October 10, 2014

Whole Parenting

Have you ever thought about what Whole Parenting looks like? Or to put it another way, how could we illustrate no-hole parenting? Now you might be thinking this is a really interesting concept. I caution you, the key is not to focus on how to be a better parent, but rather BEING parented as a child of God.

I attended a Bible Study last weekend and it was so moving I had to share with all of you. No matter if you are 6 or 76, you are a Child of God and he wants you to love and parent you as his Child always and forever. We need to remember that even as we age, we still need the guidance of a loving parent.

In this lesson, Beth Moore shared 6 different categories for “Whole Parenting”, 3 were motherly qualities and 3 were fatherly qualities. If one of the “pieces” of Whole Parenting are missing, then we will not truly find “peace”.

Mothering Parenting – The nurturing and loving side of parenting.

  1. Nurturing – God’s wants to nurture us like a mother would nurture a nursing child. God is compassionate, loving and teaches the importance of self care. God leads by example of how a mother should nurture not only her child, but her inner child. She must learn to nurture herself, before she can truly nurture others.
  2. Affectionately Desired – God wants us. He doesn’t just tolerate us. He truly is delighted to be our parent. Many of us question our self worth and have thoughts of being unwanted or unneeded. This can’t be any further from the truth. We are all WANTED in the eyes of God and have a divine purpose for this life.
  3. Accepting Parent’s Very Self – This represents the fact that Christ’s spirit always lives inside of us. He share of himself and pours himself into us on a regular basis. He loves us from the inside out.

Fathering Parentings – The instructional and teaching side of parenting

1. Exhortation – God wants to teach us what we need to know to follow his will. The child works beside the father and he teaches them way you need to know. Each child is called by God to do good works and He is there to teach and instruct the path forward.

2. Encouraged – God wants to support and encourage us as we move forward on our journey. He knows that the road won’t always be easy and obstacles may come your way, but if you trust and believe, God will provide the encouragement you need to keep going.

3. Charged to Walk Worthy – God wants you to GET UP and do what he has called you to do. How many of us are searching for our purpose in life? How many of us think we know what our purpose might be, but are afraid to take the necessary steps to move forward? God wants you to STEP UP TO THE PLATE. Walk the talk and just do it. You will find that if you do not move foward with God’s plan, he will discipline you in some way shape or form to get you back on track. He knows what you need and will lovingly provide course corrections as necessary.

I loved this last one. How many of us are looking and searching for our life’s purpose. It is inside each and every one of us and its our God given duty to dig deep inside to uncover the dreams and path God has in store for us. He never said that he would give us a roadmap with all the directions nicely laid out. But he did say to have FAITH, TRUST and BELIEVE.

When you look at this list, do you find one or more “missing pieces” in your life? Once you find the missing “piece” and are able to fill the hole, you will find your missing “peace”.

 

October 7, 2014

Humor and Meditation during the workday – The Best Medicine

Imagine this: Your alarm doesn’t go off and you wake up late for your first early 6am call for the day, after your call you then check on the kids and realize they didn’t finish their homework, so you help them out in between calls, you forgot to make lunches the night before, so you quickly pack up som PB&J to send the kiddos off to school and come back to your office. The morning started off rough, but everything seems to be going ok. It happens to be 2 days before a HUGE launch and you want to make sure everything runs smoothly so you have a meeting to discuss the results. Then you get the news. The conversion data doesn’t look like its suppose to. There are errors and you only have 1 day to fix them. The data review was late due to other circumstances and this was the first day you were able to view the data.
In the work we do, this type of situation can happen no matter how much we have the best laid out plans. Some might stress out and PANIC. Which could be an answer on some days, especially if your day started out a little on the rocky side. No need to panic, we’ll get a team meeting together to review the data and quickly find the root cause of the issue. So we gathered. We got on a call to review the results and it turns out that there are VERY STRANGE ANAMOLIES. Ever find yourself in that situation? There are thousand of rows of data to review and one afternoon to do it. Part of the team is going on holiday and needed to leave, they provided a ton of support before they left, but those that are remaining needed to work together to figure out the issue.
When you are in crunch mode it can easily get stressful. So together the remaining team works to review the information line by line to find the issue. As we review the data, we find even more issues. Internally, you think to yourself, “SERIOUSLY! CAN THIS REALLY BE HAPPENING!” It’s almost like every other row in the data has issues. As the team was sharing our screen working together, we ended up finding some patterns, but not exactly. We found ourselves repeating the same words over and over and over again. One of the team members said it was like a matra.
OH MY! We were actually creating a meditation for ourselves as we were in a stress filled situation trying to fix the data. So there was this moment of repeating the same thing over and over and over again. We were in this peaceful state together. Then we started busting out laughing at the fact that we were almost in a trance like meditative state in what could have been a stressful situation.
Both the meditation and the laughter really helped in so many ways. Our stress levels, decreased, we partnered together as a team and ended up proposing a resolution to the issue. Keeping a sense of humor during worktime is the best medicine to reduce or minimize a potential stressful situation.
Laughter and meditation take away all the stress, relaxes the mind, and keeps you focused. So the next time you are in the middle of a battle, whether it be at work, or with your kids, a little bit of laughter and meditation can turn an entire situation into a positive one.