That’s the easy “free range” stuff for me.

Watching him board a plane for his first solo flight – that makes my heart clench a little.

Lemme go back…

A few months ago Zeb was feeling a lot of homesickness. We talked and he processed and at the time we didn’t see what else to do other than empathize.

Then that night I had one of those “Duh” moments when you suddenly ask yourself why not and realize you don’t have any reason other than “I just hadn’t thought about it.”

So I asked him, “Would you like to fly back to Vegas to visit family and friends?”

There was really no reason why it wouldn’t work…we could afford a single ticket, he’s 12 for goodness sake (I was flying alone since I was 8…and that was before security was such a PITA) and he wanted it – and that’s enough to make anything a possibility.

We talked about the reasons we couldn’t all go (cost + RV storage + dog + work), what it’s like to fly alone, how the trip might be organized to see everyone and how long he’d like to stay.

3 weeks he decided would be long enough to see everyone and do everything and not be too homesick for us.

So we made it happen.

And yesterday he took off.

Okay, so I’ll admit I was excited for him just about the entire time.

But towards the end was when my heart was a little clenched and there was one point where I thought I might vomit.

I didn’t (and don’t) want to taint his trip with my own emotions about missing him. And I’m not at all worried about him or his ability to fly alone, navigate friends and family and have fun.

But there was a really weird moment when his plane was taxiing the runway and I knew his phone was shut off that the Mama Bear in me said, “WTF?! I’m going to be out of contact with him for nearly 6 hours?!”

Like I said, being away from him was something I had to get used to from the day he started moving. And we’ve spent days away from each other when he was having a sleepover-a-thon or Justin and I had our honeymoon.

But the longest distance away has only been a couple hours drive and we’ve NEVER not been able to pick up the phone and reach him in an instant.

And THAT was…well, I don’t have words for how that felt, except to say that it felt oddly like I was looking into the future.

My son is growing. He’ll be 13 this year and he’s as tall as me (and taller than his Grandma – haha!). His voice is changing and he can lift me up when we hug. And he has a girlfriend – did I mention that?

And it won’t stop there.

Soon the ratios of together and not-together will be flipped and he may be off doing his thing with his people more than he may be doing his thing with us.

And that’s EXCITING! It’s exciting to watch him make steps out into the world in a way that makes sense and feels right to him.

But it’s WEIRD too. Not weird of him, not weird of what he’ll do…but weird of how it feels to parent with such attachment and then suddenly realize that all that attachment parenting that you did (or caught up on) was really laying a foundation for him to eventually form attachments elsewhere.

It’s weird to have known but actually *realize* that it’s not about me, it’s not about my ideas or hopes, it’s not about my preconceived notions of what and when and how and why.

It’s about him.

It’s about the things that light HIM up, the things that make HIM excited, the things that HE wants.

Those really have very little to do with me.

He didn’t come into this world to be parented by me, to grow some powerful attachment to his parents and live happily ever after with us.

It was merely our job to give him those things now so that he could do what he came into this world to do. And now it’s our job – not his – to process the emotions that come with that so that he doesn’t feel responsible for the way we feel about his exploring his own life.

I guess this will be good practice for us so that I don’t act like a total spazztastic Mama Bear when the big stuff starts shifting.

P.S. Everyone (including us) is asking what we’re going to do for 3 weeks without him. We did some chatting on the way home from the airport and decided it’s going to look a little like this:

• Enjoying the big smiley pictures he’s been texting us
• Finishing up some work projects
• Eating sushi – his least favorite meal
• Spending a romantic weekend in the Florida Keys
• Sex on the couch
• And other places
• In the middle of the day
• And I think Justin is trying to figure out the whole Nekked Room thing as I type.

I’m going to try REALLY hard not to over-text Zeb, over-check his Facebook page or call him constantly. But it’s proving to be very hard so far.

You give so much to your kids, your partner, your work, and probably way too many other people and things in your life as well.

You work your ass off to feed the bodies and the souls of those you love, to fill their spiritual cups with love, engagement and support.

But you’re gonna hit burnout soon (or maybe you’re there already) if you don’t understand one thing:

You can’t give what you don’t have.

Picture it like this: All the people and things in your life are standing before you with an empty cup and asking you to fill them up.

But your cup is empty. Too many long days, not enough replenishing of your own spiritual cup and you have nothing to pour into their lives. (Then enters in your own guilt and overwhelm and frustration, adding to your exhaustion.)

Honey, you have to take care of you, too.

