Big experiences the past few weeks!

Just taking a bit to include you, Friend, in my thoughts about the past few weeks. First, at the last minute, a conference keynote opportunity opened up, so I volunteered to take it. "Jump right in," my inner voice said, not really considering that I had exactly one day to prepare a whole new talk for Family Life Coaching Association. BUT, jump right in I did, and I was so glad to have done it! Was it picture perfect? Oh, maybe not, but you know ... I did my best and got good feedback. There's a message in this for life and for parenting. Is it always going to be perfect? Maybe not, but if you're doing your best, that's all one can ask. And in accepting yourself when it's not as perfect as you might have wanted, you've not only gained a powerful letting go of that non-existent concept of "perfection," you've also opened a window on demonstrating self-acceptance in "perfection's" absence to your child. You've shown courage to be less than ideal, and to go ahead and try anyway. You've stopped letting "perfection" get in the way of moving forward. What a powerful message to the one who depends on you for life lessons!

The next experience was an opportunity I would never have imagined possible. Over a year ago, I interviewed a fabulous woman for a job at my previous employment. She didn't join us, but she remembered our conversation and found me on LinkedIn to make a request. She wondered if I'd present my parenting-children-through-trauma theories to the Ukraine Psychological Association. Blown away by this thought, I again decided to jump right in, knowing almost nothing about what perspectives/methods/theories Ukrainian psychologists employed in their work. I prepped the 90-minute presentation the best I could, and was eternally grateful when the organizer sent me questions from the participants' registration forms. This enabled me to edit what I'd created to answer specific concerns from the group of about 35 psychologists. To say it was a profound experience would be a great understatement.

I shared my ideas about how children's and adults' bodies process trauma and how to support them through their experience of relentless wartime fear. The amazing technology factor was that Zoom has an app that translated my words to Ukrainian as I spoke!!!! The amazing human factor was that, despite the psychologists' equal personal and family threat of war, they were entirely focused on supporting others. "Blown away" falls very short in describing my response to their dedication, thoughtful questions, and the appreciation they expressed for our time together.

Frankly, I sobbed for several minutes when we ended our session, struggling to process what I'd just had the incredible privilege of witnessing in these professionals.

The third thing was that a dad I'd coached at the very beginning of this chapter of my life also found me on LinkedIn - how did he even remember my name after 20+ years? He'd written a children's book about his son, and asked for my feedback on it and then asked me to write a blurb for the back of the book. The book, Willie Takes the Trail is just a masterpiece, recounting his son's love for nature and science as a very young child, and their uplifting shared experience in exploring the trail between home and school in all different seasons. As soon as it's published, I will send you the link, so you can be witness to the author's fabulous parenting and share it with an active, curious child in your life.

Here's a photo that I imagine might have been on Willie's trail. If it's at the top of this blog post, that was my system doing it. :-)

So that's been my past few weeks! Thank you for reading, and if you have ideas you'd like to share, or coaching/speaking requests, feel free! tina@howdoiparentthischild.com