Hello!

I had two moments yesterday when I realised how much I’ve grown as a mother and human being.

One was with my son, who’s 10.

We took my daughter, 14, to go bowling with the homeschooling teens group, at a town an hour away from where we live.

 

And he had the opportunity to spend a few hours with his best friend, who lives there.

But he said he didn’t want to.

On the hour long drive there, he wasn’t very happy. He was talking in an agitated tone all the way. 

And I already noticed a difference in myself. 

It was effortless for me to just keep on talking to him with absolute unconditional love and empathy all the way.

We dropped off my daughter, and waited for a while until the bowling started, and he was sitting beside me, still feeling upset but not letting it out. I just kept on giving him empathy and staying lovingly connected with him.

We went to a park with a flying fox and other new things, and had lots of fun there. We were really happy and connected.

Then we went to get lunch. He didn’t want to get out of the car. When we were buying lunch he kept on asking me to hurry up.

We went to a shop where I wanted to get an external hard drive for my computer and he kept trying to pull me out of the shop.

He wanted to go to the toilet but wouldn’t go.

It was many hours of this kind of thing.
 

I imagine you’ve experienced your child being like that. Having upset feelings but not letting them out. Not wanting to do what you’d like them to do.

And I really noticed the difference since I have my own Inner Loving Mother giving me compassion and unconditional love.

That it was so easy to just keep pouring love and empathy to him all day.

I did get frustrated for about 10 minutes – in that office shop, where I saw a desk that I wanted to get for him, and he kept on refusing and trying to pull me out of the shop.

But then my ILM gave me some empathy and I was able to just love him unconditionally again. He didn’t want the desk. That’s all!

 

If this had happened even a year ago, I would probably have got frustrated way earlier. 

I might have tried to subtly coerce him to spend some time with his friend. 

My tone might have got slightly harsh a few times when he just wouldn’t cooperate.

I might have given him empathy in my words, but have disconnected from him in my heart.

This time it was simply quite an easy choice of knowing that he had some feelings bubbling, wanted to be connected with me and wanted to choose what he did, and I could just keep really consciously unconditionally loving him.
 

The second moment was last night.

My daughter had her friend over for a sleepover.

We have a hugely busy week this week, with the Board of Studies man coming over to look at what we’ve been doing in the last year. 

My children are going off on holiday for a week with their Dad and sibling mother and siblings, so there’s quite a lot to do for that too.

So, when they asked for a sleepover, I said yes, AND that I had some requests, to help me have more ease. One of them was that they didn’t have much screen time.

We got back from the bowling, and I was helping my son do some structured learning ready for the Board of Studies man, and the girls were on their screens. They said they would have 20 minutes, and that they’d then get off.

I was tired. It had been a long day. I didn’t really want to be doing structured learning with my son.

And they were going quite a bit longer than that 20 minutes.
 

In that moment, I could feel an old powerlessness thought coming up. 

Of giving up. Of not saying anything to them. Of getting resentful. 

And in that moment, I wasn’t willing to do that.

So I simply said to them, “I’m feeling a bit upset when I remember our agreement about the twenty minutes and I see that you aren’t getting off.”

And they heard me, and soon after they got off.

The relief was that I didn’t go to where I would have gone a few years ago – to the giving up of my needs, to the not believing we could all get our needs met, to the resentment and the disconnection.

 

I see how much I’ve changed.

In my earlier years of parenting, I often went to giving up on my needs and retreating and feeling resentful.

Power comes through being connected with ourselves and our needs, and expressing them in ways that keep us connected with the other’s needs.

And I see that I was able to be unconditionally loving and deeply and heartfully connected and empathic all day to my son (except for those ten minutes) because of my Inner Loving Presence Process.

And I was able to choose to avoid going into powerlessness and resentment with my daughter because of all the work I’ve done around power and powerlessness in the last 6 years.

 

And I remember how PAINFUL it used to be, when I didn’t seem to be able to be that compassionate mother as much as I wanted to be.

I remember how painful it was when I often went into powerlessness and disconnection and resentment with my children.
 

And yes, I’m going to share more about my courses (-:

Because it’s my passion to help mothers LIVE the unconditional love that we are, and to avoid feeling resentful and resorting to even subtle power-over.

My Inner Loving Presence Process Free Taster is HERE.

My Power and Powerlessness in Parenting Free Intro. isHERE.

And I shared this video on FB a couple of days ago – it’s all about how being compassionate with our feelings of powerlessness can help us avoid using power over our children. 

Click on the video if you want to watch it.
 

 

The Power and Powerlessness paid course starts in four days. I’d love to see you there if you feel called to do it.

You can find out more by clicking HERE or on the meme below, which is actually a direct snippet from the course, where I go through power drains and the ways that we can stop those power drains!