When I first became a mother, I was only 23. I was 23 and newly married, with a new job and a brand new house and everything going for me. I thought I was going to be set for life. To me, being set for life was being safe, and on the outside I was. On the inside though, I was struggling to keep myself together.

It was because my body had learned to live off of the high of being busy. Busyness consumed my days, and when exhaustion finally set in, I felt immense guilt while laying sprawled out on my couch, waiting to feel something more than what I was. There was always this cycle happening. Being busy, becoming exhausted, feeling guilty, and then doing more to help me escape the guilt. I was working to get ahead financially, and yet we never did. We didn’t because we always wanted to soothe ourselves with things that don’t actually soothe us at all.

I hope that you know how perfectly imperfect you are. I want you to know this because it is exactly what I wish I was told 12 years ago and every day since. Even though I wouldn’t have believed it, I still needed to hear it. And so do all of you. Whatever is going on in your life right now, please listen to me. You are all perfectly imperfect.

just like I was back then when I felt like I was on top of the world and yet also felt like I was barely treading water. Back then I didn’t need to be told that I was important or beautiful or kind or an excellent worker. I was, but that’s not what I needed to hear. What I needed was for someone to tell me that I mattered no matter what I did. That my doing was not necessary in order to feel loved and supported by the world that surrounded me.

My entire life, up until very recently, was based upon the lie that in order to get ahead in life, we must always be doing. We must get married, buy a house, get a car, buy insurance, get pregnant, have a baby, buy all the baby things, find a job, all the while making everyone around us happy and making sure that we don’t complain about it.

The truth is, a life of doing doesn’t make anyone happy. I see it all the time in my therapy practice. What these expectations laid upon us only do is create immense turmoil in our bodies. We are unable to rest because there is always more to achieve in our lives. And trust me, I am very good at achieving things. I have countless accolades and certificates that could be hung on my office wall. I choose not to hang them up anymore because I know they don’t matter. These certificates have served me an important purpose, but it doesn’t have anything to do with doing more. What I needed to learn through all these past 12 years that I spent making babies and building businesses and working my fingers to the bone is this. None of it made me better.

I could have been spending my days knitting on the couch, watching soap operas, feeling incredibly guilty about not amounting to my true potential. And I would be just as important as who I thought I was becoming. This person was my mother, and she has been my greatest supporter. My mother poured all of her love into her children, and she was not very loved as a child herself. She was and yet she wasn’t in the way you and I would expect a parent to love their child.

We have so many beliefs about what a parent should and shouldn’t do, and yet here we all are. We are all here, and we are all more than enough. This enoughness is what we all need to remember because it is the only thing that matters. This enoughness means more than any diploma hanging on a wall, any job that is supposed to mean everything, every single thing that’s in your home. And I want you all to know today that this enoughness is inherent. We are all enough. I am enough.

My mother is enough and you are enough, no matter who you are or what you have accomplished. Your accomplishments mean nothing. And those things that you have been wasting your life doing mean nothing to you or to anyone else. It is all busy work. And I know how much everyone hates busy work.

You may be thinking, this is all well and good, but what about our bills we have to pay? That’s a great question. My first question back to you is, what bills do you actually want to pay? There are too many of us living our entire lives thinking that we have to be doing this or that. And meanwhile, none of it actually is what we want to be spending our precious time on. We have spent countless years wasting our time accomplishing things that don’t actually matter and I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want that for you either. I don’t want that for you because I would want you to enjoy your life. I want you to be truly happy.

Do you know how many people come into my office and have no clue what who they are and what they actually want? They have been so focused on surviving and reaching their next milestone that they have kept their blinders on morning and night, day after day. I am here to tell you that this is not living. There are too many people wasting away, waiting for their turn to die. I cannot watch it anymore. I can’t bear it. I need you all to know the truth, and that truth is that you are all worthy. You are worthy, and so am I. I never thought I was worthy unless someone told me that I was, and yet I never listened to them, even when they did.

Who I am has nothing to do with what I have done in my life. Do I have many letters behind my name that others would want to have? Yes. Have they made me happy? Absolutely not. My accolades actually created more turmoil and pain in my life while I was hyper -focused on achieving them. I wasn’t present at all for my kids or my husband or myself. I understand completely now that everything that I have done and accomplished in my life has had a purpose. And the purpose is so that I could tell all of you that achieving isn’t important. You are. Your happiness is. Your worth is not dependent on how others perceive you.

People are not thinking about you at all. They are thinking of themselves and they are doing that because they have been taught to only think about others. Children are taught to only think of others or else they will be told that they are being selfish. In truth, we all need to think about ourselves so that we can be kinder to ourselves and then kinder to others. Without this first step of self -awareness we are just doing and the gifts we give to others lack any significant meaning. Giving without intent is meaningless. It is just consumerism wrapped up in a bow. 

True compassion towards those we love can only come if it is first given within. When we learn to be kinder to ourselves, our whole perspective shifts. Instead of giving as an expectation, it comes from our heart. Our heart is where our intuition is held. And our intuition is where all of our decisions should be made. Our bodies hold incredible wisdom, and it is time for us to start listening. Wisdom that comes from the heart isn’t actually wisdom. It is our being. This is what actually matters. This is who we are. When we reconnect with our true selves,

We can find our life’s purpose and feel at peace with ourselves without ever working another day in our life. And that is what I want for all of you. I want you to be able to think and feel from the heart. The mind is a beautiful thing. It is one of the most powerful processors on earth, and I’m using it right now. I love my brain and I love my body. And that is what we all need to be doing. Not all the meaningless busy work we are told to do to keep us from recognizing how broken our world really is.

My mother was an exceptional mother, and yet she has held onto so much guilt through the years. This isn’t because she wasn’t a good mother, quite the opposite. It is because she was, and she didn’t know how to stay present and enjoy her life with us. She felt so bad that she didn’t amount to what others did, myself included. Yet she did everything she was meant to do in her life, just like all of you. You see, even when we aren’t able to follow our heart, it is still beating. It is still there, and it is still doing what it is meant to do. Fill the world with love.

And as I said before, my mother filled her children with all of her love. There was none left for herself and that was an important choice that she had made. It is because of this that I am here with you now. My mother didn’t work and yet she has done the most powerful thing in the world. She has given her children her love and for that I am eternally grateful. Her love is your love. You are doing the same.

No matter what you are, you can’t help it. That’s the most beautiful thing about all of this. We can’t help it because it is what we are made to do. We are meant to fill the world with love and show our children that they can too. Everyone’s purpose in life is different and yet the end result is all the same. When we follow our life’s purpose, we fill ourselves and the world with love.

My mother had to learn how to love us in order to learn to love herself. And that is the gift that our children give to us. Remember this. Our children are the light of this world. They help us to see our purpose and give life meaning. They help us feel what truly matters. They help us become present in our day. This is why it feels so uncomfortable to sit down and play with our children. It isn’t because we can’t, it’s because we forgot how to. Just as old Peter Pan forgot how to fly, he learned with his children’s help.

When we all learn how to fly, we become so much lighter. We don’t need to carry our life’s burdens, or our parents’ burdens, or their parents’ burdens. Our children are here to save us from becoming lost in life, and this is why so many of us start our journey of awareness when we become parents. You see? It wasn’t my accolades or certificates that actually helped me to see that they aren’t important.

It was my children. My children have always been my greatest teachers and I hope that you will look at your children differently after listening to this. Look back on your life and how your children created immense positive change. Change that is painful and uncomfortable and yet powerful to no end. Change that helped us become who we are meant to become rather than who the world told us we must be.

We are not of this world, really. We are not. We are all made of pixie dust. And by this, I mean we are all made of stars. The sun is a star, and we are made from the sun. The sun is who we must all believe to be our god. The Mayans and the Aztecs and the Egyptians all knew this. We know this, just as Peter Pan knows that he can fly.

We have forgotten our power and it is our time to remember how to fly too. We are created from the sun and the sun is ever present. It never stops shining and neither do we. Beneath all of the shadow, the hurts that we carry, the doubts and the worries, our truth sits quietly within.

We are not of this world, and yet here we are. We are all here for a purpose. We are all here to find our true meaning, and I am here to help you do just that. Please remember the next time your children ask you who they are, that they already know. Please let them show you who they are and the ways that they show their love for you and for the world. Please let them show you who you are too. That is what I have done for my parents and that is what your children can do for you. Your children have all of life’s answers because they are not of this world either and they are much closer to the truth than us. They are closer to the truth because they still remember how to fly.

Just like the lost boys of Neverland, except they weren’t lost at all. They were not lost because they found the way to truth. They found their way to follow Peter Pan, and he gave them all they needed to feel safe in the world. Peter Pan is the sun, and the sun is our god. Our god isn’t the one who gives us the ability to fly though, is it? It is pixie dust, and it is what we are made of. It is made of stars and the sun is a star. So what does that mean? It means that we are all God. Pixie dust is God’s gift to us.

We are one. We are all the same and we are all different. We are all the same because we are all made of the stars and we are all worthy of happiness. Doesn’t flying make everyone happy? Doesn’t feeling light feel so much better than feeling heavy and weighed down? We are all different because we learn to fly in different ways.

Some of us are meant to work with our hands and learn to fly by becoming wonderful carpenters. It is our purpose because it gives our life meaning. Others are meant to heal others while allowing themselves to become healed too. Others are meant to live a life of wonder, traveling the world, learning about everything and everyone. Others are meant to stay home with their families, helping their children become even more powerful so that they can one day rise up and show the world who they are meant to become.

The possibilities are endless and isn’t that beautiful. We are all so different and yet the end result is all the same. We are not made of this earth and we will one day leave. Our pixie dust will rise up trying to reach the sun. We will go as high as we can and how high we fly depends on how much weight and darkness we have released. When we release our burdens here on earth, our pixie dust becomes even brighter. It becomes as bright as the sun itself if we are able to let it all go. The pain, the burdens, the shadow, the darkness. We don’t need to carry it around with us anymore. We can just follow the light of our children and they will give us what we need to feel brighter. Thank you all for being here. Take care and God bless.

Thank you for listening to the first episode of “the art of becoming human” podcast.

---

Learn more about our therapy and wellness services HERE

Join our Instagram community HERE

You may also enjoy this blog, ‘Therapy in Kincardine Ontario: Attuned Therapy + Wellness’ HERE