The World in my head

Today while driving back from visiting a friend a thought came into my head randomly.  
"The hardest truths should be spoken with the greatest love." 
I don't remember if this thought was related to anything specific in my mind at that moment but the sentence stayed with me and I wanted to write it down before I forgot it. I think this little nugget is a cornerstone of the things I have been trying to sort through in my head lately; the many many thoughts and feelings and dreams and plans and needs that make up my life right now. I have been feeling anxious and quite out of balance about it all the last few months to be honest, and it has not been pleasant.

So then this sentence appears, like a little gift to me. Apropos of pretty much nothing in my beat up mini van as I drove, I found myself thinking about love and truth and how what we need in this world is more love, in order to earn the right to speak truth.

I think for me this just means that when I start to feel inadequate and sub-par and as though I could never begin to meet all the expectations placed on me or measure up to the mothering blogs and the pinterest decors and the parenting books, that is when I need to stop. Full stop. Then think carefully about who I am listening to for my messages of worth and belonging. If someone's pinterest page or shared article on facebook or blog post is making me feel like crap on toast perhaps the problem is not--in my case--so much that those people are right and I'm coming up short. Perhaps--and again I emphasize this is about me and my journey and not whether someone else is right or wrong--right now what I need to decide is whether all those well meaning parenting book authors and bloggers and facebook friends have earned the right to speak into the deepest places of my life. More often than not, the answer is no. Besides which, probably most of those people are not intending to speak to me specifically and individually anyway. I have never read any publication which starts with: "Kate, I thought of you and only you the entire time I was writing this piece. Please pay attention and adjust your heart, life and attitude accordingly."

So maybe, just maybe, I need to pay more attention to those folks who actually know me on a personal level and care about my health and well-being. People who have demonstrated over time their love for me and a commitment to my good. And then I must filter all the messages I hear each day about my life choices, my mothering and my housekeeping through a lens that first checks for whether it comes from a source of deep love and grace for me personally. If so, then I should listen well and weigh their words and decide how to apply their advice. But if not? If it's just some random parenting "expert" or magazine ad making me feel like a failure at life then it is definitely time to close my eyes and ears and go find a better use for my soul's attention. 

This may sound simple and obvious to some people, but for me it is a pretty big deal. I'll have to work hard at this practice to make it stick.