It’s absolutely imperative that you make space in your life for your own well-being, your own support system, and the tools that will help you out of “survival mode” and into a way of life that allows you (all!) to THRIVE.

It’s imperative you let your own cup be filled.

It’s time to get so filled up with the things YOU need to thrive that you naturally overflow your love and vibrancy into the lives of those you love.

Yes, I’m talking about the Organic Tribe.

I’ve been offering an introductory price to the Tribe for the first few months, but I can’t keep doing that forever.

On Thursday the monthly cost of the Tribe is going up to it’s full price of $39.97 for new subscribers.

But all those who are on the Tribe by Thursday… they’ll always pay $19.97!

Think about it…

How do you normally spend $20 a month trying to fill your cup?

And what else could you possibly spend $20 a month on that would offer you so much emotional and spiritual support, connect you to your own Tribe, give you special offers (not seen by anyone else), as well as opportunities to get free one-on-one coaching, AND grant you LIFETIME ACCESS to the Organic Sisterhood forums – where you can connect personally with other like-minded women for support, encouragement, tips, inspiration, and more?

“Life has been so good for me recently and…I know that you, the Tribe, and the sisterhood have been a huge part of that.” – Susan

And what could you DO with that kind of soul-nourishing, cup-filling, motivating and inspiring coaching and connections in your life?

Click here if you’re ready to fill YOUR cup!

The most important part of this project is to connect to your intention for it – not your expectation of it.

I say that because it may be a project that you love, but your kids aren’t interested in it. If you’re expectation is to all sit around drinking sparkling cider and merrily creating a time capsule and they would rather not, you’re not going to enjoy this at all.

But if your intention is to capture memories for yourself (and maybe for them later), then you will be able to recognize that you can capture those memories in a dozen ways that feel good to everyone (even if that means they head off to play or watch movies and you work merrily toward your intention).

Some intentions to consider:

• Connection – If the whole family is interested, keep connection – not the idea of how connection “should” look – at the forefront of your mind.
• Fun – Pretty self-explanatory. If you’re not having fun, shift.
• Capturing Memories – Slowing down, creating mindfulness around our experiences, around where we’ve been and where we’d like to go, spending time with the experiences that have fed us or taught us.
• Creating Memories and Traditions – Just creating these New Year’s time capsules will create memories and traditions that you and your family have the opportunity to look back on. Sorta wraps all four of these intentions into one.

The second most important part is to decide when you’d like to open these New Year’s time capsules. Since I don’t know the actual term for it, I’m going to refer to this as the “opening date”.

You can do so the following New Year, 5 years from now or depending on your kids’ ages, you can create a shoebox full of annual time capsules to give to them as adults.

If your kids would like to participate in this, let them decide…and let them change their mind if they’d like to! Remember: Intention, not expectation!

Photo Source

What You’ll Need For Your New Year’s Time Capsules

Like I said, there are many ways to do this, so I’m going to offer you a few ideas to get the juices flowing. You can do one or all or some combination of these ideas to create your own family time capsule. (I hope you’ll share your ideas in the comments below!)

1. A  Letter to Your Child/ren – You can write a letter to your children, elaborating on their past year: their favorite things, their best friends and what they’ve done. Add a recent photo (or photos) of them to the envelope, seal it, label it with the child’s name, date it and write down it’s “opening date”. This is probably the simplest (although possibly most time consuming, depending on how it’s done).
2. A Letter From Your Child/ren – If your kids would like to be involved, I do NOT recommend asking them to write an entire letter. That’s a lot of pressure for most kids (although some will love it!). I’d recommend printing out something like a questionnaire that they can answer, and leaving plenty of space to write or color pictures. Some questions to get you started:
• What was your favorite part of the year?
• What was your least favorite part?
• Other favorites: toy/game, movie, clothing, color, activity, food, etc.
• Who was your best friend this year?
• The question can obviously vary based on the child’s age. For older kids who are interested, you may look up writing prompts to get some really juicy answers for them to read later!
• You might also add some basic info to these, such as gas prices, political leaders, major events, etc.
3. A Fortune Teller Letter – This one is a lot of fun for kids. Ask questions that allow your children to play Fortune Teller with their answers, essentially trying to “predict” the upcoming year. (These are good ones to read at the end of the next year to see who was closest. Think of questions such as:
• How much do you think gas will cost at the end of next year, five years, ten years?
• Who do you predict will win the next election(s) and why?
• What one amazing world event do you expect in the coming year(s)?
• What one amazing thing do YOU expect to do in the coming year(s)?
• What’s going to change about [you/me/someone or something else]
• What do you think you’ll be doing in [choose a month or year]?
• What would you LIKE to be doing in [choose a month or year]?
• You can also add questions about one another or other people you know, predicting what they might do later in life, who they might marry, where they’ll live, etc (um, might wanna keep it positive – don’t want to open something hurtful in the future).
4. A Photo Time Capsule – These are really fun. Take film photos of everyone (no digitals, since you’ll have copies of those and they won’t feel all time-capsuley that way, unless you’ll print them out and delete or hide the digital copies). Look at them one time, then place them in the time capsule. You can take photos of everyone doing something they love or showing off their favorite things. You can take good-natured funny photos (as long as you think everyone will find them funny). You can even create a video to burn to DVD and lock it away.

