In the blink of an eye – and many sleep-deprived nights – my youngest has moved beyond look-at-me babyhood and into the I-want-to-explore-everything phase.
He’s the attempter of all things and master of none. He keeps trying new things and yet, rarely does he manage to accomplish what he wants to.
Yesterday, I found him wedging himself beneath my dresser – in a split second’s time – while the ball that he was after rolled along in the opposite direction. He tried to crawl forward, and yet scooted backward.
With herculean effort, he’s managed to stand up in his crib. But once he’s up there, he’s essentially stranded. He holds on for dear life, awaiting rescue, or he braves a fall that, inevitably, leaves him in a precarious position.
And while he is intent on feeding himself these days, it takes him several seconds – and many awkward attempts – to get a single, tiny morsel of food into his mouth. Often, I find his entire meal scattered across his clothing and beneath his chair – and yet, somehow, he keeps at it.
I watch him and think this must all be incredibly frustrating. Sometimes his grunting confirms my suspicions, but, mostly, he seems to be so focused on – and motivated by – what he wants.
He is blissfully ego-less. He can fall down twenty times without judgment or humiliation or a sense of failure.
And yet, if I were to keep moving backward despite my many attempts to progress, I would likely claim defeat and bury my head in my pillow. At the very least, I would heap on the judgments like cinnamon on my oatmeal.
And I know that I am not alone. Since I began coaching other women, I began to see how greatly attuned we become to failure and disappointment – and protecting ourselves from it.
As a result, we not only stop trying, we even stop ourselves from dreaming.
We hang up the desires that we had only yesterday because they are not practical today. We shelve them. We hide them away. We give them up altogether. We convince ourselves that later will be better, or that it would take entirely too much energy to do anything else.
Eventually, we even stop feeling the desire. But we feel its absence.
We feel it deep within our bellies, where we once felt pregnant with possibility and desire. There is now a longing and emptiness – and we wonder how to fill our selves up again – how to get those embers burning.
And yet, it is the very act of dreaming that generates energy. It fuels us – and it reminds us that we are so much more than the roles that we play.
And so we must dream – even if we do not yet know how we’ll arrive. We need to say yes to our desires with excitement, rather than shooting them down with all of the reasons why it’s not meant to be.
We must give it a chance to be.
As our children show us every day, we can learn – or discover – the how as we go. And all of the hiccups along the way will serve as part of the learning – as we acclimate to each new challenge at hand. We may not be able to figure it all out today, but, as my son is reminding me every day, tomorrow might be the day when it all comes together.
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Erin Dullea, CPCC, ACC, is an internationally certified career and life coach who helps mothering women create their next adventure. She believes in doing what you love – on your own creative terms. Erin lives in Cambridge with her husband and three children. You can find her at www.erindullea.com and on twitter @erincoach.
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