We're Just Doing Our Best

Good morning! Welcome to Soul Sips on Sunday. I’ve got to tell you before I even say anything, this is my second take. Because I had just done this whole video and at the ten minute mark, I’m ready to turn it off, one of my kids walks in, opens up the door, feeds the dog a grape and starts talking and I just said, “Get Out!”

Like at what point did we think, like you know, go back, I want to have a baby. At what point did we think it was going to be a piece of cake, they’re just going to be a little mini me or a mini him and it’s just like your parents did it and your grandparents did it, everybody did it. Being a parent has got to be a piece of cake. And I also remember the beginning where I was just like I’ll just strap my kid to my back and I’ll just keep on going.

Until – Life stopped me, and such a crazy, and anyways, speaking of being crazy and being a parent at this present moment, I that you all are Sunday, relaxing and being able to take in, what a week. What a week!

I just wanted to say, you know, as we kind of, whether we’re juggling our kids, whether we’re supporting our friends or family members that are teachers, whether we’re just trying to figure out how and what we look like in this particularly, I don’t know I’m calling it a curious space right now of us and an unknown.

The other day I thought, oh my gosh, what if, down the road, when we’re history, they’re looking at us, they’re laughing, and they’re thinking, oh my God, I can’t believe they made they’re kids do that! Or, I can’t believe the precautionary that happened, or, they weren’t enough, I can’t believe they allowed that! You know, we have so many questions and it feels so much like it’s out of our control.

And like so much of my parenting, where I try to give myself a break, is when I’m in it, I honestly say to myself, “Am I doing the best that I can in the moment?” Am I doing it? And at the present moment, with what we know, and with what our gut is saying, and what we feel is best for our kids, we just need to be okay with where we are and what we’re doing. But not be rigid and know that it can change. You can have a child come home and say, “And I’m done”.

And then it becomes Plan B, what does that look like? And I think in general with everything going on, that has been one of my top lessons of reducing rigidity, increasing compassion, and trying to just go with the flow. Day to day. Today everybody’s good. Today, we’re struggling, whatever that looks like. And I think if all of us are practicing on just doing our best, and secondly, recognizing that everyone around us is just doing their best. It’s not about us to judge whether their doing their best. You just enter every situation with the thought that everybody is doing their best. The best that they can. Because what I really want to talk about is, nobody knows the hidden stories. Nobody knows. So, here’s my story for you to where I’m at and to where I was at and how we can so quickly judge.

When I was younger, I was insistent that I was adopted. I’ll tell you why. My oldest sister looked just like my Mom and her daughter looks just like her as well. So there’s three generations and all the baby pictures look the same. Then my second sister came out bright blue eyes, big eyelashes and dark hair, so she looked like my grandfather on my Italian side. Then my younger sister, she came out like a big chubby cheeks, big brown eyes, and curly hair, almost identical to my Dad. And then there was me.
I didn’t look like anybody!

Other than, I had this little skinny body like my Mom I guess. But just a short aside on the whole skinny thing, over the years I’ve been called skinny, and I just want to say, if it’s just on the tip of your tongue, I really am encouraging you to rethink that. It’s not socially acceptable to say somebody is fat, why is it okay to say to somebody, you look skinny. Because here’s two things, that skinny person, that very lean person, could be the healthiest person that you know. Number two, they could also be going through the greatest struggle that you have no idea but because society has put “skinny” or lean as a beautiful thing, it becomes really really tricky because sometimes those people who are looking very very lean have quite an internal struggle, so they don’t need to feel like they’re being criticized. As much as you might think it’s a compliment, it’s not. I mean, we don’t take it as a compliment.

And you know the other thing, coming from a parent who is leaner and then having a daughter who is very lean, you can kind of step back and see the difference, and what happens is that somebody calls Sophie lean or skinny or whatever, you can kind of see it go on. She doesn’t like it but you can see that it’s kind of praised, so then, that leanness could be taken to another level because it’s praised. It’s like getting a goal, of you’re so good, you got a goal. Well how about the other four people on the ice who passed the puck, defended it, and got it back up, and got it to the guy to put it in the net. How about the other four? The other four don’t get celebrated, just the dude or dudette who put it in the net. And I think we get a little wonky with that in how we celebrate and how we speak and as parents we just sort of throw things out and around, and we assume. We assume.