Saving Your Time Capsule

After you’ve decided WHAT you want to create, and WHEN you want to reopen your time capsule, your next step is to find a secure place in which to put everything.

Some ideas: If you’re doing letters to be open the next year, you can label them and place them on your desk. If you’re doing something bigger or longer-term, consider a small safe to hold your New Years time capsule in (without worry of water or fire damage). You might even want to use a safe deposit box, or a canister of some kind (like a metal coffee canister) to bury them.

You can even do a virtual time capsule with letters and photos, saving everything online (they even offer “virtual time capsule” services). And let the kids go wild with decorating or creating a really artful was to encapsulate the project if they want to!

Just remember to think long-term!

You don’t want to forget about it (setting a reminder on your online calendar is a good idea) and you don’t want to leave it or bury it somewhere that you might not have access to later (or where someone else might find it).

But then that goes back to intention.

If the time capsule is lost or forgotten, your intention of connection, creating and capturing memories, and having fun (rather than your expectation of how that intention would look) can still be honored and enjoyed.

This year I intend to write a letter to Zeb and will continue writing these letters to give to him as an adult. We may also do a time capsule together, but 12 year old boys tend to be rather unenthusiastic about these kind of things (or maybe that’s just my 12 year old boy ).

What ideas can you add to this list?

I felt a lot of fear, as though I was stepping out on my own, rejecting the people I loved, rejecting the world…but also fear that they would in turn reject me. Think I was crazy. Think I thought they were crazy.

I also felt a deep passion, a desire to share what was changing my life for the better, a desire to hang onto what I’ve found and a fear of losing it.

I felt this conflict within myself when I moved toward holistic health: It seemed as though I had found something that made so much sense to me…but very few were interested.

How do I share what I love?

The same happened when we decided to withdraw Zeb from school: So much of our family was supportive, and many weren’t.

How do I find my footing without support?

And absolutely, positively I felt that challenge when we began to parent organically, trusting myself as a mother, trusting my son as a whole and autonomous human being, moving away from the fear or control that had ruled our relationship before.

How do I learn to give them the same that I wanted to give my son – unconditional love?

I’ve experienced it in big ways, like deep discussions and even arguments with people I loved, from friends to family to in-laws. And I’ve experienced it in smaller moments, like encountering strangers in the grocery store who shamed their child for a mistake made.

How do I honor others while standing up for my Truth?

I’ve felt the fear, the knots in my stomach, the pain of rejection of something that is such a part of Who I Am that it felt like rejection of me. And I’ve felt the hurt when the rejection of what I love turned into rejection of me.

I’ve been in both arenas, of feeling as though I had to scream my Truth from the mountaintops and then hide it in a bubble, avoiding anything that might pop it (I’m still in that one sometimes).

But neither of those is my goal.

My goal is to be grounded in what I know is real in my life, all that that is and means.

And I’m not going to pretend it’s always easy.

Or always cut and dry.

But it IS possible to remain grounded in our Truth, despite the confrontation or fear or anger it may trigger in others. Despite the confrontation or fear or anger it may trigger in us.

It’s most definitely possible to remain centered around what we know and love when others question or criticize…or worse.

Would you like to join the conversation?

Being Organic Around Conventional Wisdom is the topic of our next
Organic Tribe call.

The call is this Thursday evening, and we’re going to discuss this very tender, very sticky situation in depth together.

This is your opportunity to ask the questions you have and get the answers and support you need.

Not a part of the Organic Tribe?

When you sign up, you not only get TWO group coaching sessions a month, you also get:

• Lifetime access to The Organic Sisterhood forums
• Free recordings of every call to keep forever
• Secret offers no one else will ever hear about
• The biggest discounts on upcoming products I’m creating
• AND…on each and every call I’m giving away a complimentary 1-on-1 session

It’s super simple to sign-up.

