listen to your drumbeat

“Be what you are and say what you feel, because those who will mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”-Dr. Suess

There is such a pressure to conform, to follow the predictable path of school, then college, then marriage, strive, buy a home, have kids, working for years, retiring…just because that is what people do. We are taught in school to follow directions, to take our breaks, to be somewhere that some of us don’t want to be because we have to. Not discounting the positives, like how to interact with our peers, how to deal with difficult people, staying busy and productive while mom and dad are working, and of course much more. We look forward to the future date when we will have more time, more time to do what we really want to do.

I am what some would call a non-conformist, though I do have the SUV, the house, dogs, kids…but I didn’t go to college, and I have not placed any urgency on leading my kids to go either. I am teaching my children how to think for themselves and listen for their own drummer. At this point none of them have chosen the traditional path that I was raised to believe was the best path. There are at last count over 7.5 billion people on this planet. To me that means that there are most likely just as many roads to success, joy, and fulfillment.

I believe my job is to guide them away from danger when they are headed that way, to keep them safe when they are too young to know how for themselves, and to teach them how to think, not what to think. My kids don’t belong to me. They are unique amazing beings that I have been blessed to have in my life. They alone know what is best for them. My job is to listen, to give them the freedom to figure out for themselves what path they want to take, to help them with course adjustments if they are headed down a less empowering path, to support them in their journey, and to learn from them as much as I teach them if not more. They are in the position to be my greatest teachers. In my process of learning to let go of the need to control, they give me ample opportunities to test my intentions by taking daring steps that trigger all kinds of emotions inside me.

The most difficult challenge for me this far has been with one of our children who has made decisions about how they want to live their life that takes them away from us in more ways than one. This one has made dis-empowering choices about what to put in their body and who they choose to allow to influence them. It teaches me yet again that I have no control over anything other than my own emotions and my own reactions. As parents we want to shield our children from pain, but pain is sometimes a necessary teacher. I continue to pray every day for all of the 5 amazing souls I am blessed to call my kids, and trust that they will come through their pain and trials stronger and wiser. I hold a place for them always in my heart of love and acceptance of who they are as spiritual beings, no matter what their choices are in their life at the moment. I trust that the love I send them at every moment will help to give them strength when they are low, and I have faith in their own resilience and inner wisdom to guide them to the empowering path that they were meant to follow. I am blessed.