While I can get as excited as anyone about all the wild, wonderful possibilities that exist within the expanse of a New Year, I also don’t want to jump right into the positive goals/resolutions thing that seems to be everywhere right now. Oh, I’ll be jumping on that bandwagon soon, but right now, I really need to be brutally honest with myself about what I WON’T be doing. What I’ve learned about myself is that I need to get really clear when I first figure out what isn’t working for me and layin’ it out there. THEN I am ready to “go there” about what I DO want. So here goes:
- I won’t be dieting. Let me be clear that I want to lose weight and feel healthy and energetic. BUT…I won’t be doing anything that focuses on calorie restriction or making certain foods “bad” (this is hard for me because I have strong feelings about organic, vegan foods). I’ve been down that road, and found it to be a dead-end that has no new scenery (and it doesn’t take me anywhere no matter how many times I’ve been down it–and I HAVE been down it). So what will I do instead? Not entirely sure. But I do know that it will have something to do with intuitive eating and moving my body more.
- I won’t be clamoring to “get organized” in ways that my born-organized friends do. I can learn from them and incorporate pieces of what they do. But seriously. I’ve got to start honoring my (piling) style. No, I don’t want to keep the piles. But the reason I pile is that I’m visual. So I want to honor that. My born organized friends can file things away and then find them. Me, not so much. So while I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing to get organized, I DO know I won’t be doing what I think I “should” be doing. Make sense? Organized, for me, may look different than what I or others think it “should” look like. This is actually true for me about parenting, and, well, life in general. No more imitating and praying for the same results as someone else. I don’t want to divulge how many organizing books I have on my shelves!
- I won’t be perfecting my “persona” at the expense of being authentic. Building an online business, it’s too easy for me to hide behind my brand “The Guilt Free Mom” and speak only from the expert, professional standpoint. In the past, the tone of my newsletters and e-mails has been rather impersonal and distanced. I still believe in being relevant to my readers and clients–I just want to do so with more transparency and intimacy. In short, I want to connect, but in a more intimate way.
- I won’t be giving up coffee. I love the stuff. My two cups of day may go down to one, but that’s it. One of the nutritional gurus I adore, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, makes a compelling case for not needing stimulants to start the day, or get through it. I so agree with him on that point (and everything else he espouses). But here’s the deal. I already have a love/hate affair with sugar and with eating while stressed. I’m willing to address those issues, but for the time being, the coffee stays. For now.
- I won’t be aspiring to be the perfect mom. One of my strengths and downfalls is that I am an idealist. This is great when it comes to coaching moms and helping them see the best in themselves. However, it’s not so great when it comes to idealizing what I should be doing as a mother (there’s that “should” word again). Yeah, I know the merits of chore charts (I should–I’ve started and stopped several of them), of organic, whole food for my children (no Cheez-Its for dinner?!), of limiting juice drinks (empty calories), of setting them up for a healthy adulthood and setting me up for a guilt-free old age. But even though I’ve tended to get excited by the idea of being this intentional, near- perfect mom (I can so see her in my head!), I also get 1) overwhelmed and 2) stuck in guilt and perfectionism. So this year, I won’t even aspire towards being The Perfect Mom. In her place will be….me. Of course, I won’t let the kids eat nothing but junk food and do whatever they want–but I’m not going to start the year beating myself up about an ideal that I’ll never reach.
So there they are. My declarations of “I won’ts.” The coach in me is clamoring to ask myself, “Okay, now we know what you don’t want. So, what do you want?” But for now, I’m going to let myself bask in the clarity of what I don’t want and what I won’t do.
Because it feels like self-acceptance.
And that’s a good place to start for 2010, or anytime.
I’ve been interested in talking about those “pink elephants in the living room” (you know, the stuff that people don’t want to talk about but you KNOW is there) since I was a kid. It’s no surprise then that one of my favorite childhood stories was The Emperor’s New Clothes. It thrilled me when, in that story, one brave little child had the audacity to shout out, “The Emperor is naked!” And the truth is, children are truth-tellers from birth, until it is socialized out of them. When I taught school, I remember first graders looking at me lovingly and proclaiming, “Mrs. B., your hair looks greasy today. Did you wake up late? I love you!” No malice meant. The child was just saying what was real for her in that moment.
All moms are liars. Okay, maybe not all. But most are. Especially the ones who talk smack about other mothers. You know the ones who sneer, “Did you SEE her child freaking out in the park? Hellllooo! Has she ever heard of “discipline? What she needs to do is get control!” That kind of judgment usually means two things. First, it means that this mom is probably afraid of her child doing exactly the same thing. Second, it means that she probably judges herself as harshly as she does other mothers. So maybe this mother didn’t outright lie and say, “I never have those problems.” But in a way she implied it. And whomever she was with at the time also heard the unsaid-but- implicit message that being real about motherhood wouldn’t be easy around THIS mom.