Strong Moms

There really isn’t any way to avoid getting it wrong. There’s no magic button that makes the hard things easy, the moves look smooth every time and heaven knows that your hair won’t always look gorgeous. I don’t care if your hair is stick straight or curly as could be or the perfect beach wave that makes all your friends sigh. There will be days where you look homeless or even like a victim of something. Auto-correct tried to make “victim” into “vicar’. Maybe there are bad vicar hair days too. Don’t know. If any of you have a vicar hair day, post in the comments below 🙂

There will be lapses in judgment, there will be too tired to care and then realize you should have cared because you care now that it’s too late. There are people pleasing and people who are doing things just because they know it will make you mad. Tony Overbay on The Virtual Couch calls it something brilliant that means a normal human thing that people do because we don’t like being told what to do. Definitely listen to the guy. His podcast is extremely helpful.

The easiest and best thing to practice is saying, “I’m Sorry”

“I’m sorry that I cut you off!”

“I’m sorry that I interrupted you, ADHD is annoying for me too. Can I buy you a beverage and practice not interrupting while you talk?”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t see what you were asking me for. I missed the cue. Please let me try again.”

“I’m sorry” isn’t the way that we excuse ourselves for living and taking up space but the way that we acknowledge that we see others and that we want a “Do Over”. It doesn’t fix everything and won’t mean anything if we aren’t actively trying to fix what we broke but it acknowledges that we see.

Our kids and our spouse need to see that we are aware and that we recognize the actions that we want to change. When you see something , say something.

In the book “Never Split the Difference” Chris Voss talks about the accusation audit. Make a list of everything that the other person might be thinking of you. Every negative thing that they might potentially say and say it first. “You might be thinking that I was abrupt and ignored what you needed from me. I probably looked like a jerk just then. I would totally understand if you never want to spend any time with me again.” When the negative things get aired and the person feels understood and validated in their thoughts and feelings they can more readily let them go. They will often change from an aggressive stance to a reconciliation one just by having their thoughts spoken out loud without them having to be confrontational about it. “I’m sorry” has a magic to it and an accusation audit gives it power. You don’t have to agree with the person about the things that you say about the situation, you’re just giving validation that it would be understandable for a person to feel or think certain things. “If someone said that to me, I don’t know if I could forgive them for that.” does not mean that you are certain you couldn’t ever forgive, it recognizes that you don’t know if you could and normalizes their struggle to do so or even suggests that they might be willing to do so. Maybe.

The mistakes that I’ve made while learning have hurt others, they’ve suffered for my lack of knowledge or skill and I am indeed sorry for the things I haven’t done well. And anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly…….until you can do better. I am sorry for the mistakes I’ve made and I wouldn’t stop trying in order to avoid making them. There’s no other way to learn but to do so I will push ahead and do the best I can while I’m learning and I believe that you can too. Maybe you feel that I’m ridiculous for even thinking that I could understand everyone else or that your mistakes are too big for an “I’m sorry” and you are probably right. You might even want to close this page and find something more useful to read, I can totally understand that. Your time is valuable and I want for you what I want for myself…….To be stronger and better every day for my kids. I hope you find the things that make all the difference. I hope that you’ll find some here.