The Beauty of Doing What Can Only Be Done Now

Years ago, I sat in my quiet apartment, spoon-feeding Gerber sweet potatoes to my first baby and wishing desperately for a more exciting life.  Traveling to Italy, participating in productivity seminars, getting a Masters in Communication from USC--even having some reason to run a carpool sounded much more enticing than the constant work of running our little household and responding to the needs of a very active (and, I must add, darling) baby girl.
Mine is one of the most common stories ever told: I was thrilled to have a baby--then surprised by how hard it was to be a mother.  I was committed to doing the best I could, and I loved my family, but in the back of my head, I really wanted something "more."  To sum it up, I wanted to reach every single one of my lifetime goals at the same time.
If I could go back in time, I would tell myself about a lesson I learned recently at our local Denny's restaurant.  I know--who would expect the children's coloring page to have a profound effect on my life?  Well, it did, and I'd like to share it with you (because maybe these ideas will lesson the angst you're feeling about life right now).
This picture below shows two Space Sprockets.

You pop out the colorful templates on the right, and you place them over the blank sprockets on the left.  The readied sprocket looks like this:

You simply pick one of the stars on the perimeter and line it up with the North Star on the blank sprocket.  Then you color in the parts of the template that match the color of the star.  Below, you'll see how the red star is lined up with the North Star.  This is when you would hold the sprocket steady and color in those red designs below.  Pretty simple, right?

Here's how it looks:

Once all the red spots have been filled, you rotate the sprocket to the next star (in this case, green), and you proceed to color the green areas of the template.

After the third rotation, the image looks like this:

And by the end, it looks like this:

Isn't that a nice-looking meteor?  My eight-year-old made his using four colors, so you can see how each part contributed to the final image.

If you get mixed up, there's a little answer key on the back to show you how your picture is supposed to look.

Where on earth am I going with this?

Our lives are metaphorically divided up into a series of colored-star periods.  Depending on our unique situations and the speed of our growth, the number of stars varies, but each of us can look back and identify many "times and seasons" of our lives.

It's tempting to want to have/do/be everything all at once, but if we do, our Space Sprocket will end up looking like a haphazard scribble.  Does this look anything like a meteor to you?

Instead, each of us gets to identify our "North Star" (a very Stephen Covey-ish principle that I love) and figure out what, exactly, we need to be doing within that season of our lives.  This isn't rocket science (no pun intended); it simply requires that we step back, take a deep breath, and ask ourselves, "What do I need and want to do that can only be done now?"

I feel very fortunate to have "kind of" figured that out while I was still spooning out sweet potatoes.  Here's what I did:

• I sat down one day and wrote, "Before I can be ready for more, what do I need to learn to do well?"  I then made a list of about 20 habits and skills I could develop in harmony with my current responsibilities and family situation.  And I started working on them.
• I used my quiet time to read, think, create "Family Idea Binders," interview mothers I admired, and seriously plan for the future (knowing that there would certainly come a time when we would have two cars, and when my children would go off to school, and when I wouldn't be wiping up a mess every 45 seconds.  I am now there).
• I cherished my baby (and the babies I've had since then).  We have hours and hours of home movies where I captured their sweet expressions, their giggles, their favorite toys, and their delight at experiencing life for the first time.  I hugged them, kissed them, and danced with them.  Now, my oldest is turning 12 and my youngest is turning 4.  Though it pains me to think that 14 years from now, I could be an empty-nester, because I've done my best to color in the "assigned parts" of my Space Sprocket, I know we're all ready to move on.

The end result (which I haven't yet reached, but which I can see taking shape) is that we'll create lives that are beautiful.  We'll have lived lives that made sense--that had some order to them.  We'll be able to look back and see how we were progressing--even if it felt like our work could have been replaced by an automatic sweet potato-disher-outer.

This type of thinking, in my opinion, is essential to mothers.  I hear countless women lamenting the fact that their work as "unappreciated, mundane, and invisible."  Of course these mothers won't feel a sense of progress at the end of the day if they see it that way, but what if we looked at our family work a little more closely?  What if we stopped trying to color in all the wrong places and focused instead on the meaning of the work we need to be doing right now? 

Italy isn't going anywhere, but my children won't always beg for bedtime back tickles.  Productivity seminars happen just about every day somewhere in the world, but dinnertime kitchen dancing with my children is probably closer to its end than I know. I'm going to have years to work on a computer and get more education, but I won't always be able to play "House" with my girls.  These are the things I need to cherish now.

