Good day to you my friend, I hope this finds you well!
Would you agree, that anything that helps us become truly more loving and responsible is empowering?
One way to see empowerment, or to recognize principles that will help us retain more of our own power and agency, is to recognize those things that teach us to elevate our own feelings and behavior versus those that entice us to think in terms of fixing someone else.
Got a quick fix for the kids “bad” behavior?
Turning our focus to “fixing the kids” can remove our power, simply because first, we cannot control other people, no matter how fiercely we believe that our suffering will be relieved if only our children will act like puppets and dance to our beat! And second, by living on a steady diet of this pseudo controlling power (imitation love) that keeps us from the real answer!
A quote from Dr. Greg Baer’s book on Real Love in Parenting:
“The Lie: “I just don’t know what to do with you.”
The Truth: “It’s obvious that you don’t feel loved, or you wouldn’t act like this. But I don’t know how to love you and teach you, and then I feel stupid and helpless. So I’ll shift the blame–and hopefully the discomfort– to you.”
When our children behave in ways that frustrate us–meaning that we can’t control them–it’s tempting to blame them for how we feel. If we can reassure ourselves that something is wrong with them, we don’t have to consider the more painful prospect that we need to change. It’s a cheap way to make ourselves comfortable, but one that causes great harm to our children.” Real Love in Parenting; page 112.
The most empowering thing we can do, and need to be doing often, is telling the truth about ourselves to God and to people who can then see us as we are and love us without condition. Or in other words, friends who feel loved enough themselves to be comfortable with the truth of who we are and how we behave, on any given day.
If our focus is on gaining this kind of love, which we gather as a consequence of our own honesty, we become truly empowered.
Empowered to love and accept ourselves; empowered to love and accept and teach our children!
(The consequences of that love and teaching will change the world!)
Our job isn’t to fix our kids or anyone else.
Our job is to:
1 tell the truth,
2 find and feel unconditional love,
3 share that love with our children so that we can teach them what they need to know in order to live happy and responsible lives.
Pain and drama and confusion and exhaustion fall away when Real Love comes into the room.
God help us humbly invite Love in!
