Wordless Wednesday: Our Backyard at Dusk

Friends of the Crew: Rebecca H.

Please help us in welcoming, Rebecca H., a fellow mommy blogger, as she writes about an aha moment she learned while parenting her toddler.

Friends of the Crew Series: Linda S.

Please help me welcome Linda S., as she talks about her experiences with parenting and faith:

Thoughts for the Parenting Soul #1: Ego Need Not Apply

Last week, I read about the real meaning of ego. It’s not just a simple ‘oh, they think so highly of themselves. They sure have a healthy ego’ kind of thing. Sure, part of ego is the superior feeling people sometimes get when looking at others. But it’s also the inferior feelings we feel about ourselves. Eckhart Tolle (who may just be a genius where deep thoughts are concerned) states, “Ego is any image you have of yourself that gives you a sense of identity–and that identity derives from the things you tell yourself and the things other people have been saying about you that you’ve decided to accept as truth” (source: www.oprah.com). That means good and bad. For example, I am convinced that every woman out there who has been a mom longer than I have probably thinks that since I’m sort of new to this game, I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s an identity I’ve given myself because (hopefully) people don’t really think that. But that mindset makes me nervous when I’m around other mothers because my subconscious is convinced they are just waiting for me to screw up. Or maybe someone reading this blog doesn’t agree with the way we raise Zoey. Say that person sent me an e-mail that they don’t think I was right on certain points. My ego would say that because this person thinks we’re wrong, then we MUST be wrong. But in reality, does having a differing viewpoint make Greg and I bad parents? No, we might just be parenting differently from that person.

See what I’m saying? Ego goes so much further than saying, “Oh, I’m prettier than her; I’m smarter than her.” It also encompasses, “I bet they think I’m bad at this” and “they say I’m wrong, so I must be wrong.”

Soul Searching

This post started out with a totally different name and a totally different topic. It was SUPPOSED to be about how when I was rushing around the other day before work, Greg innocently suggested I find just ten more minutes every morning to get everything done so that I don’t have to be in such a frenzy. His suggestion made me feel surly and if I wasn’t such a lady, I might have just given him the finger. But THAT was what this post was supposed to be about–how our schedule always seems so hectic and an extra ten minutes is a ridiculously far-out concept that just isn’t based in our reality at this time.

But then I visited Oprah’s website this morning and just for kicks started looking around. I found two things of interest: a bunch of stuff on pretty much asking yourself inner questions to engage and grow your soul and a link to a site called, soulpancake.com (GREAT journaling questions can be found here). So, here’s the thing: I really was just playing around online, but I ended up reading some stuff that actually made sense to me and when I was thinking about all of it on the way to work, I realized that I actually felt a bit less burdened with stress at that particular moment.

Dear Lord, I’m drinking the Oprah Kool-Aid.