This week was a crazy week. My sister’s mother in law passed away and so off to Northern California she travels with her husband, leaving her seven-year-old son behind to stay with my girls and me. I know so many people who parent more then one or two children and I say more power to you. I had three kids, three different schools, and all of the extra curricular activities. It was amazing how hard it was to step out of our daily routines and add just one extra child into the mix. We had car pool, bus stops, homework, and meals every morning and every night, family time around the table, lunches to pack, and of course just when it could not get any busier it was time for the State fair and my oldest daughter shows goats with her dad so just one more activity. You would think that would throw me into a tail spin but nope there was too much to do and to many little people counting on me so as one of my girlfriends would say I put the “S” on my chest, grabbed my cape and my cup of what is now cold tea that I had made earlier and headed out the door everyday to run the bus and carpool race.

I laugh at how by the end of the week we effectively had incorporated a new child into our routine and it felt like we had been doing this all along. My Nephew and I would walk my oldest to the bus stop and then race back up the street, it is pretty sad when you get your butt kicked y a seven-year-old. I was excited every morning after seeing my second daughter off on her bus to have the 30 minutes with my nephew as we sat in the carpool lane of his school. I was able to read a new friends amazingly clever and hilarious book, Feng Shui Love. We chatted about the book he was reading and I have to admit it was a little stolen pleasure in what could have very easily been a stressful and difficult week. We created a positive out of what could have been perceived as a negative.

Only a few small hiccups, just when I thought I had it all under control, 30 minutes before picking up my child from carpool for dance on Tuesday I realized it was at the same time I had to pick up my nephew on the other side of town. A fleeting moment of panic set in and then this super mom was freaking out about how in the world I was going to achieve the impossible and be in two places at once. I could feel my cape slipping off and my “S” fading and then my oldest daughter had called they had finished showing goats and I reluctantly asked to speak with her father thinking he would say no or be irritated or worse say something in front on my daughter to make me look weak and helpless and unable to handle my co-parenting duty. I really had no other choice at the moment and I was going to have to take that risk. And there he was ready willing and able to pick up my youngest daughter in time to take her to dance while I picked up my nephew and we met at the dance school. Whew another small crisis handed with ease and grace.

Where I am going with all of this is simple: Co-parenting can be difficult, maddening and sometime an outright pain in the behind. It is a choice you and your ex make to create chaos or calm in your lives. You can choose to work together or apart. Sometimes we let our own minds run away with what we think someone is going to do that we don’t give them the opportunity to do something kind.

There are times in my own situation I wonder if we are ever going to make it through our differences so that we can get something accomplished. And then there are the times when Mr. Ex steps up and is there for me and more importantly our children. I am so grateful that we can look past our differences most of the time and put our children’s needs first.

Could I have made it through a challenging situation of needing to be in two places at one time without the help of my ex? Probably, however it made it a lot easier that I did not have to worry about it for too long as he was cooperative and willing to help. This is not always the case and it is important as a single parent to remember to not always rely or abuse the other parent when you are in need or a time of crisis. If you are always crying wolf your child’s other parent is not going to respond. Remember that your crisis does not constitute a crisis for your ex even if it does include your child. As single parents we all need to learn to take care of things on our own we need to make a conscious effort to work with our children’s other parent and to not always rely on them but to know that we can count on each other in times of need when it is related to the children is a luxury we should all strive for in our co-parenting relationship with our ex. Cooperating with your ex means laying down your weapons in the war of divorce in order to protect your children.

I am grateful that my girl’s father and I have come to a place where we work together and help each other out. I am grateful that I can express gratitude without feeling slighted and he can help without feeling owed. I am grateful that we can put our children’s needs first and even though we get irritated with each other we can focus on what is the most important which is our children.

Its so easy to stay negative and it take effort to be positive but the rewards are so worth it.

Create a GREAT day!

