serious?”  I said, “Yes.”

And I’m telling you this, not to toot my own horn, but to ask you:  Friend, do you need a casserole this week?  Or do you know someone who needs YOU to bring a casserole?

You see, sometimes when I’m surfing around the online parenting community I get really upset about the constant mommy-wars.  You know:  the comparisons where somebody has to be doing it right and everybody else must be doing it wrong.  I see a lot of fighting and not a lot of offering each other our support and understanding.

So maybe I think spanking is wrong (which I do think), but I’ve felt the emotion that would have led me to hit my kids if I didn’t already know some alternatives.  And maybe I don’t feed my kids Doritos for lunch, but I’ve looked in the fridge and WISHED for a hotdog to appear so that I wouldn’t have to clean and cut up fruits and vegetables and bake bread and put beans to soak for dinner.  So I get it when parents reach for something easy to feed their kids.  Really.  I get it.

If I’ve acted in my head the way other parents act for real, am I really better than them?  Or am I just better at empathizing with them and maybe I should just offer them a casserole instead of judging them?

Sometimes parenting is overwhelming, even when we truly believe that parenting is worthy of our best efforts and that our relationships with our children matter more than anything.  Maybe we need to ask more “What do you need from me?” and then really listen to the answers.  Maybe we need to do more listening as a collective WE as well as listening as individuals and offering our individual support.  Maybe we need to get off the internet and into our communities and just give a hand and a listening ear instead of allowing ourselves to be sucked in to the debates and debacles online.

And when I say ‘WE’, I really mean ‘ME’.  I need to listen better.   I need to reach out more.  I need to bake a few more casseroles and be more accessible to my friends and family.  I need to show more interest and empathy.  I need to avert my precious reading time away from the online mommy-wars and just show love to the mommies I know.

So Friend, do you need me to make you casserole this week?  How can I show you some love and support?

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting an amazing woman who was willing to teach me everything she knows about essential oils in exchange for a place to sleep for a couple of nights.

It’s funny when you know someone online only and when your relationship is strictly ‘business’ and you really don’t know anything personal about each other.  Before she came she was completely unaware that I am the mother of 4 unschooling children, that I am breastfeeding a toddler and that we live in a 2 bedroom bungalow.

Not only that, but the day she arrived (after a 6 hour drive) my 23-month-old son became very sick with a fever and vomiting after every time he nursed.

Yup, my sink was stacked with dishes, I hadn’t vacuumed the living room or changed the sheets on her bed, I hadn’t cooked supper and my fridge was pretty much empty.

And you know what?  I didn’t panic.  In the past, my control-freak-desperate-need-to-impress-others personality would have had me  running around trying to tend to my sick babe while being super-duper-housemaker-hero.  Instead, I relaxed into accepting what my day had in store and into realizing that I could not control another person’s perception of what was going on at my house.

When my friend called from the road I let her know that my son was sick and she advised me which essential oils to begin to treat him with.  And of course when she arrived she was totally unflappable, jumped in to help me and praised me for sitting on the couch with my sick little boy while he nursed and slept.

What a relief!  But even if she had chosen not to stay at my house I would have understood.  I had accepted that my day would unfold in the way that would be best for us.  (But I sure did have the good fortune to learn TONS about essential oils over 2 days!  Wow!)

Do you ever feel like you are comfortable and confident with your non-mainstream life with your kids–until your life falls under someone else’s scrutiny?  For the longest time I tried to live in a bubble so that I didn’t have to let anyone notice that our values and practices are different from theirs.  I lacked the personal integrity to really stand behind my decisions, preferring to blend in rather than risk having to defend myself.

But I no longer feel defensive.  I feel Free to be me and I feel completely Joyful about my life with my family.

How can you get comfortable with your normal, no matter how different it is from mainstream living?

1. Never apologize for being happy.  That other people choose to live in angst and frustration is their business.  Do not hide your joy because it might be the first glimpse into conscious living that someone else has ever had.
2. Live in the moment, not in the future.  You can’t know what will happen next so just enjoy what you have.
3. Be clear on your values and live them every moment.  That others are not connected to their own integrity does not have to push you out of yours.
4. Like attracts like.  The more you confidently display your joy and love, the more you will bring people to your life who are living at the same vibration as you and your family.

