fbpx
LoginSHOPshop

Pain and Progress

I guess I’m a little preoccupied with time these days, how I spend it, where it goes, how to get the most out of every minute. As I stood watching Lauren’s beach practice this morning, I counted my blessings that I still get to do what she’s doing, in some form, with a few more […]
By
Wendy Jones
October 6, 2019

I guess I’m a little preoccupied with time these days, how I spend it, where it goes, how to get the most out of every minute. As I stood watching Lauren’s beach practice this morning, I counted my blessings that I still get to do what she’s doing, in some form, with a few more aches and a lot more warm up necessary. Sometimes I’m hard on myself as I try to grow my writing and coaching business but instead I am headed out to play. I should be writing, learning, looking for new coaching opportunities. I stop myself though. Volleyball brings me so many things… joy, connection, new neural pathways, challenge, and all of this equals sustainable growth and energy to stay consistent with the work it takes to find the next step to deep meaning in life, and then the vocation comes from there. 

Lauren introduced me to the grad assistant/player on their team… a real human, newly engaged, 25 year old athlete, and we chatted about her major and what she wants to do in this life. As she walked away, I glanced at Lauren, looking almost as mature and the same as this player…

“I was her age when I had you.” I said, filled with disbelief. 

At that age, I was filled with so much naive optimism, and looking back on it, so much desire to control outcomes. I lived carefully thinking I could keep it all on track with my good deeds and carefully assessed plan of action. I didn’t know at that age that the freedom I was looking for lies in surrendering to the outcome in any situation and committing relentlessly to my process.  

And now we’re sitting here, twenty years passed in a flash and my life looking so different than I had envisioned at 25. It blows my mind. My confidence has wavered over the years and my sense of urgency has been challenged as I build a business realizing I have spent the better part of these last 20 years being “just a mom”.  But then, in this moment, sitting here with her, I am filled with the biggest sense of meaning and accomplishment. She’s confident, coachable, real, and has a strong sense of herself. She makes mistakes but doesn’t let them define her, we talk about them openly, she has empathy for the situations going on around her, and she trusts her gut first.

One of the greatest gifts of parenting is to see qualities in your kids emerge that took you a little longer to figure out. 

After spending a day in Seattle on Friday with Compete to Create, I’m chewing on the wisdom that I have gained over the past five years listening to the Finding Mastery podcast and seeing the threads of that podcast be stitched together over this amazing eight hour conversation how the best version of ourselves is grounded in a mindful life . 

Awareness is the double edge sword of tragedy and challenge. We learn much more about ourselves when the going gets tough than when everything is coming up roses.

The mindful life is full of reframing, and one of the silver linings I have found is that as much as we don’t want to see people in pain, especially our own children, there is a genuine reality that comes through a person’s eyes when they have been tested and emerged stronger. I spent most of my young life, definitely the part when I was Lauren’s age, thinking I wasn’t tough enough to handle hard, waiting for the shoe to drop, maybe even looking for someone to take care of me because I wasn’t so sure I would be able to do it myself. I’ve worked through a lot of guilt having put my kids through a divorce and watching them navigate pain, of course with guidance, but it’s difficult nonetheless. What I see emerging, from my optimists perspective, especially out of my two oldest who are so close to adulthood, is an empathetic understanding that people struggle and yet are also capable of so much. They see what it takes to surrender what they can’t control, acknowledge their feelings even when it’s hard, and work from what is. Although they are still teenagers, the capacity I have seen them gain to meet people where they are will serve them for the rest of their lives.

I’ve said it before, I wish there was something that inspires growth the way pain does, but to date I haven’t found it. So even though I fight loneliness on this road that I’m on, and the fear that I won’t find the deepest connection that I am looking for, the real meaning, and the example I want to live is found in the surrender to my story, trusting my gut and seeing where it leads, and knowing that through pain, I am proud of what has emerged. So today I resolve to keep spending my time the way I have been and stay committed to my process, I’m proud of what I see.