I still get impatient with my life.  I want to see my Vision Board come to fruition, I want to check all the tasks off my "Someday" list, and I want the not-so-fun parts of motherhood to end, but when I start getting all worked up, I think of my Space Sprockets.  I ask myself what needs to happen right now, and even though I don't have an Answer Key in front of me, I feel confident that the focused energy I'm devoting to my family right now is central to the beautiful life picture I'm going to create.

QUESTION: What, in your life, can only be done right now?

CHALLENGE: Identify 10 habits and skills that would benefit your whole family if you were to focus on them right now.  Then make those habits and skills a central part of your life.

My Future as a Professional Dancer

I know it must seem a little cryptic as I talk about what's "really" been going on around here, but I promise I'll get to it (this post is a start). To most people, it wouldn't be that big of a deal,  but for me, it's been monumental. 

Basically, I feel like I've finally learned some key components to feeling genuinely happy about life.  I didn't even cry during my most difficult days this month (my husband was deeply impressed).

I feel optimistic, excited, comfortable with my weaknesses, yet motivated to be better.  I feel a greater desire to draw close to the Lord, and I hear His voice more often.  I'm dancing around my house and singing while I work (I haven't noticed myself singing for a couple of months).  My relationships with my husband and children are stronger, and I know that even though life isn't easy, it's an incredible experience.

Below, I've included a post that will be published on DeseretNews.com next Tuesday (and The Power of Moms sometime around there, as well).  It details my future as a professional dancer (not really . . ..  You'll see).  This blog is part of my "dance," so sometimes I'll post often, and sometimes I won't, but it's fun to write, and I appreciate you being here with me.

Love,
April




Dance Through Motherhood

 

Rarely does a story stick with me for 10 years, but this one (told to me by my friend Pam) has: One day, a boy walked into a room where an older man wearing head phones was dancing like crazy.  It was almost embarrassing to watch as he waved his arms, bounced his knees, and wiggled his body with incredible enthusiasm. The boy noticed a second set of head phones in the room, and since this man was obviously enjoying himself, the boy put the head phones on his own ears and tried to replicate what the older man was doing.

He shook his arms, bounced his knees, and attempted to wiggle his body exactly like this man, but after a few minutes, the boy got tired (and a little disgusted), threw the head phones onto the ground, and stomped out the door.  What was the problem?

He hadn’t turned on the music. 

Can you relate?
I often look around and see "perfect" mothers dancing it up, but when I try to recreate their "dance," I end up frustrated and exhausted, just like the boy with the head phones. 

If you're like me, you desperately need to dance.  There's something inside you that's itching to love your work, love your life, and spend your time doing what you were meant to do. 

Does that work with motherhood?  Yes it does--and since learning to dance and teaching others to dance is one of my main purposes in life, let's begin.

Part 1: Create your dance floor.

There's a reason why your Senior Prom wasn't held in the midst of a crowded warehouse.  You've got to have space to dance.  I've spent the past three weeks creating that space in my life, and for me, it involved de-junking my house (and creating a new system to keep it de-junked), spending some serious time doing Mind Organization for Moms, and building reliable (but not unattainable) systems into my life so the everyday routines and responsibilities aren't such a drain on my dancing energy.  For more on that, you can join our Mind Organization for Moms community, and I'll tell you all about it.   

Part of this dance-floor creation also involved letting go of unrealistic expectations I'd set for myself.  Anna Quindlen, in her book Being Perfect, describes it as "carrying a backpack filled with bricks every single day" (p. 11).  Let's unite here and unanimously agree to set these bricks down.

I'm not the type of person who ever wants to settle for mediocrity, but honestly, some things aren't worth stressing over (Saren has a great article on that HERE). 

Tonight, we've invited a family to our home, and the mother is a concert violinist.  My husband arranged for her to bring her violin so she could show our children how she plays it.  He also arranged for me to play a duet with her (me on the piano), and he'd like to videotape it for our children. 

I have been a mess all morning.  I'm not a concert pianist.  I've practiced this piece more than 50 times in the past month, but I keep stumbling over the last two pages.  I've rehearsed dozens of explanations in my head that I can use when I mess up.   I've even considered purposely draining the battery on the video camera so my embarrassment can't be recorded. 

