Live and Let Live
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If I could choose a singular guiding principle for how I would like my family to operate, it would be this: Live and let live.
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Though the cultural dogma tells us that in a family, we must play a defined role, I can’t shake a natural inclination to believe that we are instead dropped on this planet with an entirely unique mission to fulfill, based on our entirely unique spirit.
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Our spirit, which is far too big to be contained inside a culturally defined role.
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As a mom and a wife, I want to have the freedom to be myself and to fulfill my own purpose.
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I want to allow my daughter to blossom into more of herself every day. To encourage her to interact with her intuition and come to understand herself better than anyone else can.
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I want my husband to follow his joy and do what fills him up. I don’t want to force him into situations that make him uneasy or frustrated; yes, that includes certain family gatherings and school events (when we used to be allowed to do those lol).
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“You let your daughter listen to that song?”
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“You let your husband buy that car?”
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Yup.
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Because I believe that it’s not my job to “let” or “not let” these people living with me do anything. That’s THEIR job. It’s THEIR life.
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Yes, their lives are connected to mine.
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No, they do not belong to me.
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Sometimes, my husband struggles with this dictum in parenting. He is a man, and so he thinks his opinion is necessary all the time. We’re working on this one
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If you find yourself caught in a control cycle, trying to figure out how to mould your loved ones into “who they’re supposed to be”, please take rest in the knowledge that that’s not your job.
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You don’t need to hold the world together.
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They know better than you do about what’s right for them.
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At first that seems scary, but soon you’ll realize that this belief makes life much easier.
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Bonus: When we open our grasp on others, they in turn release their grasp on us.
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Live and let live.
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Imagine the possibilities of a life, uncontained.