Listen here >> https://www.podbean.com/media/player/wvhdu-652010?from=yiiadmin << to this blog post.

I just got home from dropping my elementary school kids off at school.

Normally it’s an easy, “I love you! Have a good day!” waving and smiling situation. Today not so much.

My kindergartener didn’t want to go in. She cried, said her stomach hurt, said her throat hurt, said she didn’t know why she was crying … we sat out in the parking lot for 20 minutes talking. Finally someone from the school came and asked if everything was ok and I said no and they sent out the counselor to talk. She asked questions, talked to my little 5 year old, tried to shift her focus to other things and finally she was able to get my daughter to go in.

My youngest girl took the counselor’s hand and walked toward the school. As she walked away from me and the van I was sitting in, she looked so tiny to me.

I cried the whole way home. And as the tears were flowing down my face I was trying to define just exactly what I was feeling and why I was crying and there was no definition to be found.

I have 7 kids. I deal with little challenges and hiccups and things ALL. THE. TIME. I can’t quite put my finger on this moment and why it was different than the others. I only know that my heart FELT. And that her indescribable pain was also my indescribable pain and her momentary fear was momentarily my fear and I felt connected to her tiny little self in a very real way.

I am the first person to tell ANYONE that I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have all the answers. I am not the perfect mother. I am usually searching, in every situation, for “the answer” and the “what to do.”

In this moment? What WAS the best response? I don’t know. What I did was talk to her, ask her questions, listen to her, allow her to feel what she was feeling – I tried to be peace and love.

Now, many moments later as I sit here at my computer typing, wondering how she’s doing and if she’s ok, I think of what more I COULD have done. And I know there’s nothing more I could have done. I did what I could do. I responded in love and peace to a little girl and allowed her the moment she needed to FEEL whatever she was feeling. And so I don’t believe I could have done MORE. I think that was exactly what was called for in the moment.

And do you know what? I think that is ALWAYS what is called for in ANY moment.

Love and peace. It seems to be “the answer” most often if there is an actual “answer.” It allows for healing because it doesn’t require anything, it doesn’t expect anything, it doesn’t ask anything. It quietly exists and listens and accepts and upholds and lifts and eases and relieves.

There is not a burden to be met within love and peace there is only allowing what is to be and then holding space for expansion when that comes forth.

Motherhood, parenthood, human being-ness, is hard. Although as I sit and type that word something inside of me wants to use a different adjective to describe what being is … I just don’t have that adjective right now. I think we MAKE it hard and it doesn’t have to be that. Maybe the word I want to use is … mysterious? or … unknowable?

It is this ever increasing, ever changing, ever moving adventure. And you can’t grasp one WAY to be in that kind of existence because it changes and alters and shifts and moves and there is always a different view which calls for a different response. So the moment you think you have it all “figured out” life changes and the circumstances shift and then  you’re faced with a new “challenge” or adventure. A new reality.

If you believe, which I do, that we exist to EXPAND upon our being-ness, then that “pattern” makes total sense. The moment you’ve “mastered” one circumstance or learned from the circumstance what you can learn, you’re given a new one to grow you. And rightly so, right? How could you grow and expand your understanding if you didn’t have NEW things to learn from?

So, understanding this, I can take the new “challenges” that present themselves into my experience, and I can see them for what they are – opportunities to grow. And then I can look for the lessons, and look for the moments where I am able to shift out of a “lesser” way of thinking into a more “expanded” way of being.

This is the circle of life. It is an “eternal round.” It is “eternal progression.” It is “infinite expansion.” There are many ways to describe this, many symbols which can be imprinted upon this principle, and no matter HOW you describe it or even if you don’t … the truth remains: there are ALWAYS new experiences placed in our view and we can learn from them or not, but they’re going to come either way.

Right now I see this new “development” with my daughter as an opportunity to not only help her learn coping mechanisms and ways to deal with things that appear hard, but to help ME learn to take the new experiences that come and learn from them. Use them to propel me FORWARD into expanded awareness of the world around me and my place within it.

I can do this. I can grow from what experiences I go through. I CHOOSE to use them to help me focus on what is important and to be able to see BEYOND the circumstances in any moment of any day, into the love and peace that exists as an ever present choice.

I PREFER love and peace over ALL else and so I choose to insert that into every experience that comes to me. And sometimes it takes a little longer to “learn” how to do that, but the more I focus on the peace, the more experiences I’m given to help me practice that choice of choosing to look and see and act within the “vibration” of energy (the peace!) I prefer.

Today was an opportunity. And the tears were there to remind that I’m human and life is about feeling and BEING human. There is unity and harmony in owning that. I am HERE to experience human being-ness.

I’m grateful I have another opportunity around every corner to do just that.

honorthismoment – #100somethings – day 77 of 100