Tag: belonging

Best Mother’s Day Gift

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“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” – Brené Brown

As I type this, I can hear my kids 10 feet away slurping their hot chocolate. It’s the end of a busy weekend. We had our family over for Mother’s Day and now are winding down.

I’m trying to put my finger on the feeling. Over the course of the weekend, in addition to hosting a family party, my kids and I played a lot of baseball, done chores, cooked meals, watched movies and worked on a project outside to transform an area of our back yard. That last activity involved a lot of manual labor as we dug out a flat space and installed pavers to turn what used to be the base of the kids’ playhouse into a cozy place to sit in the garden.

In the last 48 hours, we’ve hurt our knuckles on the rough paving stones, cried some, especially when we lost our baseballs, and laughed a lot more than we cried. Along the way to finishing our project, we also bought this silly ball pitching machine that sends small 1.6 inch diameter foam balls zinging across the yard at 30 miles per hour. My body aches from moving heavy stones and gravel and chasing small yellow balls.

But my heart is so full. It’s the camaraderie with our extended family. Also this feeling that I’m right where I should be. I love my children whole-heartedly…and I like them too.

When I chose to start a family as a single parent ten years ago I had very little idea of how much work would be involved. I was listening to a God whisper about what came next for my life.

The Mother’s Day feeling I’m having right now? That I belong in this life. I suspect that might be one of the best gifts ever.

(featured photo is mine of our work in progress garden seating area)

You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon

I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast focused on the wisdom and research about how to share anything – to the appropriate audience, with the right permissions, at the most opportune time.

I also co-host the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, an author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson.

My other projects include work as a CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer), speaking about collaboration and AI through the Chicago Writer’s Association, and my book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

But I Love Them Wholeheartedly

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“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Kids! They bicker with each other
and leave their shoes around.
Tears flow too easily
usually because they’re low on fuel.

It takes so much work
To make a family work
Keeping their hearts and minds engaged
And bodies well.

But I love them wholeheartedly
And not just when they are sleeping
Curled up with an arm akimbo
And sideways on the bed.

Because there’s a fierceness
Of love and loyalty
When we know we belong together
And commit to making repair

The laughter and dance parties
Curiosity and attentiveness
Is so damn inspiring
That one cannot help but grow

I’m so profoundly proud
Of the effort my kids put in to every day
Really of all of us
Forging a path through all the busy-ness
To the heart of the way

Family has a myriad of definitions
Depending on our point of view
But I’ll keep mine – work and everything
Because there is so much love to do!

Healing the Divide

Posted in meditation, ParenthoodTagged , , , , , , ,

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

There’s a divide that runs right down the middle of my family of origin – I call it tree people and forest people as inspired by the phrase “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” The tree people are so good at details that they are the ones you want to invite if you need help painting a room or weeding a patch of garden. The forest people are generally better at navigating the ups and downs of life and are the ones you want to invite when you need advice or help troubleshooting a systemic problem. Even with different perspectives, we managed okay until a tree person sued a forest person. Now it’s hard to see that we all stem from the same ground.

So I’ve thought a lot about the root cause (pun intended) about the pain in my family. And when I read the following passage about belonging in Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, it resonated as the real reason that my family is divided.  

“Even in the context of suffering – poverty, violence, human rights violations – not belong in our families is still one of the most dangerous hurts. That’s because it has the power to break our heart, our spirit, and our sense of self-worth. It broke all three for me. And when those things break, there are only three outcomes, something I’ve borne witness to in my life and in my work:

1. You live in constant pain and seek relief by numbing it and/or inflicting it on others;

2. You deny your pain, and your denial ensures that you pass it on to those around you and down to your children; or

3. You find the courage to own the pain and develop a level of empathy and compassion for yourself and others that allows you to spot hurt in the world in a unique way.

Brene Brown

My dad was a Presbyterian pastor and so the church defined our lives growing up. Amidst all the wonderful things that came with the church community – friendship, values, service and faith, came an unfortunate side effect of an expectation of conformity to an image of a good Christian kid. As the youngest kid, I think the inferred expectation of having to be a living example was much lower or it just didn’t phase me but I imagine that it was harder for my siblings. As such the feeling of not belonging because they didn’t fit the precise mold began early.

I think about this a lot with my kids. As a side effect of being at home together in this year of pandemic, although sometimes feeling cramped, we have enjoyed the luxury of more time building the base of belonging. Now with schools opening up and more activities available, I am both relieved to see my kids start to branch out and concerned with keeping that feeling of deep connection going. I saw some great advice posted by Tina Payne Bryson, co-author of The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity and Resilience in Your Child: “If you are a parent of a baby or toddler, then I have two big tips for you: 1) Delight in your child. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but find time every day to truly delight in them. 2) Take care of yourself. You matter, too.” It’s great advice because when I delight in my kids, I’m present and celebrating who they are and it not only works for my toddler by also my 5-year-old.

I don’t yet know whether my kids are forest people or tree people. Seeing my family’s experience has taught me that I’m willing to work hard to ensure that my kids know that whichever they are, that we inhabit the same ground, stem from the same Earth and are fed from the same soil. We might not see things from the same perspective but I’m betting that if we know we belong together, we will be willing to share our experience, our lives and our delight. Here’s my hope – if I start with my kids then the goodness of healing will ripple out maybe to my family of origin and then beyond.

Vulnerability and Courage

Posted in awakeandinspiredTagged , , , ,

“I believe that you have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage.” – Brene Brown

My friend sent me an email the other day that made me feel like the wind was knocked out of me. It said in essence that she was hosting Thanksgiving at her house but we weren’t invited. There are so many ways to explain this away – she didn’t mean it to be hurtful, the pandemic has made gatherings risky so to protect our older generation this is wise and so on. But the fact of middle age is that we very rarely wound each other. Our lives and patterns of communication have solidified so that no one needs to either extend themselves very far nor risk being hurt. It was such a surprise for me to feel so pierced that it threw me and my productivity off kilter for the rest of the afternoon.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts about vulnerability. it started with University of Houston research professor Brene Brown but now I’m finding that thread in so much of what I’m reading and listening to. That vulnerability means that we are daring to live out in the open, to try things and to fail, that if marks whether we are doing something meaningful. And by meaningful, I mean meaningful as in measured by personal growth.

So I’ve been consuming all this content about vulnerability, I know it’s one of my weaknesses and then my friend sends that email that hurts me. My first reaction was to hide, to pull back into my shell and just nurse the wound. I’m a pretty affable person and I can shake things off as unintended. But one of the reasons the email wounded me is that it feels like my friend often makes unilateral decisions without consulting me. And the second reason is because I secretly fear that I value her friendship more than she values mine. And the third is because I’ve never told her the previous two reasons.

Instead of hiding, I waited a few hours and sent an email back saying that I was wounded. I’ll be honest here – it felt yucky. Her response was lovely and though we probably won’t still get our families together for Thanksgiving as we have for every year for the past ten, it won’t stick like a turkey bone caught in my throat blocking my ability to breathe or be grateful. I continue to feel a little tender but within that tenderness is a kernel of additional belonging that I didn’t have before. I can speak my truth and still be accepted. My right to be here isn’t conditional on me behaving affably. I feel a little more wise about how to coach my kids about friendship. I crossed that chasm between learning about something and doing something and it makes me feel brave!