Practicing Self-Love on Valentine’s Day and Every Day
This is an invitation to notice the thoughts you are choosing today and every day. Do your best to observe the thoughts gently, kindly.
This is an invitation to notice the thoughts you are choosing today and every day. Do your best to observe the thoughts gently, kindly.
Your kid is now an adult and wants to live their independent life outside of the family system; that is the hardest because it’s not just a transition of parenting, but it’s a transition of self-identity.
As a parent, you are doing difficult work all day, every day. Self-compassion can be a pathway to deeper connections with ourselves and one another.
Parents reach out and ask, “How can we experience fewer nights of overwhelm and freak out over homework?!” And “How much should I be helping them?!”
When (not if) you make a “mistake,” you have an “opportunity to repair” the connection with your teenager.
You can (and will) change your mind/path/course/plan along the way. And that okay. It's necessary, in fact. As you and your circumstances and the world around you changes, your choices and decisions will too.
While experiencing a pretty intense emotional reaction, I remembered a powerful truth: I AM NOT MY FAMILY. Their thoughts, behaviors, and actions do not belong to me, do not define me, and do not limit me.
Limits don’t negate choices. Limits aren’t consequences or punishment. Instead, limits help young people understand boundaries-- their own and other people’s.
The truth is, dreams come from one’s internal compass, not from external sources, pressures, or societal norms and expectations. Furthermore, teenagers need space to explore, reflect, experience, and process and come to their own truths, their own path.
When (not if) your teen presents an undesirable behavior or seems "shut down", you have an opportunity to ASK about it, rather than telling them about (aka lecturing them).