Whatever you do that does not fall in line with mainstream living–drinking raw milk? a family bed? unschooling? living in an RV?–do it confidently.  I’d love to hear what non-mainstream aspects of your life you have the hardest time revealing to others.  Anonymous comments accepted…

The Globe and Mail is running a series called ‘Fit to Learn’ about children’s health  and academic success.  Saturday’s article asks Are schools going too far in measuring student BMI and putting in junk food bans?

When asked about who should take on the responsibility for feeding children healthy food and whether schools should provide breakfasts and lunches, Catherine Parsonage, executive director of the Toronto Foundation for Student Success is quoted as saying “Of course it’s not the responsibility of schools.  But we are the best delivery point, because by law you know this is where children are going to be.”

Really, Ms Parsonage?  By law?  That’s where children are going to be?

Perhaps people who are going to quote the Education Act of Ontario should actually read it first rather than perpetuating the lie that tells parents that the law forbids them to keep their children out of schools.

Section 21, Subsection 2 says:

(2)  A person is excused from attendance at school if,

(a) the person is receiving satisfactory instruction at home or elsewhere;

It’s that simple.  In fact, the province of Ontario has among the most liberal homeschooling laws in the entire world.  We are not required by law to provide lesson plans, evidence of learning or to participate in standardized tests.  My legal obligations to the government with regards to my children began and ended when I registered their births.

But besides informing Ms Parsonage that she is simply wrong about the laws of Ontario, I’d really like to ask her if she is aware that around 3% of children in Ontario are being homeschooled.  And I’d like to know if a random sampling of homeschooled children were to be compared to a random sampling of schooled children specifically concerning their BMI, fitness and academic achievement, what would we find?  Are homeschooled children just as likely as their counterparts to eat an unhealthy diet, live a sedentary life and be obese?  If yes, will the government be helping to lower the weight of obese homeschooled children, too?

And what if it turned out that homeschooled children were by and large more healthy, less likely to be obese and generally more fit and active than their schooled peers?  Would the government like to give us a plausible explanation for this?

Because frankly, I’m really curious.  If school is the commonality among children who are unfit or obese, then why is school being seen as the sole venue to solve the problem?  Can the source of the problem be the solution?  If the responsibility lies with the parents, then why are the schools stepping up to solve the problem at all?

For two years I taught Grade 6 in a predominantly white, English-speaking working/middle class neighbourhood, where most families had two incomes and owned their homes. I was required to teach a unit on nutrition, and I gave my class a challenge to not eat any junk food for 48 hours. They accepted that they couldn’t eat candy, chips or soda, but they were STUNNED that they also couldn’t eat fries, pizza, hamburgers, hotdogs, donuts, ice cream, popsicles, pudding, cake or cookies. Their parents showed up to ask me “So what are they supposed to eat? Lettuce?”  Uh, ……yes.

You see, the more the school takes on the role of parent, the more parenting can be avoided by the actual parents. The school system has made it easy for parents to avoid important but uncomfortable topics like sexuality, health and nutrition, and lifestyle choices. So even ‘good’ parents allow themselves to be relieved of some of their responsibilities. They even stop trying. I have seen for example, that parents don’t have to put effort into learning about what the healthy eating habits of adolescents should look like, because the school will tell their children what to eat. And what if the children won’t eat healthily? Well, it’s the school’s fault, of course.

I say we stop making it so easy for parents to turn the raising of their children over to the schools.  The ‘Eat Healthy’ campaign will be no more effective than the ‘Don’t do Drugs’ campaign has been for the past 20 years.

In this province, the money for health care comes out of the same pocket as the money for education.  If the government really wanted to use the money for one to reduce the money required for the other, they would.  The real question is, Why aren’t they?

Recently I invited one of my neighbours to a social event at my house.  She is around my age and her husband is friends with my Partner-guy.

Five days after the event she emailed her response:

No thankyou.  Take care.

I had previously perceived that this woman felt uncomfortable around me, but her email seemed to be screaming Uncomfortable!  Uncomfortable!  Uncomfortable!

