The gift of kindness

Our Rare Mothers in Relationship Workshop continues to be profoundly nourishing. I hope that you can carve out some time for yourself this coming week to join us. Consider this, self-care is an act of kindness.

The truth is, there are many challenges that you face as a Rare mother and especially one contending with a pandemic. The opportunity is to lean into kindness and acceptance of what is.

As Mark Nepo says in his poem entitled Adrift, “ I am so sad and everything is beautiful.”

Acceptance

Being accepting of things as they are is an expression of kindness and in a relationship, kindness softens the hard edges and strengthens your ability to cooperate and appreciate. Kindness is a lubricant for collaboration and supports you to interrupt your impulse to criticize or judge. Simply put, it raises the vibration of your team.

How does kindness inform your relationship? How does it build your team? And what takes away from building your team? In our workshop, we talked about how kindness is a muscle you can strengthen through exercise and practice.

Intentional kindness in your relationship will build your team and one of the best ways to cultivate awareness is through meditation. Meditation pulls you out of your negative thoughts spirals and can help you be more attuned to your partner and how best to communicate with them.

Making agreements is kind 

You might make agreements about how and when you will connect.

You might also have an agreement around respecting each other’s boundaries. The truth is that when you respect someone’s boundaries, you allow them to be kind to themselves.

You can have agreements around communication. In my experience, with communication more is more. Keep your partner in the loop. This shows that you care about them and want to be connected.

And as a Rare mother, it is important for you to be kind to yourself and to remind yourself regularly that you are doing a great job even if your child is not doing well.

How are you? I’m fine.

Responding authentically rather than simply offering the perfunctory, “I’m fine“ is a form of kindness. If your partner asks you how you’re doing and you say, “I’m fine“ and they can tell that you’re not, it can feel like you’ve just put up a wall and this may be perceived as unkind.

Sometimes you just don’t know how you’re feeling in a given moment and if this is the case, you can just say, “I don’t know how I’m feeling right now and I will get back to you when I do.” Remember that everyone has different processing speeds.

Accurate Reporting

There is a practice that I like to call accurate reporting which is incredibly helpful when you’re in a relationship. When your partner asks you for something, you can let them know that you are exhausted or you haven’t eaten for hours and your bandwidth is low. Accurate reporting means that you check in with yourself and you speak to your capacity. You tell the truth about whether you’re tired, hungry, grumpy or whether you’ve been on the phone with an insurance company for the last three hours and you’re at your wit’s end. By doing this, you report accurately.

If you’re really upset about something, instead of saying, “I’m fine,'' which is a form of self-protection you might say, “I am having a reaction.“ This doesn’t mean you want to process your feelings right then and there, it means that you are naming your feelings and taking responsibility for them. You take responsibility for your own feelings rather than for anyone else’s.

Give yourself permission to have your feelings. If you do this, you will have the space for your partner to feel the way they feel. 

A good practice is to say to yourself, “My feelings make sense.” Why? Because you’re having them.

Coming up this week: Appreciation & Wonder

As a Rare mother, you experience many trials and moments of profound gratitude. When you focus on being grateful and expressing your appreciation, your relationships will thrive. Learn tools and practices to cultivate even deeper appreciation of your life and your partner.

Join us

Our next meeting is on Tuesday at 10 AM PST. We would love to have you there. Being together in this way is an opportunity for you to share your heart and have authentic connections with other Rare mothers who know what your life is like and understand you. 

Come as you are. Your presence is a contribution.

Here is the Link to the Zoom Meeting:

https://angel-aid-cares.mn.co/share/T5TFZCPYoaOkXKCs?utm_source=manu    al

I look forward to being with you soon. Have a lovely weekend.