- Shouldn’t You Be You, Too?I’m sitting here thinking about what my kids said to me on this Mother’s Day. The sentiment that was clearly expressed was, “Thank you mom, for letting me be me.”
They acknowledged we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. They also acknowledged that they always felt loved, and knew that I respected them enough to let them be who they are. They also knew my idea of respect extended to letting them make mistakes.
Sometimes they made big mistakes, really big mistakes. Mistakes I never saw coming. The kind of mistakes I so wanted to prevent. In the end those mistakes ended up creating lessons that defined them, shaped them, and molded them into the men they are today.
I just watched a video from Unified Soul Theory.
The video spoke about another time in life. A time in life when death is around the corner. The video talked about a study that was done where 100 elderly people were asked to reflect about their biggest regret. Almost all of them said “They regretted not the things they did, but the things they didn’t do.”
We’ve all heard that before, but it made me think of my regrets. I instantly became sad and wistful for the things I didn’t do. Being the optimist that I am, I thought about it again.
What if the things I didn’t do, actually contributed to, and inspired my kids to be themselves? What if my inability to fully live everything I planned to do before I had kids caused them to reach for their dreams, and aim higher than I did?
Then I began thinking of my mom, my grandmother and my
great-grandmother. I realized that each generation really did reach higher than the one before it, including me.Each woman in my family broke away from the conventions of the generation that came before her. Each mother struck out on her own in some way. Two of them did it in small ways, one did it with a grand gesture, and in my case, I broke the mold.
What if those acts were part of the universal plan, as they speak about in the video? What if striving to be me modeled to my kids just how important it is to be yourself. What if my perception that I was being self-focused, because I was gone at night so I could help others by teaching parenting, was truly a gift I gave my children.
Moms always wonder, what will others think? What would others do? Doing that can cause you to head down the wrong path. Letting others tell you which way to live and love can extinguish the flame of your own soul’s message. It can cause you to walk another’s path, not your own personal destiny.
Others can’t hear your soul-song singing, you’re the only one who is meant to hear that! You’re an individual, with your own needs and desires. You must sing your own soul-song, so you have no regrets! Be who you are, so your kids can see, that being who you are, is how it’s supposed to be. And consider letting your kids try out their own soul-song in front of you, before they try it out on the rest of humanity.
Give the gift of being who you are to the individual inside of you this Mother’s Day, and it will indeed, be a Happy Mother’s Day.