As a Parent Coach, I love sharing tools with you that help you “parent smarter”. Today, my friend and associate, Angela Woodrow explores a concept that helps many in the process of looking at a current situation with a new eyes. When you can see things differently, you can have a different outcome.
Angela shares, “Start with a picture, a vision how you would like things in your family to really be. Call it the ‘new reality’. It can be anything you desire, dream, know you need. It can be how you hope your children to be as adults, or how you hope you and your children survive these next 90 days….You get the idea. Start somewhere. Create a picture.”
“The picture shifts to a mirror we see ourselves in. If it is a picture of how we would like to be in the next 90 days, look into that mirror and see…are those smiling face authentic or are theses faces showing smiles that are strained because you are ‘forcing fun’ or tolerating something that you think should be done but is NOT what everyone wants. Granted, not every minute of a year is fun and carefree, but every minute of everyday we have a choice of how our heart feels and our mind thinks. This is the value of looking at the picture and seeing into it as a mirror. We as a culture love to click a photo ‘in an instant’. When we do this ‘clicking in an instant’ we actually lose the ability to enjoy and participate in the moment. There are studies that show how much we miss when we are too busy ‘clicking in an instant’ (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/no-pictures-please-taking-photos-may-impede-memory-of-museum-tour.html).”
“When we are using the picture as a mirror, we are able to evaluate our actions, thoughts, feeling, and reframe or sharpen the actions thoughts and beliefs in the picture so that our picture and our current reality continually strive to be connected. This is THE most important part of our process as family: to KNOW and FEEL like we BELONG. And to BELONG is not ‘just’ FITTING IN’. (a very important distinction for another conversation….). When we belong to a family we work together to continue to grow mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Reflection with the picture as a mirror becomes a valuable tool to help us shift our thoughts and hearts over to our picture becoming what we see in our lives. This is when the mirror shifts to a window. With these new and or reframed/refreshed thoughts/ habits/ beliefs we can see out into our world with new perspective, energy, and approach. We use our new /reframed way of viewing and seeing things to create a larger understanding of where we are in the world as well as where we are in our spiritual and emotional journey called life.”
“There are different seasons to everything…and as a new season approaches out our window, the picture will change. The picture is our current reality and or new vision we have for our family. The picture then becomes a mirror and after reflection and adjustment, the mirror becomes a window and the circle of life continues.”
These thoughts are reflections from various readings:
Mike and Sally Breen, Family on a Mission, 3DM Publishing, 2014
Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, Avery/ Penguin Publishing, 2012
Linda A. Henkel,Psychological Science, February 2014; vol. 25, 2: pp. 396-402., first published on December 5, 2013
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