Life is messy, but so good in so many moments. Be present, lean in, and trust the process.  

1 2 3 13
hello world!
About the author:
Wendy Jones is a mother of four, lifelong athlete, writer, and optimism & resilience coach and speaker. Through 20 years of parenting and relationship struggles, she believes that vulnerability and our willingness to share our stories is a way to heal ourselves

Related Posts:

The Healing House

There are a million reasons why people find it difficult to be themselves. Between codependency, people pleasing, FOMO, FOPO, traumatic experiences and relationships, getting to the essence of our being and feeling free enough to express ourselves is life’s greatest challenge and gift. Being that it’s almost the 4th of July and post that tragic […]
Read More

Is It Co-Parenting or Control?

Some days it seems there isn’t enough hot tea in the world for my life because learning to honor the slowdown and keep pace with adulting is so hard. My kettle is getting tired, but herbal tea is often my best solution for the chaos that comes through.  My life lets me live the precept:  […]
Read More

So He Left…Now What? Six Ways to Embrace Healing and Avoid Burnout Post Divorce

I wouldn’t have been able to write this eight years ago when he left. So much goes into rebuilding a life and it’s not linear. There have been many missteps and a lack of understanding of where I was at the time and why, but from the time it happened, I always had the question […]
Read More

What Is Generational Healing?

March 19, 2023 I don’t remember the exact date, but it was a Friday afternoon in 2014.  Clear blue skies, volleyball practice had been canceled for some reason I can’t remember, and our family was on the beach. There were four kids running around in the sand with nowhere else to be.  I remember thinking […]
Read More

One Generation Away

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” - Ronald Reagan As a kid, 4th of July was my favorite holiday next to Christmas.   Staying in my bathing suit all day, feet burning on hot pavement, and popsicles and fireworks in the street are among my favorite childhood memories.  This holiday weekend […]
Read More

The Real Sisterhood

"What if the world was already good? What if what you seek, you find? What if everything wasn’t an emergency? What if we cared more about stories and less about labels? What if we stopped shouting so we could listen?" -Chrissy Kelly greatest mom, friend and writer Her words put a lump in my throat.  […]
Read More

How To Inspire BETTER

I saw Top Gun this week. It’s so weird to see the actors of my youth get older. Like so many of us, it took me back to 1986,  getting dropped off at the movie theater at least 3 different times to see it. Although I loved the story and cinematography, what struck me most […]
Read More

The Top 10 Things I Want my 17 Year old to Know.

Kate turned 17 on Thursday. For anyone who hasn't followed her story, she's the one who stopped playing volleyball to be a theatre kid. And man does she blow my mind on that stage. It's so fun to see her risk, I would have been terrified of that at her age. Maybe she is, but […]
Read More

Is Competing Actually Keeping You from Success?

As a writer, I am thankful that I have a good memory of my early life.  So many of my thoughts take me back to places and days from long ago.  When I am able to feel those feelings of the younger me, it gives me perspective for what I’ve learned and fills me with […]
Read More

My America

Our country is hurting. As much as I am an optimist who looks for the good and the growth in all things, you can’t have a week like this one and not feel like you have been kicked hard in the gut. When you attack anyone’s child, the horrific trauma of an unimaginable situation knocks […]
Read More

Alchemy Over Strategy

I usually don’t have the title of  a blog when I sit down to write, generally speaking it comes last.  But I have leaned into something new that has given me so much peace in the hardest moments of transition  that I knew it was time to write about it.  I’ve been working with Emily […]
Read More

Everyone Needs a Song

Hi.  I’m Wendy.  Even though I’ve written over 200 blogs, you don’t really know me.  I show you glimpses of me in my writing, if you have seen it.  But even though I write openly about my life, you don’t know everything; I suppose that’s how it should be.  I worry about exposing too much. But […]
Read More
1 2 3 18
crossmenu
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram