Opportunity

My job isn’t to demand of my child to behave differently so that I can feel good or so that my personal space is more pleasing to me.  My job is to allow her to be and feel as she does and to pay attention to how I feel and to pay attention to how her behavior is just reflecting how I already feel.  If I’m being activated by something, it’s my job to do something about it, and not hers.  It’s not her job to modify her behavior to please me; it’s my job to modify how I feel.  If I ask her, or demand of her to be different than she is, I’m teaching her conditional love.  I’m training her away from her own guidance which never disapproves of who she’s being in any moment.  I don’t know about you, but the message I got when I was growing up from most of the bigger people around me was that I needed to modify my behavior to please them so that they could go about their day being happy.  My feelings were irrelevant mostly, and if they didn’t fall into the category that was deemed acceptable, well, tough nouggies.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s pretty much how we’re socialized, but it is based on a false premise that it’s up to someone other than yourself to do or be something other than they’re being so that you can feel differently.  You get all the credit for that, not someone else.  So, as I interact with Franki, I’m very aware of when I show disapproval of something she’s said or done and I’m very aware of the response she has to that.  It’s like a foreign language to her…I can see this inner conflict because she knows that in that moment, her own Source is not disapproving of her, but I am, and this creates conflict for her.   There are going to be times when I don’t agree with, or don’t like what she’s saying or doing, but that doesn’t mean that I need to impose my rules upon her just because I’m bigger than she is.  These moments provide me great opportunity to love her unconditionally no matter who she’s being in the moment, and to love myself unconditionally no matter who I am being in the moment; not to put conditions on myself to be the “perfect” mother either.  It gives me great opportunity to respond as Source does, and when I don’t, it’s ok too.  There are going to be times when I’m tired, there are going to be times when I just don’t feel like enjoying her current display of emotion or behavior, and it’s all alright; and, there are going to be times when I can respond unconditionally and love her just as she is, in the moment, and when I do that, I can tell the difference.  I can tell the difference between feeling conditional love and unconditional love where I am just allowing her to be wherever she is.…….It’s the kind of love you feel from your dog.   No judgment, no demands to be any different, no freaking out over what you’re doing or how you’re behaving or how you’re feeling.  Just letting you be, and loving you anyway.  That’s why you love your dog so much.  …he can’t speak it, but you can feel it, and you can tell the difference between that kind of unconditional love and the love that says you need to be different in some way so that someone else can love you.  Every day, I’m presented with opportunities to offer this type of environment, this type of unconditional love, and without the opportunities, I wouldn’t know the difference between one and the other.  So, I’m happy for the opportunities that create the perfect scenario for me to continually reach for more allowing and more unconditional love; not just toward Franki, but toward myself and anyone I interact with.