Just More Mountains
I was talking to a very wise friend recently about some projects I was trying to finish.
I said something like, “After I finish X, THEN I’ll be able to relax and focus on other things”. She looked at me and said, “it feels like you’re climbing a mountain right now, huh?”.
“Yeah”, I replied.
She said, “And you know what’s on the other side of a mountain?”
“What?” I asked.
“More Mountains”
BOOM.
She’s right, of course. I’ve read and studied and learned enough to know that the time to relax and enjoy is NOW. The “When; Then” trap is just that: a trap.
If you haven’t read as many personal growth and development books as I have, let me try to break it down for you here.
Basically, if we constantly put off happiness/satisfaction/[insert-positive-feeling-here] until tomorrow, the thing we get really good at doing is…
Postponing the feelings of happiness/satisfaction/whatever feeling you inserted up there that we say we most want to feel.
What we DON’T get good at (because we never ‘have time’ to practice them) are actually FEELING THOSE FEELINGS.
We keep ourselves in limbo waiting for things to Get Better, Be Different, Change, etc.
It’s a trap. Can you see that?
Let’s assume you can, and move on to why that’s important for parents.
Especially parents who are raising Orchid Kids.
As it applies to our parenting journeys, we sometimes use this “It’ll be better later” strategy to muscle through hard times. I’ve done it. It sort of works.
But only sort of.
Because after this difficult stage of childhood there’s another one. And another. And another. Remember, you are going to be this child's (and eventually adult’s) parent for your/their whole life.
More Mountains. Always.
Sooo, if we’re constantly practicing the “someday” thoughts, several things are going to happen.
We will never arrive at someday because it’s always “out there”
We will miss the beauty in the Now
And in so doing, we miss the opportunities for connection. We miss the chance to let our kids know that we are with them even when things are hard. We miss the Whole Point.
Gritting your teeth through your children’s life stages is one way to do it. But it’s not fun. And it doesn’t magically get better later.
One of the ways we train ourselves to get out of the “Someday” Trap in our Raising Orchid Kids classes is a strategy you can try at home right now.
At the beginning of every class, we ask everyone to tell us a Win: something that went well, no matter how big or how small. This is hard at first! In fact, this past week we started a new cohort of our Practical Strategies class and saw just how hard it was for people to come up with a win. (Hint: it gets so much easier! By the end of the class, parents are pros at coming up with a win.)
It’s normal for our brains to focus on the Bad. It’s normal for our brains to focus on all the things that could go wrong. On just how high that next mountain might be. Our primitive brains want to keep us safe from harm by anticipating adverse events. They want us to save energy for that next mountain.
Only trouble is: we have the capacity to over-strengthen that survival muscle until we are miserable all the time.
The research says that in order to strengthen the “thrive” muscle (and start to shift our brains from a more-negative outlook to a more-positive outlook), it takes 5 Positives to counteract a single Negative. Looking for Wins is one way to start seeking out the Positives.
Will you try it? What’s something that went well recently that you might have overlooked? Let me know! I’d love to hear.
xo G