Kindness

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou…my aunt quoted this to me recently around the very same time that my mom spoke to me about posting an article on my website that she felt offended by. Completely understandable. I didn’t talk to her about posting the article and I am not sure I have shared, in the exact words I used in the article, how I generally feel about the way I was mothered by her. Reading about it on the internet probably doesn’t feel the best and my words were not kind. Nor were they designed to be rude or disrespectful…they are an example of how I am sure that some people feel about their mothers. We put a lot of pressure on our mom’s to be everything we need, as though that is their purpose…what we don’t get that we feel we needed we blame them for not providing…until we realize how much power we have to create our own reality, until we realize that often it is us who needs to take responsibility for caring for ourselves and caring for the children inside of each of us who didn’t get everything from their mothers. This is by design. Community is of paramount importance when a child is growing into an adult. Experience of mom is not the only experience of women as role model in a child’s life. For better and worse, there are others who influence each person’s life and form the ego and personality of each person. Better and worse being terms of human perception.

Well, when I read and reread what I wrote, it feels like an authentic expression…so I am keeping it.

One of my mom’s greatest goals as a mom that continues to this day has been to engender a love of travel in me and my brother…she continues to tell us this and it runs deep through the thread of our existence together. Complete success, I am a lover of travel. I am incredibly grateful to have the mother that I have. She has shown me travel, the joys and consequences of flying by the seat of your pants—mostly joys that have led me on a path of exploring curiosities knowing that usually, it’s all going to be ok and often turn out well, traveling lots, and being able to easefully take things in stride and to remain calm and grounded while everything around is relatively chaotic.

“Your mom is so fun!” friends would say as I was growing up. Part of me resented this sort of comment as part of me was dying for a true parental figure, a greater part of me has recognized that exactly who my mother is, is what I needed to witness and to experience. The fun is important. And the truth is, I can see clearly through my own becoming, that moms are not iconic paragons of parenting. Mothers don’t have to play into a role that is not an authentic expression of themselves. Some try and some succeed at emulating ‘good mother’ but most are who they are and that is a pure gift to each child. It continues the unfoldment of who each of us is beyond our time in utero. Mother is the first guru—not through explicit teachings but through the very fact of her being.

My mother as my first guru has showed me and continues to show me her authentic expression as a woman. She has shown me the importance of seeking out high quality food and nourishment, she has shown me the importance of choosing the natural path of health and wellness, she has shown me that doing what you feel all the time can create both freedom and containment...one must be attuned to their intuition, develop a heightened sense of awareness, and be able to distinguish what comes from emotion and what comes from deep intuitive knowing.