Our Stories Begin with Love
Photo of me taken June 2011 with my third born.
Our stories begin with love…
My story begins with loving parents who wanted to raise children who value excellence and kindness.
…are enriched through hardships overcome…
Whose ability to be effective parents was impacted by their childhood confusion and trauma.
…and become beacons for others in a relentless hope.
And through my mother, who in her 50s chose to believe in the possibility of change, I was inspired to believe in closing the broken circle of my life, so I could heal.
Think back to your earliest memories of loving another and being loved in return. Who do you see?
I have early memories of riding on my dad’s back from one side of our swimming pool to the other … back and forth, in what felt like endless summer afternoons. He never grew weary of my joyful squeal. He’d push off from the side of the pool and I’d hold tight to his shoulders, gripping his sides with my legs to keep from tumbling off.
I recall time with my mom in that same pool. She held me close, bobbing up and down as cool water washed between us...making me squeeze tighter to her warm body.
Love begs us to get closer. Love celebrates the warmth. Love creates connection and shared memories of joy.
For many of us, however, there comes a break. The continuity of what we know snaps. The social contracts change. Promises are no longer fulfilled. Obligations and responsibilities are dropped.
Did you have a time when your source of joy was cut off? Did you have to grow up before you were ready? Were you asked to make sense of adult desires before yours were fully formed?
The world I grew up in lacked reliable boundaries, contained heightened moments of lawlessness, and taught me to value the opinions of others over my own.
We are usually left with these hurt memories, thoughts, and emotions without being given any tools to move forward…leaving us in a constant state of looking in the rearview mirror of life - stopping us from fully living in the now or planning for tomorrow.
Thankfully our story doesn’t have to end where someone else’s choices made us pause.
Have you ever seen someone almost give up? Have you ever watched someone almost lie down for whoever wants to step on them? Have you ever witnessed someone almost give up everything they love because they thought they weren’t strong enough to stand up?
I have. This person was my mother.
My mom had many cards stacked against her: being raised by a mentally ill father and a narcissistic mother; carrying the loss of a younger sister due to a horseback riding accident on her watch; managing chronic severe depression; dealing with the symptoms of central nervous system lupus - including disorderly thinking, painful arthritis, and frequent migraines; and navigating a marriage with a severely alcoholic husband.
Despite having plenty of reasons to give up, she chose to fight with renewed purpose and goals.
Though she had let people step on her for decades, in the last years of her life, she stood up for herself.
And although she’d almost given up hope, believing she wasn’t strong enough to bear one more ounce of effort, she stayed in the game long enough to be victorious. She stood up for her beliefs, her children, her legacy of overcoming through hope.
Of all the gifts my mother gave to me, besides her unconditional love, the gift I treasure the most is that she showed me change is possible.
Beauty, power, and grace aren’t won in the corrale of rigidity and perfection, but instead in the arena of life. These rewards are only granted to those who believe change is possible and are willing to take the steps to make it happen.
When we model the ability to change, grow, and transform, we give those we love permission to do the same. That’s what my mom did for me, and is my highest calling as a mother of four.
Here are the three ways to embrace a mindset of change … the first two of which I learned from my mom:
Be kind to yourself and others. When we think or speak poorly about ourselves and others, we create barriers to our happiness. Our ability to change is intimately tied to our willingness to let go of the wrongdoings of others and the mistakes of our own doing.
Pursue all things with an attitude of strength. Where our thoughts go, our actions follow. By wearing an attitude of strength, we make strong decisions that demonstrate our values to others.
Move every single day. Daily exercise wipes away stress, builds our confidence, and rewires our mindset to what’s possible. My mother never mastered self-care, and I believe it contributed to her premature death at 59. Autoimmune diseases thrive in stressed bodies. Daily exercise would have reduced her stress, built her reserves to handle daily demands, and would likely have added some quality years to her life.
As a certified fitness trainer and Life Coach, I help people gain the courage to make the necessary changes required to achieve cherished goals. I provide the necessary accountability to help each client to make peace with herself as I inspire her to become the woman/mother/wife/daughter that she wants to be … closing the broken circle through love.
It’s time to turn your broken circle into a legacy of love and healing.
-Coach Rebecca