Thought Cookie: Edition 23: Vol. 3
The inky black of my room
always greets me as I begin
my day
there is no morning light here.
First, always, I am grateful to be alive,
whole and able,
Next the gut twisting call to reckon with the pain.
Crouching in the corner,
it’s waiting to pick up
where we left off yesterday,
quietly insistent.
the pain of my empathy,
the pain of my missteps and imperfection,
the pain of wanting when I wish I didn’t,
the pain of this world.
This is the day’s first negotiation.
I love you,
Emily
As a young mom, the idea that it was my responsibility to act on behalf of the best interests of my children took some serious adjusting to.
I was a mom of young children in my mid-20s and early 30s, when I was still engaged in the process of figuring myself out. That felt like responsibility enough. But alas, there was no way to wave off the lives my husband and I created and cherished. Decisions about schooling, child rearing, babysitters, travel, exposure, all relied upon my husband and I.
What I found to be most challenging was that I was making these decisions on behalf of two powerful and vulnerable, sovereign beings of their own – who differed from me in their own unique ways, and who were having a different experience of childhood than my own.
It is a heavy responsibility.
I had to come to peace with two ideas:
that we wouldn’t get everything right, and that when I acted on behalf of them, I would do my very best to look toward their highest and best potential, always focused on setting them up for wholeness in their future.
Once I learned how to attend to this process of acting on behalf of my daughters, I did so with sacred attention and care. And always, a hand-wringing fear I might get it wrong.
Recently I’ve begun wondering if I take as much care when I am acting on my own behalf.
Now that my daughters are older and I make fewer, if any, decisions on their behalf, the person I am choosing for, most often, is me.
How do I consider her highest and best interests?
How do I show up for those choices?
How do I get right with heart, head, intuition, spirit, intellect to make a call?
Most often I show up in a rush.
I am often disconnected from the sight towards long-term highest and best and focused instead on short term concerns.
I’m hurrying to get this booking made or that promised event a reality. I am distracted and focused more on the efficiency of getting something done rather than my own highest and best potential.
I try to sit with my heart and my intuition on big decisions, but I find my mind and the influence of the world and the fear it evokes coming up for me time and again. When I am in a fear state, I riffle through possible choices like the old card catalogue at my elementary school library, enjoying the feel of the fast flip of options against my fingers.
In the rush, distraction and fear, I rarely pause to formulate the relevant questions, like:
How would this expand me?
Is this right for Emily at this moment?
Is this something that will set her up for future wholeness?
Emily might want to do this, but is it right for her at this point?
Am I truly acting on my own behalf?
One of the benefits of a childhood with supportive parents is that you have a team of people who are thinking about your best interests, gathering their collective love and wisdom, and acting on your behalf.
Acting out of true love.
Once you become an adult, you essentially lose that committee of love and consideration – and you’re left to soldier on as the head of your own committee of one – just as the world begins making bigger demands out of you: build a career, contribute to the economy, pay your taxes, invest your money.
In these grueling days, when we are grinding the gears of nearly-maybe?-post-pandemic life, when we are standing up from the dusty ground and watching the debris in the air clear, when we are asking ourselves, What do I do now? I am thinking it might be a moment to harken back to the “acting on behalf” mindset for me.
It might be a perfect interlude to stop, calmly consider, breathe, promise myself I’ll do my best, as I imagine my highest and best potential future self.
Then, decide from there.
Hi there, dear reader!
How’d I do? Did this edition touch something in your soul? If it did, would you share it? I would love to have more of you reading, and feeling heartened, seen and touched. My intention is to grow Thought Cookie to a readership of about 100 this year. I’m around 45 right now, nearly halfway. (Yay and thank you!) If you know someone who is a deep thinker and feeler, or in need of some deep thoughts and love, send them this little soul note and encourage them to Subscribe.