Trust Your Heart

Sometimes I look in my children's eyes and I wonder if I am doing it right.

Am I teaching them the essential things?  Am I giving them enough attention and time?  Am I creating within them a desire to rely on and love each other, to want to be a part of each others lives?  Do they know I love them most, even when I struggle to find the energy, power, and light in myself and my own motherhood?

If you are like me, you have - at least once in your life - been on the receiving end of untimely criticism.  Perhaps you have even been on the receiving end of harsh judgments passed by other people - or even society at large - that left you wondering what you were doing, about the choices you were making, and if you were giving the best to the things that matter most.

Perhaps you have even fallen into the comparison trap at times - looking through rose-colored glasses at the "does everything perfectly" family/marriage/home/parent/child.  And in the face of that perfection, you have felt even more keenly your imperfection.  You have tried to implement all of the good advice, duplicate all of the great traditions, discipline like all of the great parents, make your children follow the perfect goal chart, stick to the perfect housekeeping plan, practice all of the perfect relationship counsels, and in the end felt completely overwhelmed by it all and even more like a failure than you ever felt before.

That is why I love this advice from Onyx Coale: "Trust your heart and what is right for YOU.  And when it all looks like a mess, and nothing makes ANY sense, keep your eye fixed on the GOAL . . . and just keep going!"

There are a lot of people who have learned great things while walking a road similar to yours. And learning those things can definitely empower and be a beautiful help in becoming better.

HOWEVER, no one - no matter how long they have lived or what experiences they have had - has walked YOUR road!  No one has ever raised YOUR children.  No one has ever been in YOUR marriage.  No one has ever organized YOUR home.  No one has ever lived in YOUR head and heart.  No one has ever had your delicate balance of challenges, strengths, weaknesses, dreams, talents, abilities, fears, struggles, experiences, failures, and successes.  Only YOUR HEART knows what is best for YOU.  Only YOUR HEART knows how to delicately maneuver - and at times even just survive - YOUR life!  And for the moments when you feel even you don't know, no one else has the stewardship or right to receive answers and find out like YOU do.

So take a minute - or a few every day - to sift through all the voices in your head, to find YOUR voice - your TRUE voice!  Determine your top goals in each aspect of your life.  Jack Canfield said, "If you could teach your children just 10 things - no more - what would they be?"  Identify what the MOST important things are in each area of your life.  And then CREATE the life of YOUR dreams, within the context of YOUR reality. 

Identifying will empower you to make it through the voices of others.  You won't rely on THEIR approval or experience with THEIR lives and goals.  Nor will you judge them for what they have done differently than you choose to.  And it won't destroy you if they don't give that approval to you for yours.  You will be able to take the BEST of what they offer and leave the rest behind because you will know WHERE you are going and WHY.  You will know WHO and WHAT are leading you, and you will get strength in knowing you are following YOUR compass and YOUR path. And that knowledge will give you confidence and empowerment to get through the hard times.

When things get hard, when it all looks like a mess and makes NO SENSE AT ALL - even to you, let alone to anyone else - go back to that list, go back to the Source, keep your eye fixed on what matters the most to you and where you are headed, and block out all the other voices until only YOURS is guiding you how to just . . . keep . . . going.

Will you make mistakes?  Definitely.  But they will be YOUR mistakes; and when you look back on your life, they will dim in the face of the JOY you feel at having realized YOUR goals.