How to Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

​Image by Bhikku Amitha from Pixabay 

“Keep your feet on the fresh carpet of the earth, but raise your mind to the windows of the universe.” These were the words written from father to adopted daughter as his parting words in a novel I’m reading, and they really resonate with my soul.

This immediately reminded me of the analogy my homeopath uses when describing my constitution as “a tethered balloon that needs to regularly bob around in the heavens”. Nothing feels truer at the moment with the kids on school holidays; my soul wants me to take regular helicopter rides.

Yet being with people constantly, especially children I’m responsible for, often keeps my attention tethered in a way that makes me feel cut off from that broader perspective.

This heavy feeling was how I used to feel when I was in an office all day, with my attention tethered to people or a screen. But before I had children I could come home and take a big out-breath. With children there are too few out breaths, the tether to my attention seems all pervasive.

Just last week one of my kids was at her grandparents’ house and I dropped the other at a friends’ house for a play. This allowed me the brief time I needed to go and shake off the heavy feeling while swimming up and down the lane at a local pool for a half hour, my mind was free to wander.  

Literally, doing backstroke for some of the time, my mind could follow my eyes to the windows of the physical universe and its vastness, and then the fifteen minutes I had to meditate at home alone before collecting my daughter allowed me the time I needed to bring my awareness to the windows of the universe within.

I felt lighter, more connected and fuelled with energy.

It reminds me of a quote by Khalil Gibran “But let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you”.

I’m learning as I move through my journey to ask for what I need, and these micro breaks from being the person who is responsible for everyone in the moment is as necessary as breathing. But how I garner the support for that is also an interesting journey.

As a recovering people pleaser I have a pattern of keeping going, like a trouper, and resenting the heck of it while secretly harboring a hope that someone will notice how dreadful I feel and offer to help. If that doesn’t happen I eventually address my needs by getting angry (with my partner mainly); not really the healthiest way to assert my needs.

There is also a lot of guilt that comes with this particular scenario for me. It feels as if there is an assumption that, because I am a mother and I wanted children, I will enjoy motherhood. Well, I quickly discovered that is not the case, after all the trials and tribulations of just getting to the point of having a family, here it is and I do not enjoy all aspects of motherhood.

Like most parents I wouldn’t change it, because there are so many wonderful aspects to being a parent too. But, gosh, it is relentless and – I find – often tedious. Unlike the days where we (as humans) lived in communities and could spread the load somewhat across the extended family, the exclusion in which we live prohibits this on a day to day basis.

This makes it vital for me to organize micro breaks and honour my own needs. It is so intense that, if I don’t, I start to turn in on myself and get ill. That is why I think parenthood is an excellent personal development boot camp if I am paying attention to the areas I need to develop.

Of course, what happened in generations past, is we (the former kids) had to comply in order to fit in with the adult’s around us, hence I now have really bad ingrained habits, like being a people pleaser, that need addressed if I am to live my best life.

It seems to me all us adults are, to varying extents, a bunch of inwardly-injured kids walking around in adult bodies, which is what also makes the whole process of evolving past this even more fascinating (and difficult terrain). As I decide to step into awareness of my own bad habits and strive for healthier responses, I’m aware of the varying patterns in others too.

It often makes me think how, if we can evolve past this perpetual cycle of repression, by becoming more attuned to ourselves and others, won’t this world be an amazing place to live?

Evolving past it is the key, I have to keep my eye on the prize. If I continually sit here observing these same patterns I’m just keeping my energy attuned to what is, rather than could be. Instead I have to entrain my energy to that of the solution I’m seeking.

Which brings me back to the beautiful quote that resonated within me to keep my feet on the fresh carpet of the earth, but raise my mind to the windows of the universe. The real key is to give myself enough space to raise my mind to that place, and I now know what that takes for me to do that regularly.

​What does it take for you to raise your mind to the windows of the universe, and are you willing to gift that to yourself, to our world, on a regular basis?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Be at Ease With the World Around You and  I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.