In love and service,

Dorcy Russell

Conscious Co-parenting Institute

I’d like to talk to you about something that I have been experiencing with my children and really thinking about the perspective of which we teach, coach and parent our children. Our week has full of honors, my oldest daughter Savannah who is in the first year of middle school came home this week with their first-quarter grades and she’s on the Honor Roll. I can’t even begin to express how proud of her I am as the Honor Roll was an achievement I never received. Not because I couldn’t but because I chose from an early age the school was not important, it was boring and I simply did not care about it at all. Looking back I can see that a lot of this had to do with the fact that my mom did not care whether I passed or failed so therefore it became unimportant to me. On the way to the bus stop Savannah asked me if I had ever made the honor roll Then she started to laugh remembering how much a dreaded school as a young person. There was an internal tug in my gut wondering if I had done the right thing by sharing with my child my failures in school as a child and really my lack of desire to participate. It was a fleeting moment as I know how important it is to be truthful and honest to our children and to share with them not only our successes and our celebrations but also our failures and regrets. I’ve never been one to let failure or regrets hold me back or my lack of enthusiasm for school.

It’s difficult parenting and finding the right words and tools to teach children about the importance of school and what I have found more importantly the life skills that you can teach them while they’re in school. For example I’ve always worried about what I’ve done in my past and how it will impact my children as they continue to grow and become more aware of who they are and as they spread their wings to fly in their own independence that they will throw back in my face what a hypocrite I am for not wanting them to make the same mistakes that I’ve made. But then thinking about it I’m pretty sure our parents have experienced the very same thing. My honor roll child is very smart. She loves school even though she knows I never liked it. She hasn’t taken my experience and made it her, she’s clearly taking her experience and owning it. As the parent of a middle school child, as many of you know, it’s a very scary thing to think about how fast our children are growing up these days physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our kids have come into this world all knowing with an incredible capacity to live their independent lives regardless of who their parents are or what their parents do.

Right now we are sitting in the hotel room Savannah and I, while the youngest in our family Jensen, is fully engaged in her seven-hour rehearsal for honors chorus. Jensen was born early is very small in her forth grade body and ginormous in her spirit and electric voice. Honors chorus was a really big deal. As Jensen has come into this world is a very talented and delightful singer. At three years old Jensen told a very good friend of mine when asked what she wanted to be when she was grown-up she simply looked at my friends who I might add is a professional platinum recording artists and says “why a singer of course just like I am now.” We all laughed at that tiny little three-year-old thinking, rights she already knows what she wants to be when she grows up. But here we are six years later and my little professional singer at the age of nine was selected out of over 400 kids who tried out to participate in the elementary school honors chorus. She is one of only 75 kids in the entire state. I’m giggling to myself as I’m writing this article thinking what a boastful mother I am and how I always roll my eyes at the bumper stickers on the back of the minivans that I often see “my child is an honor student at such and such school.” Now I’m not going to go that far and post all of my children’s honors all over my car but I will post it all over the Internet.:)

Besides being a proud mother, these story are leading to something I have been experiencing more lately in my coaching practice. I am currently coaching the young man who’s in college playing football on a scholarship. He’s one of the star players and frequently gets MVP. He was a straight A student in high school and now that he’s in college he’s failing. His parents asked me to work with him and so I’ve been coaching him for the last four months. And what’s been discovered with coaching is the star athlete who has the potential to become a pro athlete despises football. You may ask yourself how something like this happened and how does he get so far and become so good at something he can’t stand and the answer is very simple, his father was a star player he also played pro ball in his first year of playing professional football for the NFL he had an injury and was no longer able to play football. He is very successful at the business he does now however the failures and fallen dreams of this once star athlete are now being lived out vicariously through his son. It’s difficult as a parent to have a child who excels so well at something and happens to be the same thing that you also in your youth excelled at and were not able to fulfill that dream in your adult life. This particular young man has been failing in school not because he does not know how to do the work he is failing because he does not want to play football, he is in college on a full ride, and he does not want to fail his father. His father is the guy who pushes him to the end. They lack the communication techniques to be open and honest with each other. This young man is doing everything he can to get kicked off the football team so he does not have to quit. This young man has been playing football since he was 3 years old.