But then I realized that it doesn't matter if I don't play as well as I'd like.  I'll enjoy the experience, smile when I make a mistake (or 40), and even let my husband videotape the experience so my children can know it's okay not to be perfect. 

"The perfect mother (the toughest of all the ideals to imagine!) makes other women feel like failures simply by showing up and showing off" (Quindlen, p.35).  We can help each other so much more by showing our imperfections (and how we try to improve them), than by trying to show everyone how perfect we are.  And letting go of this desire to be perfect at everything is giving me space to dance.

Part 2: Hear the music.
Head phones aren't necessary to hear the music of motherhood, but an open heart is.  Too many voices are out there screaming that women are oppressed by motherhood or that the life of a mom is boring, mundane, and only suitable for the uneducated woman who doesn't know any better.  That's simply not true.  It's just that the women who feel that way are trying to do the "head phone dance" without hearing the rhythm and melody that compels a woman to live and mother deliberately.

Our goal at The Power of Moms is to broadcast the music.  I think of the website as a radio station, playing songs meant to strengthen the hearts and homes of women who want to have an incredible motherhood experience. 

Reading and listening to resources from The Power of Moms, inspiring blogs, websites, books, movies, and other places, helps me hear the music every day--because I need it every day.  I also connect to God each morning and ask Him to help me hear what I need to hear.

The music isn't that hard to find, but just like a radio, you've got to be tuned in to hear it.

Part 3: Develop your core.
"Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere.  A berm over-looking a pond in Vermont.  The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset.  A seat on the subway.  And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed.

"And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself.  You will look for some core to sustain you.  And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be" (Quindlen, p. 47-48).

I meet far too many women who say that the moment their last child starts first grade or leaves for college, they look around their empty house and say, "Now what?"  If our cores are not being nurtured from the start, there won't be anything left when we finally have the time to do something with it. 

I have to invest some time every day developing the person inside the mom, but that doesn't mean simply imitating what everyone else is doing because "nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great, ever came out of imitations.  What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself."  (Quindlen, p.15)

I like to write.  I like to organize.  I like to study and learn and then teach others the ideas that have inspired me.  I like the energy that comes from gathering large groups of like-minded people together.  I like to help mothers change their thinking.  I like to do things that leave others feeling surprised and delighted.  That is how I take care of my core.

Anna Quindlen suggests this: "look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: Because they are what I want, or wish for.  Because they reflect who and what I am."

Certainly, not every part of my life will be fun, but it will have purpose.  I clean bathrooms because I want a beautiful home.  I get up at 5:37 with my three-year-old because I want him to feel loved and cherished.  However, there are a thousand things I simply don't do because they don't reflect who I am.  I only post a blog when I have something specific to say--even though daily blogging is a "rule."  I don't sign my children up for lots of activities because it leaves me stressed and anxious, and I don't think that's the kind of mom they want to live with. 

When we live beautiful lives, reflective of who we are at our cores, we give the world a powerful gift.
Part 4: Dance with everything you've got.
Trying to conform to this image of what is perfect "requires a kind of lockstep.  Look at the word; imagine it in your mind's eye, the forced march of the fearful, the physical opposite of the skip and the jump.  Doesn't it sound like something to avoid at all costs?" (Quindlen, p. 35).

I've been in this lockstep for too long.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, books, programs, and breath-taking ideas inside me right now.  And as I looked closely at the cause of my recent angst, I could see that the pain of not dancing is driving me insane. 

I don't know the "right" way to blog or the "right" way to build a website that's destined to gather and strengthen deliberate mothers all over the world.  However, I know that I am much more valuable to myself, my family, and the world when I listen closely to the music and let myself dance. 

George Eliot said, "It is never too late to be what you might have been."

I'm starting again today.


QUESTION: What does it mean for you to "dance"?

CHALLENGE: Start today with Step 1 and begin creating space in your life that will enable you to live the deliberate live you've imagined.






Photo courtesy of Franciscus51 at Flickr.com  

Three Ways to Strengthen Motherhood . . . and Change the World

(This is an article I wrote for our Motherhood Matters Blog yesterday.)


I've had a few experiences over the past week that have kindled a bit of a fire under me:

First, I read this article about a mother who decided to abandon her children to pursue her own goals and help her family learn to be more "independent."

The next day, I had a long talk with a friend who has beautiful, healthy, happy children but is miserably depressed with her life.

