empowerment

One of my aims in life is to empower others, to give encouragement so they remember to believe in themselves so they have the space to figure out how to do whatever it is they'd like to do. The thing about empowerment is that it's not me, it's them. When someone thinks it's me that fixed it, then I've not done any empowering. I can be part of the solution, but I am never the solution. When people say "I couldn't have done it without you," I feel like again I didn't quite get it right, tho I get that they are appreciating my help through the medium of words, which can never really express all we'd like to!! So I can give someone a hand - be a sounding board, help point out the loveliness and capability in themselves as I see it when perhaps they're a bit fogged to it.

I'd been feeling like I'd failed this week but was very happy to realise that actually the world and its turning isn't actually all down to me and people can and do sort themselves even when I think I've not quite got things right with my aims in life to love and empower. that's a relief! The people that have empowered me this week have been the ones who have noticed my panic and stayed hopeful, reminding me that everything always works out (even if not as expected).

Shortly the most important people in my life are returning. Following on from yesterday's blog, these are the only two who came into the world needing me totally. Part of my job as parent is to empower them to not need me at all. When they're here they wind me and each other up enormously and I wonder how we can live together, it often feels very stressful. When they're away I miss them massively, and experience a different kind of stress, I guess we might call that separation anxiety. How rubbish then that I'm in an eternal state of stress, when I somehow thought life and love was supposed to involve joy. I know I will need to spend a considerable amount of the rest of this weekend nagging them to do homework and eat vegetables. Sometimes I feel I spend too much time being sensible and thinking instead of just turning the music up loud and dancing. So this week, instead of worrying about my place in mucking up the universe, I shall try and look for as much joy as I possibly can, in the love of my friends, in the tapping of my feet and that doubt-free lily in the field :)

... I've had a productive morning of work and volunteering and have purchased as much as I could carry of the foods and drinks that my kids enjoy. Now I'm getting impatient and if they don't arrive soon I might even have to clean the kitchen sink that i keep putting off ...