You can either read more about here or if you’ve already been thinking about this and know it’s a “Yes!” for you and what you need right now, just click the subscribe button below.

As soon as Wild Zen and I receive notification that you’ve joined, we’ll add you to the email list and you’ll receive call access info right away.

Are you ready for this? I sure hope so. I hope to hear your voice on our next call.

I just want him to stay with me until I can be sure he won’t turn into Norman Nothing.

I want to be sure he’ll know when he’s chickening out on himself. I want him to get to know exactly the special thing he is or else he won’t notice it when it starts to go.

I want him to stay awake and know who the phonies are, I want him to know how to holler and put up an argument, I want a little guts to show before I can let him go.

I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it’s worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance.

And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair.

- A Thousand Clowns, Murray trying to explain why he hasn’t put his nephew in school yet

It’s naturally and healthy of our kids to want our attention. Especially for Rockstar jumps.

Are you following me on Facebook? I’m over there daily sharing quotes and Organic Wisdom to inspire you, make you think or get you sharing.

A few weeks ago I shared this:

Organic Wisdom: Your children need to see that they
are more important than your phone call.

It’s something I feel very strongly about and shared it on Facebook after touching on its importance, why it’s such a common occurrence and our job in the new audio, 3 Secrets to Raising Happy, Healthy, Confident Kids.

One mama had this question:

Sometimes… when you are on a business call…. then they can’t always be made more important? How do you handle that?

I answered there and thought I’d elaborate here:

If I’m taking a call I really can’t be interrupted on (such as with clients), I create space for me to do my call without expecting Zeb to create that space for me.

This means planning ahead for me, anticipating and making arrangements for his needs and working with Justin or others to support us.

If it’s not planned ahead, such as a chat with a girlfriend, then whoever is on the other end will know that I will unapologetically put them on hold for a moment to answer Zeb’s questions, help him with something or look at what he’s showing me.

If his needs require more than a moment (maybe it’s an emergency or maybe he’s just really needing some one-on-one attention), I’ll ask to call them back at a time when I can give them my attention without taking time from my son.

No, it’s not always easy. But it is always important.

Why do I do this?

Because my child is my first priority.

He deserves to never, ever feel like he’s a distraction or interruption.

Because he’s not. He’s an incredibly important person, one of two of the most important people in my life. And showing that in my actions is more important than saying it with my words.

Hey mamas, how do you make your kids feel like your priority?

Add your thoughts and ideas on how to get your phone calls made without leaving your kids out to the comments below.

This is where we were this week. Hadn’t spent any time together – really together – for a few days. And it begins to show, ya know?

So I declared it a date night.

No, not with my hubby. With my sweet Zeb.

Checkers in the park – he totally beat me.

Last minute lunch – his choice.

Movie: Real Steel

Blinded by the flash

Our mother-son dates are a lot like reset buttons. Nothing spectacular happens. It’s not as if, at 12 years old, he’s a bigger chatterer, so we’re not talking about the meaning of life (usually).

But it’s just time spent together, without distractions, doing whatever we love with a peron we love.

Where do you go on your dates?

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. – Maya Angelou

How many times have you heard (or even said), “I survived [spankings/punishment/hard work/not getting attention] as a child. So will they.”?

Countless I’d bet.

It’s the common response anytime compassionate, mindful, organic parents talk about the alternatives they’ve found to control, coercion, and hurtfulness of children.

We all want the best for our children. Our ideas of how to provide that are obviously radically different than the mainstream.

But more than our ideas of how to provide the best for our kids, it seems like many parents have a deep resistance toward providing for our kids the things they didn’t have.

Oh not the “stuff”…lots of parents can easily provide more stuff than they had.

But so few are ready to provide in deeper ways.

So few are comfortable providing more love, more affection and attention, more respect, more honor, more dignity, more autonomy.

Is it because we simply don’t know how?

Or is it because to provide our kids with more of those things means first admit that we didn’t receive it ourselves?

It’s not an easy pill to swallow, that you may have been intentionally and unnecessarily hurt and lied to as a child. That your deeper human needs were not met. That you were made to feel as though your feelings, your ideas, your desires were less important than anyone else’s.

Shit. It’s downright unfair. After all, if we went through it, shouldn’t they have to?

Because “Dammit! It’s MY TURN to finally feel in control!”