I then read this article on CNN about a mom who, along with her boyfriend, beat her 3-year-old for wetting his pants, and then sat watching a movie and eating pizza while he was dying.

Finally, I had a conversation with a fabulous friend in her early 30s who is excited to have children but is concerned that the workload/mommy lifestyle might be harder than she has anticipated — and she's absolutely right. Traveling, enjoying long conversations and spending a substantial amount of time outside don't typically mesh well with motherhood. The realities of this life are a rude awakening for most of us (but, of course, the beauty of it is often a pleasant surprise, as well).

These experiences have led me to ask the following questions:

(1) Why do so many mothers struggle with motherhood?

And, because I don't think sitting around complaining about the state of things is going to do any good,

(2) What can I do to help?

As I pulled into the elementary school parking lot this morning, I explained to my children that the whole reason I work on The Power of Moms is because motherhood IS really hard, but it can be beautiful if you learn how to create a family that "works." My goal is to help moms get the support they need, which strengthens mothers, and thereby changes our societies.

I know I can't single-handedly "save the world," but I thought I could take a few minutes today to share three ideas to strengthen motherhood:

(1) Mothers have to take care of themselves. A few years ago, I wrote an essay called "Mommy is a Person," which emphasizes that mothers need (and deserve) the basics: sleep, exercise, time alone, time to develop talents, etc., but there's a much deeper level of care that I didn't even touch. 

If a mother has drug or alcohol addictions, mental or physical health issues, eating disorders, extreme financial stress, or other challenges I can't even begin to list, fixing those problems needs to be a high priority. Those problems don't just go away while we're watching "Dancing With the Stars," and there are many, many organizations out there with resources to help.

We need to face these kinds of issues head on and take care of them. Of course, some mothers are going to feel discouraged and depressed if their house is a wreck, their children are bouncing off the walls until midnight, they never get any time to develop their talents or socialize with their friends, and they're jumping from one catastrophe to the next — without a clear plan for the day. No one expects that kind of life to be enjoyable, but no one is forcing mothers to live that kind of life.


(2) We need to realize (and teach the next generation) that children are not pets. If I buy a dog, and "it just doesn't work out for me," then it's very easy to put that dog up for adoption or sell it on Craigslist. Once I have a child, I am a parent. Without trying to be funny, I'd like to point out that there isn't a "children" category on Craigslist. 

This is a serious responsibility, and I don't know if our society just hasn't done a good enough job teaching this, but for some reason, there's this idea out there that parenthood is an opt-in, opt-out kind of thing, like adding caller ID to your home phone service. 

Children are precious gifts that we have the opportunity to love and raise. We need to have our eyes wide open before we take on this responsibility. I'm extremely careful to explain to my children both sides of parenting. I let them know that they are my greatest source of happiness, and I love to be with them, but I also let them know that I get tired, and sometimes I want to take a break, and sometimes I need them to help me so I don't go insane. 

Mothers, and others in society, need to be VERY clear about what it takes to raise a family. Otherwise, if a mother thinks her life is going to be one Pottery Barn catalog after another, she's going to be running for the hills by day three.

(3) Problems can be solved within the family. Saren recently wrote an excellent post about this exact issue. We don't need to leave our responsibilities to "find ourselves." We just need to be smarter about how we structure our family life. 

I know that not everyone has a healthy marriage, enough funds to pay the bills, or support from friends and relatives. But I DO know that mothers have the power to create the kinds of homes they need and want; it's not easy, but it's possible. I've seen it happen in the homes of women whose lives have been harder than I imagined possible, and if they can do it, we can do it.

That's the whole point of what we're doing at The Power of Moms: Retreats, Learning Circles, The Bloom Game, Mind Organization for Moms, daily articles, podcasts and everything else we're in the process of creating. There are tons of smart women out there who can teach us how to love this challenging, demanding, sometimes-chaotic life, and I want to enhance my mothering experience by learning from as many of these ladies as possible.

The bottom line is that families are the basic unit of society. Strong families, strong nations. I know that being a mother is an extremely difficult job. I know how it feels to be stressed, exhausted, discouraged, depressed and inadequate. But I also know that if mothers (and fathers) will band together, pledge never to give up, and do whatever we can to strengthen and support each other, our nation, and all the nations of the world, have a very bright future. 

QUESTION: What other ideas do you have for strengthening motherhood?

CHALLENGE: If you're currently struggling with some aspect of raising a family, identify one way you can get the support you need — and then do it.