Being a parent is not all you are. But living with pain a person tends to search for motives, reasons, inspiration … for living with that pain.
Why do you want to live? Have you thought about this question? Do you just experience, whatever you may do and have done to you or with you – without wondering? Wondering about whether there is a point, a reason, a motive that justifies it all?
I suspect anyone stumbling across this blog may well be enaged in self examination of their life. I for one do not experience the bliss of ignorance without challenge to that deepest question of all, “why am I here”?
Because I must be here for my children. Plain and simple. They need me. It isn’t merely shelter, food, and water that sustains them. My love demonstrated through actions as wide ranging as my giving a hug, to efforts to guide my children in how they choose to perceive the world, perceive their experiences, and do so in manners that are most emotionally healthy and productive.
Defining myself by my children is forgetting something incredibly important.
I am more than my children. Peering through the iron filings of chronic fatigue, around the stabbing knives of pain and dodging the violent trolls – I can see that I can make people laugh. So can you. I can create. I can give and receive goodness.
So can you. You may not feel it some, most, or any of the time. And here is where you must get deliberate.
We must practice self love. Remember that we matter and that the pain does not take away from who we are, but certainly makes it hard to remember.
We must be ACTIVE thinkers, DELIBERATE in the direction we allow our thoughts to take.
We must push against the despair, and remember we deserve to live because of ourselves, not merely for others.
Time and again I find myself weighing, am I more burdensome or worthwhile? That burdensome and worthwhile is based upon my (biased by my own emotions) viewpoint about myself. How very limited and certain to be inaccurate, for we struggle to see ourselves from any perspective other than our own.
Yet to be as mentally healthy as we can, we must practice self love. Practice means having to engage in activities purposefully that make us feel good. This could be meditating, eating a delicious meal, taking a bath. But it need be soly focused upon treating yourself with loving kindness.
When we love ourselves, we are stronger. Reality is, we can also be better parents when we don’t hing our worth merely upon our children’s reactions – but necessarily utilize our judgements and insights.
Yours in practicing what seems impossible,
Renée
This is no joke:
Parenting in Pain 