Sparkly thoughts and moods

When someone said she should make her house seem more sparkly, I wrote:

Not seem. No pretending.

Not your house. Your thoughts, your interactions, your moods, your responses. Sparkling, like sparkling from one thought to another, connecting a picture with a song with a joke with a movie with a dog.

Sparkly ideas
photo by Colleen Prieto
__

A big, easy difference

"If I can bring someone a snack before they come tell me they are hungry it can make a real difference in the kind of day we are all having!"

—Sylvia Woodman

Siblings: Attending to Very Young Children and Their Siblings
photo by Lydia Koltai
__

Gently, step by step

Step by step is usually more effective than trying to leap across. More tortoise, less hare.

—Debbie Regan

Gently unwind
photo by Robin Bentley

Sunrays and angles

Remember that different people see things differently, maybe because they're younger, or shorter, or more interested in the mountains than in the sunray. Maybe someone is thinking of song lyrics and will miss a joke. Being near running water can keep someone from hearing a question.

It's likely that more things are happening and being noticed than the parents saw or planned.

Do the peaceful, generous things when you can.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Lisa J Haugen
__

More than some

We can't know all of everything, but we can know more of everything.

More of everything
photo by Ester Siroky

Don't play it, be it

"If you are choosing to be a mother, move beyond playing at it, and *be* it." —Pam Laricchia

Are You Playing the Role of “Mother”? by Pam Laricchia
(see also, if you're having fun, SandraDodd.com/being)
photo by Colleen Prieto

originally Being a mother, May 15, 2013

Are you struggling to relax?

Leah Rose:

Sandra wrote: "They need to STOP battling, STOP fighting, STOP struggling"

This has been such an incredibly powerful, empowering concept for me. It's a total turn around from the way I grew up thinking, from the way we think and speak in Western culture. But I have made the greatest strides in my own deschooling by learning to notice when I feel myself "struggling," and to Stop! Then I can choose to let go, to relax about the disparity between what I want and what is. And what I have discovered is that that conscious mental shift releases the energy I need to step forward mindfully into the moment...and then that moment becomes, itself, a step towards what I want, away from what I don't want.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Lydia Koltai