Mothering is hard, but learning to let go is a whole other level.
When you first become a mom, you want to protect your baby. Nature them. Mold them and keep them safe. But that’s just it. You can’t and the soon you figure that out, the sooner you can learn to let go.
What Does Learning To Let Go Mean?
Let me start by saying I am not advising that you just completely say forget the rules and let your kids act crazy. Learning to let go means loosening up the ropes a little bit. Allow baby girl to pick her clothes out today. Let your son jump from that third step (from the bottom momma, from the bottom).
Learning to let go is realizing that, no matter how hard you try, you can not control you kids. And the sooner you figure that out, the happier everyone will be.
How Does Learning To Let Go Create Happiness?
Let’s start with the easy one. Less stress. Yes, learning to let go actually reduces your stress. How? Because its one less thing for you to worry about. You have enough on your plate with whats for dinner, or when hubby will take out the trash, no need to add if your son is wearing mix match shoes to the list. Because honestly, who cares?
I’m sorry but if anyone is judging my four year old for wearing one Paw Pal shoe and one Spider-man shoe they may need to rethink some life choices, not me. And before you ask, yes. Karter has and will continue to do so whenever the mood strikes him, left my house with that exact combo of shoes on. What can I say, these are currently his favorite things. Sorry I digress.
Okay, back on track mama.
Does Letting Go Mean Letting My Kids do Whatever?
Absolutely not. Learning to let do does not negate the rules. There are still very much rules. They just happen to change from rules that help you look “good” in society’s opinion to rules that will actually help your child become an independent fully function adult. So cool right!
For an example of this, I used to have a “ rule” that my children couldn’t leave the house with no socks on. Sounds easy enough.
It was, until Kinley kicked and screamed for over 2 hours one day about having to wear socks, because they made her feet feel funny. Yeah, true story. But it made me think. It’s her feet. She deserves to be comfortable. And her being physically comfortable is more important then me being mentally comfortable because I feel like my kids fit into the perfect box society has built. So she didn’t wear socks. For like a month. This was me learning to letting go. And surprisingly enough her feet didn’t stink, so win win.
Learning to let go isn’t just about your children. It’s also about you. Letting go of the need to control everything and to have all your “ducks” in a row alleviates unnecessary stress from you. It allows you to take a step back, refocus, and adjust your energy on things that really matter. Like, what kind of human you’re raising. Because at the end of the day, we all just want to raise a kind hearted productive member of society who will change the world for the better. And the first step in doing that is learning to let go.
With All My Love,
Jazmyne