Are you a Boomers II or beginning of Generation X?

Are you having questions as you are raising your kids or stepping into the empty nest stage?

The New Space of Tournaments

I’m a mom of two scholar athletes, so in order to help other moms and parents, I wrote Parenting Scholar Athletes. Because I never experienced playing my sport at such a competitive level, taking my daughters to their sporting tournaments was a new space for me.

Being around many different parenting ways was an eye-opening experience for me. There were kind parents who were like me and there to support whatever our daughters wanted to do with their sport. But then there were parents who were trying to advance their kids in any fashion.

Strategies to Help

Parenting Scholar Athletes helps moms raise their kids by using spiritual strategies along with the stories of adversity that can come up for our young athletes. There are beginning chapters helping new parents, middle chapters helping moms with the struggles of how to discipline as well as a chapter to help moms with their own struggles, and ending chapters to help parents guide their young high school athletes through learning disabilities, how and when to use technology and how to maneuver through the college process if they want to take their sport to the next level as they enter college.

Since we learn more as we experience different struggles, I have learned that my childhood had a definitely connection. I had to struggle through as a parent and wife because I left my hometown and went to another state to start my married life. I gave up everything from my original family, close friends, and everything I was accustomed to having.

Becoming a Different Parent

While raising my kids, I wanted to do things different. No hitting, no shame, no silence and definitely no living by the old ways of children are seen but not heard.

Nor was I going to use intense fear tactics like:
Being a parent who said, “Go get the belt.”
“My way or the highway” and they meant it.

Were you brought up not to ask questions and not allowed to explain your side?

I was lucky enough to have moved into the neighborhood of my best friend for now almost 50 years. We met in 4^th grade and were like peas and carrots ever since.

Learning From Our Past

While raising my kids, she was always Auntie and was always there for me.

We knew something was up when we started the Forgiveness program with Iyanla years ago. We began to share things we experienced as we grew up. I thought everyone grew up the same way and I always thought everyone’s parents were like mine. Nope.

Now that we’ve learned about narcissism, childhood trauma and how a lot of those aspects shaped how we were treated as children, everything started to become clear to us.

Most importantly, we realized we were not the problem and we could move through these hurtful times and learn to lean on each other as we learned that we could be happy.

Euphoric Recall: Making Things Better in our Mind

Euphoric recall is a term I heard used by Dr. Ramani where we only remember the good things of a relationship as a child even if there weren’t many.

As children, we would change, mold, and reimagine events and times in our minds so we could stay in a survival mode.

In the book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom, Rick Hansen explains this notion of how children would create new outcomes of things they were going through.

Resetting & Rewiring Our Brains

As a kid, me and Auntie realized we did that in a lot of our upbringing. It was a way for us as kids to stay happy even though those around us weren’t.

This is a place where we can feel safe and think back to these survival times and create new neuropathways. We are basically resetting and rewiring what we had go through in order to move forward in a more positive way.

I realize I did this as I wrote about raising my girls. I made sure not to do any of the awful things I had to live by in order to get by in a place where I wasn’t heard.

Changing Our Narrative

One thing I learned about doing this reset is something I realize I have been doing. Celebrating Christmas, I made sure it was about the traditions, doing things together and everything done in love.

What are some questions that are popping into your head? Leave them here as a message. I have shared many ways of how I overcame certain things and invite you to scroll through them here in my blog to find something that might help you.

I’m here to help as my intention. I’m here to listen, and here to share anything and everything that has helped me grow and heal.

Until next time, Be YOU and continue to show your love and expand your heart.