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Monday, December 5, 2016

comfort and courage

 You know those people you see traveling around the world, speaking maybe or writing or traveling for fun and they are with their amazing children doing amazingly wonderful things and they look to be amazingly wonderful people.

 I feel like I am trying to impersonate those people.

Like I'm a total fake. Look at me. This is the face of an overwhelmed mama. An overwhelmed mama who is a total fraud.  A frantic fraud.  I am not amazingly wonderful.  My children are not perfect.  I like to eat chocolate and drink wine.  I like to stay up to procrastinate watching sappy shows. Part of me feels like I should be reading the New York Times cover to cover every day. Reading spiritual books to become better. I should be doing something edifying. Filling my soul. I should be reading inspirational stories to my children. Or, something I don't know. Something more.

I don't have everything together! I can't even get my butt off this couch. I need to pack up. I need to raise money.  I need to clean. Holy crap do I need to clean.  I need to write. I have so many emails I need to answer.

 But this is what I am doing. Sitting on the couch. In fact I am laying on the couch. A sweaty hot mess. I went outside I repotted my lemon trees which for some reason are infested with fire ants. I loaded the dishwasher. That was about it. That is all I can handle today. So now I'm laying on the couch. A hot sweaty mess.


 I saw one of those inspirational memes the other day. And it was something like this.

 We can choose comfort. Or we can choose courage.

 I feel like this is where my heart is struggling right now. I want so badly to have a little house a little farm to call my own. I want my own dishes, my own artwork. I want my stuff.

 I want to sit and write and paint and homeschool my children. I want to stay very close to home.

 My heart wants comfort.

 But my heart also knows that this is the year of courage.  Don't get me wrong. Some of the most courageous people I know are stay at home moms. You don't have to be a crazy adventurer to be courageous.

 Courage is taking the next step however. Courage is momentum. Whatever that looks like. Courage is being able to look around at your life and say this isn't all I am here for.

 But I am realizing that even in the courage we cannot be perfect. And part of me so wants to be perfect. I want to pack up my children, have color coordinating luggage, have a Kindle for each perfectly behaved child. Be perfectly at ease in my mind knowing that this is the right thing for us to do right now. That we can spend a month in Greece, learn about the local culture. That it will be excellent. That I will kick ass at this adventuring mama lifestyle.

 And all that might happen. But I am also super duper freaked out.  My anxiety is skyrocketing. I am snappish with the kids. I don't want to do dishes. I don't want to do laundry. I want to lay on the couch and eat chocolate and watch Netflix. My comfort side is rebelling against my courageous side.

 Which is so life right?

Motherhood is courageous. Saying yes to love is courageous. Saying no to the wrong relationship is courageous. But sometimes stepping out of ourselves, stepping on that ledge into the next transition is so freaking scary. Maybe, though, following that resistance  says something. Maybe it's key. Maybe following the resistance is what we need to do. Because that is where life becomes more beautiful.   In those moments of I can't I can't I can't.  We can see and find our own strength and say I can I can I can.

Instead we are letting in the yes. We are letting in the light. Letting in love. Letting in light. Letting in a stronger faith. Saying yes can carry us to greater and bigger and more amazing things.

So mamas. Where is your point of resistance? Forgiving someone in your life? Forgiving yourself? Saying yes to love? Saying yes to adoption? Saying yes to schooling for yourself? Saying yes to a new scary exhilarating career? What is it?

Find your fear, your point of resistance. Chase it down relentlessly, then look it in the eye. And say yes.

I'm going to do it too. Take my kids and dada to Greece. Lead a team of teens. Then come back. Teach. Buy a farm. Write.

And eat lots of chocolate and freak out more than once and cry and wail and procrastinate via Netflix. But I am going to keep leaning in to my point of resistance.

Courage mamas! The best is yet to come!




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