Your presence is helping to regulate your children’s emotions.

And ladies, let us remember that our prisons and correctional facilities and detention centers are full of unregulated emotions and addictions born at least in part by broken connections! C’mon! Let’s wake up the world! Healthy, functioning families, mothers and fathers, matter to society at large in a mon-u-mental way!

Do you get it? Are you understanding more fully as time goes by, the impact of your presence? It. Is. BIG.

But society isn’t supporting you in doing what you need to do to be present! Help! Our culture is sick and is in need of healing! And I say that you are a large part of what will heal us, individually and collectively.

All we each need is to be loved and valued and heard right?  Well, that requires deliberate presence.

Being present means you have to be inhabiting your body, not running from your problems. If that stings, there’s work to do. And you can do it.

It means, for us women, employing our feminine, nurturing gifts. Not sure what those are? Think it through and begin to develop them more fully in your relationships.

Presence also means shielding ourselves from distractions. Holy Moses, how many distractions can be thrown at a person? They never stop, do they?

This all makes for a tall order doesn’t it? Well, we move fastest and furthest with baby steps.

One place to start is cultivating a kind, warm and soothing, nurturing voice in your own head. That’s a great first step needed in order to be there.

Can you let go of the pushing, moving, get-it-done energy long enough to have your spiritual and emotional cup filled for the day? {And, by the way, whose job is it to fill that personal cup? It is yours. If you are waiting for someone else to do it, it’ll be an awfully long wait!}

No matter what time of day it is, you can close your eyes, drop your shoulders, take a deep breath, start thinking or saying your kind, supportive declarations and stay on track or just come back to yourself again. {If you haven’t written declarations yet, get some crafted today!}

Here are a few things to consider in practicing your best being there skills:

1 Think I’m drawing them to me vs. I have to chase them down! {What does it take to make you approachable and family attractive? A soft voice? A smiling face? Your undivided attention? Consider all the ways you can raise your attractiveness and do it!}
2 Remember that tired and ornery energy is virtually the same as “go away, I’m upset with you!” {Uggh, I have learned this the hard way.}
3 Practicing self-care means being the mother to yourself first- and mother’s often say, “You need to go to bed on time, and I mean it!”
4 What you put in your mouth changes you chemically so give your endocrine system a fighting chance by giving it what it really needs, fresh food and don’t forget, water!
5 How you feel about yourself is the energy you are giving to your family. What do you want them to feel? Confident and kind? Then how can you feel more confident and secure? Do you need a sounding board, someone to talk to? Or greater skills and knowledge about some facet of your responsibilities? Or, do you simply need a shower and fresh clothes and a little make-up and you’re ready to go?

Baby step by baby step, you are changing the world in beautiful ways. And you are the world to some very important people!

Thank you for doing what it takes to be there.

Love always,

Jacque

P.S. I firmly believe that as we do the work in us that is required for us to be present, we become better at being there for those for whom we are responsible. And in that process, as we we ultimately turn our best, nourished selves outward in giving, we will be nourished and healed ourselves.

Seems to me that’s the way God does math. Yes, we do the work, with His help and the divine motive of blessing someone else, {lest how would we ever have the grit to face our fears and frailties without love motivating each step?} and immediately, we are blessed beyond measure with the joy of being fully connected to Him, and to each other.

P.P.S. There is time. It is never too late to progress.