Often times well-intentioned parents have no idea the effect they’re having on their children by pushing and prodding them along in what truly is their dream. As parents we think when our children excel at something that is what they should focus on and that is what they should do. We’ve all seen them the Little League parents sitting on the sideline yelling at their kids to do more, to put on a happy face, to be better to get in there to take down the other children. We seen the fathers who continue to coach and put their children in all the lead positions forcing them to play the sport that they so loved when they were young. We see the moms on the sidelines bringing the snacks and encouraging their children who often times seems so miserable to play harder and play smarter. Sometimes these are just small children in the early stages of elementary school at the phase of life where children really want to do everything they can to please their parents. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Little League and understand fully the professional athletes have to start somewhere but let’s not all of us forget that it is a very small percentage of people that become professional athletes. Little League and sports and really any extracurricular activity that your stroke child participates in are for them, for their fun, fulfilling their desires, and meeting their needs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how as parents we want our children to achieve the things that we never achieved when we were young. We want our children to excel in the things that speak to our hearts and our souls. We want our children to excel in the things that also speak to our egos. We forget that they have their own minds their own egos their own souls and their own desires. As parents we often times take advantage of the fact that children ultimately want to please their parents so we push and prod them along and doing things that they don’t always desire to do.

There is also the other side which I must admit I’ve experienced, which is my children participating in things that I don’t like at all things that I know their father loves and I can see them doing things to please him. They are not good athletes so it is hard for me to watch them struggle with sports to please their dad. I have also stepped back and realized that they do like playing some sports it is not all for their dad and that my old feeling from my marriage can cloud my vision with regards to the things my girls do that their dad loves. Having this awareness allows me to focus on what it truly is that my children desire and not what either their father or I desire for them or what we did not get to do from our childhood.

So as my children are processing through honors chorus and being on the honor roll I’ve also watched them struggle and things that they’re not so good at yet they attempt them anyways. As a parent, it’s is tempting to try to convince our children to do what we like and want instead of focusing on what they love and desire. It’s temping as divorced parents to push the things that you like and pull from the things the other parent likes. I am also a singer and love the arts my children’s father is Mr. Sports. My children are naturally gifted in the arts and music and not so much in the sports arena. There was a time I fought all sporting activates because of my own personal feelings. Now we strive for a healthy balance and let our children decide on the to extra curricular activities a year. Its not easy co-parenting, its not easy sharing time and passions, it is however one of most honoring gifts you can give to your children.

It is so vital to remember that we must HONOR our children as fellow human beings. We must hold sacred their innate desire to please us and to be sure that they are participating in the activities they truly love and desire not what we want for us through them.

In love, light and service,

Dorcy Russell

www.consciouscoparentinginstitute.com

This past week has been a fascinating week in my coaching practice and in my personal life. A lot going on with the holidays, and the things people believe about the holidays, which causes them pain, drama, and uncertainty.

This week the holidays in my coaching practice has come up quite a bit and then of course, like many things they have shown up in my personal life. A lot of my clients this week have been worried about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. A lot of my clients do not have their children this year for the very first time on Thanksgiving. And some of my clients are experiencing the holidays with their children without their spouse or significant other for the first time. People are worried about spending the holidays alone, and people are worried about changing the way the holiday will be they are experiencing lots of anxiety and stress about having a different experience for Thanksgiving.

All stress, which is a secondary emotion of fear, comes from a decision forming incident in our past that has created our limiting belief systems. For example Thanksgiving holiday in your family could mean the entire family gets together parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc to share a day and a meal. For some people this is a joyous occasion and for others not so much but because it’s the way that they’ve done it their entire lives they feel this is the way it should be, and when we live in the shoulds, we live our lives in limiting belief system.

It’s important to remember that we have a choice on how we live our lives and how we process the information from our past and how we allow it to impact our present. An examples with regard to the holidays, I am a client who is spending her first Thanksgiving alone with her children, her extended family is dysfunctional wrought with alcoholism abuse and neglect she’s made the decision for her family but spending the holidays with them is too painful for her. She is now processing to her lower self of guilt because she has two children who love to spend the holidays with their cousins and to see their grandparents. She is feeling alone and guilty, and like she is a bad mother. I’m sure many of you can relate to this and maybe not the exact situation but a situation very similar and are not sure how to process through it.

One of the most important things to remember in a situation like this is that you are processing through a button or what I like to call a decision forming incident from your past which is controlling your thoughts and emotions and behavior in your present. Because this particular woman had experienced Thanksgiving with her entire family her entire life and has made a decision that it’s just not what she wants to do any longer she’s feeling horrible about it she’s processing through her lower self and then she starts to think about it which is her middle self trying to rationalize her decision and yet because she hasn’t learned the skills on how to recognize where all this pain and stress and drama are really coming from she continues to slip back into her lower self thinking and get stuck.