“Oh please. I survived.”

Really?

And is that all you want for your child: Survival?

Or do they deserve to thrive?

I’m inclined to agree with Maya Angelou up there…just because we didn’t know there was an alternative doesn’t mean it was good for us, doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for our kids.

The Comment/Question

Tara – Here’s a thought I’ve had. I’ve been in a lot of discussions about parenting that include those who view “being your child’s friend” as a very negative thing – “be a parent, not a friend”. I really feel like there’s this false dichotomy between having a good relationship or teaching/guiding them – like they are mutually exclusive. The “be a parent” crowd assumes that if we are focusing on maintaining a close, connected relationship, it means that the kids just do whatever they want and have no respect. What if being a friend and parent weren’t mutally exclusive? I would love your take on this. – Cindy from www.birth-smart.com

My Answer

I would ask them who the heck their friends are and why they have such a low idea of what real friendship is.

In my world, a friend is someone who loves me compassionately, who sees my worth when I may not see it, who listens deeply and never encourages me to do less than I’m capable of doing, nor do they support my actions if those actions are hurting me or others.

A real friend brings out the best in me with love and laughter and support.

So who the heck have they been hanging out with that isn’t all those things? And why wouldn’t we want to be those things to our child?

And I want to add:

Maybe if more kids were used to seeing this kind of love and support from their parents they wouldn’t be accepting anything less in their friends.

What is your take on the parent/friend conversation?

And just because I can, I want to share a video I created that reminds me just how quickly it passes, just how much we should cherish the tender moments and just how much we miss out on when we’re more concerned with how we’ll look as parents, instead of the moments of connection we’re capturing with our kids.

As soon as he was aware we began sitting together and reading through stories together.

His favorite for the first few years of his life was Time For Bed, by Mem Fox:

“It’s time for bed little mouse, little mouse. Darkness is falling all through the house.”

We all knew it by heart after reading it three or four or seventeen times each night.

Then came Putt-Putt and The Bean Boy as he grew a little older. And then the Little House books, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Animorphs series, Harry Potter and then Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

There were many things in Zeb’s early life that I would rush through and forget to relish, but reading was never one of them.

Perhaps it was because of the memories I have with my mom, cuddling in bed together, her melodic voice telling the story as my eyes followed along the page or dreamily imagined the scenes she described or finally became too heavy to stay open.

She’d probably say my memory is pretty forgiving, but it didn’t seem to matter how busy she was or tired she was; there seemed to always be time for reading together, even if it was only a chapter.

And so whenever Zeb asked for a story or seven, I knew just how important it was to curl up next to him, to create those memories, to say yes as many times as I could.

And then one more time, for good measure.

Now, at 12, he’s spent many months not being interested in cuddling up together and being read to. And as much as I enjoy seeing him grow and change, a part of me was still a little sad at what I thought was the closing of a tradition.

I mean, I knew it would happen. I knew there would be a day when he moved onto other things in his life. But it still felt bittersweet, ya know?

So a few weeks ago, after a hilarious night of Uno playing, when he asked if I wanted to start reading Percy Jackson again my heart smiled as it melted.

One, two, five chapters…we still read until the eyelids get heavy (mine now, instead of his). We read until I begin to see words that aren’t even on the page. We read as we travel down the road, and we take breaks from our individual tasks to read together during the day.

And it’s only now that I see the real value of it.

You see, when he was a baby I read to him in hopes of creating a love of reading. I read to him because it was educational. I read to him because it seemed like the thing a mom should do.

But looking back over the last 12 years I’ve found that reading together had less to do with learning to read, or learning to love reading. It had little to do with teaching him how to read on his own.

In fact, it had very little to do with books at all.

Looking back over the last 12 years I can see that the books were just a tool to the real benefit of reading together: the time we spent with our heads on the same pillow, the discussions we had as the plot twisted or turned, surprised us or irritated us, the sense of connection that comes from simply being next to one another, sharing a common thought.

We create those bigger and more important lessons and experiences with more than just books. We do it with games, or movies or video games, too.

We, as parents, do it every time we prioritize our kids and what they ask us to do with them over our long day or our big tasks.

Maybe he’ll “outgrow” our tradition again some time. Maybe he never really will.

But since I’m never sure when “just one more chapter” will be our last together, I’ll keep my head rested upon his as he rests his upon my shoulder. I’ll keep brushing down his curly hair so that I can see the page.

And I’ll keep relishing in these simple moments, that are always so much bigger than I sometimes remember they are.