Life is challenging.

We are students of life. We have never done this before. We are figuring it out as we go. We are always in the process of becoming. This should cause us to be kind to ourselves as we navigate and move through life.

Most of us think we should be further along, have it figured out, not make mistakes, not experience “negative” emotions. We think it should be easy.

Life is hard sometimes. We think life should not be hard. Thinking it should not be hard and then life being hard causes us to feel angry or frustrated or overwhelmed.

What if we decided to believe life is hard. Of course, this is hard. And we are resilient and strong and capable of figuring it out!

We have the power of the Holy Spirit in us! The power that raised Christ from the dead. Romans 8:11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. The power to do more than we ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

We must believe and trust the power of the Holy Spirit in us, helping us.

We have the power to generate our feelings. We create the feelings we have with the thoughts we think. We choose the thoughts we think. What we think becomes what we believe. What we believe determines how we behave. Do you believe in the power of the Holy Spirit in you? The Holy Spirit is available to help us through all of life.

We must choose to trust and believe in God working in and through all things, situations, circumstances, and people in our lives for our goodness and His glory.

We are not supposed to be happy all the time. Hard, terrible, tragic, unexpected things happen and when they do we feel angry, sad, frustrated, betrayed, confused, to name a few possible emotions. That is totally normal! God gave us our emotions.

We can learn to regulate our emotions. We can learn to feel the grief, loss, sadness, lament, and move through to a new place. We feel what we feel, and we choose to acknowledge ourselves in our feelings. We practice kindness to ourselves and realize of course, I would feel this way. I am human.

Of course, you would feel this way when that thing you wanted to happen did not happen. Or of course you got upset when your husband forgot to do whatever, again. Of course, it is hard raising children who don’t listen and push all our buttons. Of course, because we are human. We acknowledge our feelings, then process and move through them. When they come up again, which they will because that is how our brains work, we acknowledge them again and move through again.

Let’s be kind to ourselves in all our humanness.

We get to decide. We choose what we think and what we make something mean. We don’t have to beat ourselves up and have such high expectations. We can let ourselves off the hook. When we do, it will be easier to let others off the hook too.

Here is an example of when dealing with young children (but I hope you will understand can be applied to any relationship or situation): We feel frustrated because we think our child should be able to regulate her emotions, she doesn’t, we get angry. We try to talk to her, but we lose our temper, get emotional, send her to her room. Did this work? No.

We think our child should be able to regulate her emotions, but we are not regulating our emotions! What if we choose to think, of course our child does not regulate her emotions, she is still learning and figuring this out. I am 40-some years old, and I am still figuring it out. We offer grace to our child and to ourselves.

Learning to be with ourselves in all of our emotions is a challenge. Learning to regulate our emotions is a skill most of us did not learn growing up. So many of us did not have good examples of what regulating our emotions looks like and now we are trying to figure it out, and it is work.

Another example with young children: We wonder how long is it going to take for our child to get “it.” We get tired thinking they should have already gotten “it.” In these moments we need to admit raising children is hard and not judge ourselves for being human and having our human emotions.

We must learn to comfort ourselves first then comfort our child. We remind ourselves; this is going to take a while and I am here for it. We take away the expectation that they should be able to do “it” or regulate their emotions.

Yet another example: When our child is having a meltdown, we try to discipline our children with our words, but they cannot take it in. We need to help them regulate their bodies first. Create safety for them instead of being like “why in the world are you acting like this,” which is our natural human response.

We must realize we are not doing it wrong. We are a human parent in a hard situation. We regulate ourselves (take a few deep breathes, count to 10, say a mantra, place our hand on our heart, take a short walk, tell your child you love them and you’ll be right back and give yourself a moment.) Once we are regulated, then we help them regulate (sit with them, place your hand on their back, pat or rub their back, give them a hug if they will allow, get them to move their body, go outside). Calm the body then talk about what is going on.

We must be doing our internal work. We must prepare for our children not acting the way we think they should act. We practice awareness of our response in the moment, practice grace, and try to do a little bit better each time.

We can choose to be open to what we could learn through their growth process.

One more example: We give away our power when we say we cannot be happy if our child is not happy. It feels true to say our child makes everyone unhappy with his actions. We must realize we choose how we feel by the thoughts we think. We think our child should be different. We tend to think we did something wrong because he is being so difficult. We wonder, “how can I accept him as he is, love him anyway?” We must stop people pleasing our child, thinking that he needs to think we are a good mom. He does not have to think we are a good mom.

We must stop giving away our power and have our own back. We need to feel our sadness where we are, acknowledge and process the negative thought we are having with self-compassion. We make our child’s behavior mean something bad about us.

We must choose to think this is all part of it. Choose to believe nothing has gone wrong. Remind ourselves, we are doing it right. Our child is doing it right. Acceptance.

We must choose to detach the results we are seeing right now to our self-worth. We must choose to allow for it all, instead of holding so tight to this is how it should be.

We detach our emotional life from our child’s (or our spouses or our parents). We must not micromanage their life. We must live our life. We exemplify doing our own work instead of melding in their life trying to make them “better.”

We trust God in all of it! Believing in His power in us helping us!

I was talking with a friend recently about how I feel God is calling me to deeper trust. And her response was that I was making it sound like it is hard to trust.

I don’t know about you, but I think trusting takes work, is a discipline, an on-going decision I choose to make. I find it easier to trust in some areas more than others.

Trust leads to peace and calm. I don’t think trust is easy. Our human tendency is to want to control and cling and do what we can to make happen what we think should happen. Our human tendency is to worry and fear and doubt. If we were all trusting God’s provisions and sovereignty and control/plan then we would be at peace, resting in His goodness and grace for us and for others. I find that it takes intention and effort to trust. I have to keep focusing and refocusing my mind on Truth.

We build trust with God by talking to Him and listening for Him to talk to us.

We build trust with our children by talking with and listening to them. We build trust by being curious and understanding about where our child is and what they are going through. We build trust with them by being a safe loving place for them to always come home to.

Life is not easy and that is okay. We are students of life. We have never done this before. We are figuring it out as we go. We are always in the process of becoming. This should cause us to be kind to ourselves as we navigate and move through life.

Learning and changing is not fast progress. But we can remind ourselves we are further along than we were last year. We are going to make it through this, and we are going to be okay. Practice believing.

The journey is tough. We add to the pain when we think it should be different. We practice accepting where we are. We practice accepting where our child is.

Learning new things takes effort and intention. It is possible but our brain wants to stay the way it is, so it offers us all kinds of excuses. Our brain wants us to think it is too hard and give up. We must be onto our brain and not give up. Or our brain wants us to blame someone or something for us being the way we are. Again, we must be onto our brain because we are responsible for ourselves.

We must remind ourselves, “Here I am. I am showing up. Imperfect and vulnerable and here for it all.”

Keep trusting! Keep believing! Keep seeking! Keep practicing!

You have more power than you think!

You can do this!

And the effort is worth it!