With this particular client and with many others we worked on recognizing the decision forming incident from her childhood that is causing her all of her pain in her present. We worked on creating new traditions and positive belief systems from here and moving forward. This Thanksgiving my client is taking her children to Disneyland for Thanksgiving. They’re having dinner with the princesses, she does not have to cook, which of course means she does not have to clean up afterwards, and she does not have to deal with any of the abuse that’s constantly thrown at her from her family. She’s consciously made a choice to do something different and create fun lasting memory in her life and the lives of her children. This decision forming incident was from her old mindset that Thanksgiving is a time for family to get together and then treat each other horribly. She had accepted this as reality for her entire life until this year. Making the decision to process through your higher self is a choice. Making the decision to do something different and create new memories in your life is a choice. Making these choices is not always easy, but more often than not one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself and for your family.

This Thanksgiving I am alone. My children will be with their father and I found out last night that the man I’m dating and his two children won’t be here until seven o’clock Thanksgiving night. I felt all of my own fear well up inside of me, stress, sadness, and my greatest fear of being alone was engulfing me at the moment I found out. I was completely processing through my lower self and wanted to project that out onto him as he was doing something to me when in reality I was really just processing from my limiting belief system. I have re-created the Thanksgiving holiday for myself, my kids are with their dad I would travel and when they were with me I would have family and friends over to the house and we’d make a big dinner to pull out my tree to decorate it. This year I was again going to do something different and when I found out that I was truly going to be alone for the majority of the day I really started to panic. My mind was racing all the way back to my original decision forming incident my original limited belief which was that I had to be surrounded by people on Thanksgiving because that’s the way I was raised I started down that road of feeling bad for myself and being upset with the man that I love. But now that I stepped back and realized that I was processing through a button I almost chuckle to myself in realizing that we are all a work in progress. We all processed through our lower, middle, and higher selves all the time. I want a button is pushed we easily slid back in to our fear-based lower self thinking.

When I realized where I was at and from where I was processing I just as quickly and easily made the decision that this is not where I wanted to operate. So I shifted from feeling sorry for myself and being alone to doing something I have always wanted to do for Thanksgiving which is head down to the homeless shelter and feed the homeless a warm holiday meal. This certainly puts it all into perspective for me. I am also making a plan to accept the invitation from my ex and head over to his house for a few hours to spend time with my girls. I will make my Thanksgiving dinner, however I will change the tradition from watching football and eating a turkey dinner at around one o’clock to eating that lovely meal with the wonderful man in my life and his children in the evening.

Sometimes things don’t always work out the way that we planned, sometimes things don’t stay the same, sometimes we are alone during the holidays, and sometimes were surrounded by people we love. What’s important to remember is that Thanksgiving, Christmas, really any holiday is just another day. You can create new traditions new ways of spending your holidays and new ways of spending your days in general by changing the way you think about them and truly by making a choice to do something different.

I am grateful this Thanksgiving season for the abundance of joy, peace and happiness I achieve on a regular basis. I’m grateful for all the wonderful people who impact my life every day. I’m grateful for the negative situations in my life for they afford me the opportunity to react or not react, they afford me the opportunity to learn expand and grow. I’m grateful this Thanksgiving holiday for my parents, neither of which I have a tremendously fantastic relationship with, however both have brought difficulties and challenges and love into my life in ways that have allowed me to have tremendous purpose in this lifetime and to be the voice and force of change for so many families globally. I am grateful to have a wonderful loving partner in my life who loves me for me and puts up with my workaholic behavior and all of the quirks that make me who I am. I am grateful for my ex who has let go of some of his anxiety and anger and has invited both me, and my beloved to his house for Thanksgiving. I am the most grateful for my children, they are my inspiration, they are a beautiful example of love and light in my life everyday. They keep me humbled, real and always striving to be a better person and example in the world.

Thank you for reading if you have created new traditions in your family for the holidays I would love to hear how you have moved from being in the negative mindset to creating some new and positive memories.

With a grateful and loving heart,

Happy Thanksgiving…

Dorcy Russell

http://www.ConsciousCoParentingInstitute.com