Starting

The first step in choosing freedom is to start to see that you are making choices, even when you don't think you have a choice to make.

Think about all the things everyone just expects – all the areas in your life that you are already choosing a path different from what is expected. You may have chosen to breastfeed your children for longer than others expected. You may have chosen to be attachment parents. If your kids are older than 5, then everyone expects them to be in school, but you may have chosen not to send them to school, and that is definitely an upstream swim in a mainstream society!

Recognize every time you make a choice, whether it is answering the phone or not, getting embarrassed because your kid is having a difficult time in the store and “making a scene” or peacefully helping him get his needs met, enjoying cooking a nourishing meal for your family or helping your kids to eat whenever they’re hungry. The list goes on indefinitely.

As you learn to identify your choices, you can start to evaluate whether a particular choice will bring you and your family closer to freedom and joy or farther from that path.

One caution – stay in the present with your choices – don’t be going back and second-guessing all the choices you made in the past. Our journey only goes forward, it does not double back on itself!

So, in choosing freedom and joy, you just need to keep questioning the expectations and making your informed choices. You already know that gentle, respectful parenting is for you, or you wouldn’t be reading this. My job now, is to help you fine-tune so that your journey becomes even more free and joy-filled!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Be Open to the Possibilities

by Angie Johnson (The following is from an email posted by Angie on the Consensual-Living Yahoo group during a recent discussion.)

I generally prefer to approach seeming conflicts with an openness to possibilities.

I can recall one evening last winter, in the middle of a very wicked South Dakota blizzard... my daughter (then 2 years old) had wanted me to truck it to our apartment's back parking lot to our car... to grab two of her stuffed kitties from her car seat. I was in the middle of playing with the girls (all nice and warm and cozy) when the request came up, and so I was fully aware of the special "roles" she had in mind for those two cats in our game. Still, even though I was coming up extremely short seeing myself happily suiting up to go out there to retrieve them, I could very easily align my *energy* right with hers -- in visualizing her scenario if we *did* have them right in that moment, and also remaining open both to her possible disappointment and possible acceptance of me not wanting to go out there to get them for her. But, not more than 2 minutes after she realized and had quickly made peace with my plans of not going out there (I partially slid open the apartment patio door to show her why)... whadayaknow! One of our apartment neighbors, still in boots and all suited up from just having come in from the cold, knocks at the door. He was happy to grab the cats for my daughter from our car as he was headed back out again for something else anyway.

I think the key issue for me, in these kinds of scenarios where a parent *could* be the extension of their child's arms, but for (of course valid) preferences/concerns of their own really don't feel peaceful about physically carrying out the request, is that the Universe can open up an infinity of other possible routes that maybe even entirely bypass the parent's participation. I think the key ingredient is that "remaining open" part. And that "open" feeling is so contagious! Like, remaining "open" to feeling peaceful and optimistic while consciously considering alternative solutions/routes to completely fill a need.... or simply "opening up" to the possibility of being able to make peace with what *already* is... Maybe, both tap into that same realm whereby certain desires manifest pretty quickly, either way, in my experience.

There are times when optimistically discussing some possible mutually agreeable solutions feels lighter and more expansive than not doing so. I think that the underlying energy of "openness" that fuels the problem-solving dialog itself seems to be a huge factor in creating the magical results.

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