And my point is right now is that I don’t think we assume anything, other than, everyone who is coming to the table, so whether that is the person pumping your gas, the person checking you out at the cash, your teachers, your children’s teachers, your partners, your neighbour. If we just assume that everybody is doing the best they can, I really think it will help us move forward. It will certainly help us grow with our compassion. There’s no judgement. There’s no room to judge. Honestly ever. I’ve been saying, “No judgie judgie” for a very long time.

However right now, compassion and kindness is so needed. These teachers? I can’t thank them enough. Any opportunity you get to speak to a teacher and encourage and remind them how they are changing lives, even though they’re feeling like “UHH! I’m not getting the work done! I’m not doing what I did last year at this time! I’m not getting through to these children or whatever it might be. It is so important for us to be, to express, to let them know that we’re behind them. They have one hefty, hefty job right now.

You know, when we just go into these assumptions and we just assume that everybody is good, I realized this week that I have a seriously difficult time with my mask. Twice now, I have been out in pubic, grocery shopping and another time shopping, and I became really dizzy, instantly thought I was going to pass out, over time, whatever. And then thinking it was because I just hadn’t eaten enough, but I knew I’d eaten enough, and for a slight minute, I thought, “Oh my God, is this menopause?” But I realized last night that is was like a form of anxiety with me.

I want to see you in the grocery store, in the mall – I want to se your face. It’s big for me. It’s huge for me. Or I want you to see my face because I don’t think you can see my eyes. I want you to see that I’m happy to see you. I’m losing a bit of my hearing, so you’re talking through your mask and I can’t hear you and I think that kind of makes me a little funky.
So you might see me, you’re seeing me right now talking and acting fine and I’m happy and yada ya. But the thing is, is that I’m struggling in this very tiny part in my little world. And I know that the students are struggling. And I know the teachers are struggling and I think we all are.

So, when we’re going through difficult times, I’m far from advice lady, but might I encourage you, I mentioned this last week, to take care of yourself. Do what you need to do. Don’t worry about the dishes, don’t worry about your lawn needing to be cut. Just maybe, drop our expectations down a little. What we have done in the past has led us to this point but it is not where we’re at. We’re at a very different place. We’re on uncharted ground. We have no idea what’s in front of us and if we think too much about it, it can make us very anxious.

So maybe it becomes a day to day. Today is good. Today we all got off to where we’re going. I made a meal. I made dinner. You know, everybody seemed to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Whatever. Okay, we had a melt down after school, you know, did we get though that? Did we watch tv for three hours? Okay. Didn’t get our homework done? Okay. You know, I keep saying though all of this that our mental health is the top priority.

But in order for our children to do well with that, we need to keep ourselves in that space as well. So when we talk about change, when we talk about doing different things, when we talk about veering off our path we thought we were supposed to do. Maybe, maybe this isn’t the time to get too rigid on that. Maybe this is the time for us to step up our kindness. Kindness to us. Just be kind. Talk to yourself kindly. Talk to those around you kindly.

It’s okay. It’s okay. Maybe drop our expectations just right now, just right now. Let’s just sit more, let’s just try to chill. Let’s get outside, let’s walk. Let’s feed our bodies. And lastly, let’s stop being so critical of everybody us. Those teachers, the people checking our groceries. Everywhere, people in restaurants, like holy cow. You know there’s so much, I’m missing so many of you. It’s just how can we just be kinder.

And maybe, when we do see people and this is on our face, maybe we can step this up a bit or this, or whatever we could do. Let’s go a little extra because it’s hard right now. It is difficult, but the wonderful thing is the gorgeous Glennon Doyle says and I love, “We can do hard things”. We can do hard things. Just keep telling yourself. Tell your kids that. And definitely tell your teachers that you appreciate everything that they do.

Cheers!
Onward team, onward we go!