Category: Family
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In life we have a lot of expectations. We expect to grow up and find the perfect job. We expect to meet the right person, get married, have children and live happily ever after. We expect to have certain friends in our lives forever. We expect to be able to change people. We expect people to love as we do, to have the same heart as we do. We expect too much.
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They are the apple of our eye, our sweet little girls. My child and most of her friends have now reached double digits. They are no longer little girls, soon they will blossom into lovely young ladies.
It’s our job to empower them to grow up feeling secure in themselves. Powerful girls learn to take action, making positive choices about their own lives and doing positive things for others. Here are some ways that many parenting experts say will help us raise powerful girls….
Encourage her to pursue a passion.
Let her have a voice in making decisions.
Let her solve issues on her own rather than fixing things for her.
Encourage her to go beyond her comfort zone, to take physical risks
Encourage your daughter to participate in team-building activities or join organizations that rely on teamwork.Be honest with her.
Give her time to just play!Having close friends that are like-minded and most importantly kind is an important part of her growing up. Help them foster positive, loving relationships.
Let her know you love her because of who she is, not because of what she weighs or how she looks.
.Allow her to disagree.
Make time to listen to her on a regular basis.
Listen more, talk less.
Limit your daughter’s exposure to the media and popular culture.
Talk with her about her body and sex in ways appropriate to her age and your values. Yes, it’s really time to do that!
Keep her active.Be the person you want her to be. Love yourself so that she can love herself too.
Help foster and flourish her relationships with a powerful women in your family, like an aunt or grandmother.
Most importantly, don’t forget to stop and really enjoy this special time with them. Enjoy them! -
Shenpa is Tibetan and it defines obsessive feelings and urges you just can’t seem to release. Feelings like resentment, failure, anger or urges like addiction and cravings. Tibetan Buddhist, Pena Chodron, says that’s how we get taken over by a negative experience. A death of a family member takes me directly to Shenpa. I feel sad, so sad that I can think or feel nothing else.
The Tibetan Buddhist says that the best thing to do when we feel that way is to remove ourselves from the situation. Give ourselves some space. Take a walk and just be aware of what you are saying to yourself. Notice your thinking and come back to just being present. Keep on doing that and you will learn to live in the present more often.
Chodron says the negative feelings are really our ego. Once you realize that it’s your ego you can notice it, allow yourself to have the discomfort of suffering, then let it go allowing evolution to happen.
Change is inevitable, if we don’t learn to embrace it our life will be an unhappy one. I’ve always battled change. When I was little I didn’t want to grow up, I hated it when we moved and I had to change schools. I always fought it and even though I was always able to find my footing, I just hated change and I still do .Losing someone I love is the biggest and most painful change for me to endure. I now know that I have to learn to embrace change, be open to what God has in store for me.
In a blink of an eye our lives can change and it will continue to change for decades to come. We have to focus on the now. To enjoy it, embrace it and be grateful for the ride. Easier said then done for some but all we can do is try, otherwise happiness will elude us.
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A much-anticipated makeover from the good folks at Essa Salon for my wonderful friend.
This is a strong beautiful woman at the end of a difficult fight with cancer. She is an example of what strength, dignity and the power of positive thinking looks like. She is my friend and my inspiration. Today and everyday I celebrate the power of strong beautiful women. It’s just a day in the life of many women I am blessed to know and love.
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Another one of my loved ones has left this world. My sweet, kind, wonderful aunt passed away in her sleep last month. I have so many amazing memories with her. She was my fathers younger sister and she was so much more than an aunt to me. She was my friend, my confidant, someone I have always leaned on for advice. She gave me unconditional love and support. We spoke weekly and spent much of our summers together. She will forever be in my heart.
Death never gets easier and it never stops. I’ve lost so many of my loved ones already. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, young cousins. It’s heart wrenching. It’s especially painful when you come from such a close knit family. One day my parents will leave. So many of my friends and family members have already experienced the loss of a parent. My cousins lost their father almost five years ago to cancer and now their beautiful mother has left them. How does one survive? It’s a question I ask myself over and over again. It’s not something I want to think about until I have to. The pain I experience now losing my aunt so suddenly is deep and leaves me broken. I know I have to cherish her memory and move forward with life. I will never forget her or stop loving her. I will forever miss her physical presence in my life. I would like to think that she is in a better place and that one day we will meet again.
What happens to us when we leave this earth is a mystery. If only we had a crystal ball to show us where we go. It would make it easier. For me death is the ultimate experience of this life, and the beginning experience of another. Every death in my family feels like a break in our family chain, nothing seems the same but as we leave this earth one by one I know that links will join again.
In the meantime, I am grateful for the love we shared. I have a child to love and raise and many other loved ones to cherish.
I will honor my aunt by remembering all the times we shared and living my life fully.