So how is one to share joy with people who aren’t in a place in their own lives to receive it?  Because I’ve reached a new place in my own life–a place where I have become so comfortable in my own skin, so open to receiving and expressing joy, thankfulness and acceptance, so awake and aware of who I was born to be, that I can see that it may be a little off-putting to those who aren’t there yet.

And people don’t have to find their joy by using me as a conduit.  I am not attached to anyone else’s outcomes or choices.  I only want to offer my journey and experience to those who are seeking it and to those for whom it resonates and inspires.  It is for everyone to find joy but it is not for everyone to enjoy or respond to me and my message.  I get that.

But this ‘awakening’ to who we were each born to be is an amazing phenomenon, and I do feel compelled to share it.

My daughter Anna (8) is the question-asker in our family and she is extremely interested in the habits of animals.  She recently learned that  if the parent Blue-footed Booby does not have enough food for all of the chicks, it will only feed the biggest chick, ensuring that at least one will survive.  This was very perplexing for her.  Why wouldn’t the mother want all her babies to survive?  How does it know to do that?  What if no baby survives?

We explained to Anna that all animals (who have not been trained by humans) act on instinct, that birds and mammals and insects and fish are born knowing what to eat and how to mate and where to live and how to raise their babies.  They are aware of who they were born to be and they don’t try to be or do anything that is not right for them.  A giraffe does not look at the lion and think I should try eating gazelle for lunch and the fish does not see the eagle and think I wish I could live in a tree.

I continued my explanation to Anna like this:

We are all born knowing what is right for us and who we  were born to be.  A human baby knows what is right for him and communicates to the mother.  If the mother always meets the needs of the baby, then that baby will grow up knowing that the world is made for him to be able to trust himself and always be who he was born to be and do what he was born to do.  He will follow his instinct to do what is right for him.

But sometimes even if the mother and father do their best to take care of their baby, things happen that teach a child that the world is not a safe place or that he is wrong to want his needs met or that other people will take advantage of him or that his special gifts and talents are not valued.  Sometimes a child who is born full of joy and love and hope and trust grows up to be an adult who is scared or sad or disappointed or angry or doubting.

We always have a choice, Anna.  We can listen to our instincts, like the bird or the giraffe or the ladybug, and do the things that are right for us so that we can be our very best selves, or we can try to be like someone else or wish that we were different or forget to be thankful for how our needs are always met.  But we each know how to do what is right for us, Anna.  Even if sometimes that knowing gets pushed down inside of us and we make mistakes and do things that are not the right choice for us.  We can learn from that mistake and then remember to trust ourselves and listen to our instincts to tell us the right thing.  

You are strong, Anna.  And your instinct is strong.  You are a powerful and important person with a bright light inside of you.  You already know how to do the right thing for you and you don’t ever have to lose that.

Yeah, we talk deep like that in our house sometimes.

It’s because I don’t want my children to grow into adults who are hurt and broken and really, really stupid like I was.  The joy that is radiating in me right now is something that I want my children to experience every day of their lives so that they don’t waste as much time as I did not fulfilling my potential and ignoring who I was born to be.

Not everyone is comfortable with this kind of assertion.  They don’t know yet that we were all born to let our lights shine and live in Freedom and Joy.  They feel uncomfortable around people who are at peace with who they are and who are ridding themselves of all the negativity and constrictions of modern culture.  I get that.  I’ve been there.

But let us not think that because our joy makes some people uncomfortable that we should put the dimmer switch on or keep our talents and gifts hidden away so that no one feels jealous or insecure.  The world is only a better place when each one of us follows our true instincts and shares our joy and talents.  Hide it under a bushel? NO!  I’m gonna let it shine!

It’s not about being pushy–it’s about being authentic.  You were born for greatness.  So was I.  It is impossible that some people were born to radiate joy and love and while others were born to be shrivelled and scared.  Impossible.  You were born for greatness.  Each of your children was born for greatness.  Each of my children was born for greatness.  And the amazing thing is this:  the greatness of me and my children does not in any way diminish the greatness of you and your children!  When we ALL live in the abundance of our full potentials we make a better world for all of us and it is not a competition.

Rejoice today.  And be glad.  Be thankful for the opportunity to live your true potential today.  Let your light shine.  Do not feel diminished by the light of others.  Expand and fill yourself with joy and love and peace.

You are born for greatness.  And your time has come.