The Whole Shebang

58. 10 Lessons from Motherhood; Reflections as My Oldest Flies the Coop

• Jennifer Briggs • Season 1 • Episode 58

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Being a mother has been one of the absolute biggest blessings in my life, and has also been the  one of the greatest teachers in my life. I thought it fitting, as my oldest moves into her college dorm, that I reflect and offer you 10 lessons that motherhood has taught me. And while I don't live in regret, there are some moments that if I could do it again, I would do it a little differently.

If you're not a parent, for what it's worth,  I've found many (if not all) the lessons I've learned in parenting, often parallel to leadership. It's one thing to manage, dictate, and delegate... it's an entirely different challenge and opportunity to listen, draw out gifts, guide and empower. 

I've failed forward more times than I can count... and I can say that all my children have all their limbs and are pretty well-adjusted so we're calling that a win ;) I hope this serves as a point of reflection and a hug if you're watching your babes grow up just a bit too quickly. 

Enjoy, Loves! 

xx- Jen

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Speaker 1:

My name is Jen Briggs, and welcome to the whole shebang where, on Mondays, you get what else but a mini bang. These short episodes are really meant to meet you where you're at, to help you set an intention or focus for the week, to consider a perspective that maybe you haven't before, and to answer the most common questions that not only propelled my personal and professional growth, but the best of the best I see around me. This is where we unbecome shedding the layers and the old ways that aren't serving us anymore, and where we continue becoming, stepping into and magnifying more of who you really are and who you're meant to be. So buckle up buttercups we're diving in. So if you're listening to this on the day that it's published, you're listening to it on the day that I am moving in my oldest daughter to college, and so I thought it would be fitting. I actually don't talk a lot about motherhood on here, which is interesting, but being a mother has been one of the biggest, absolute biggest blessings in my life, and has also been the greatest, one of the greatest teachers in my life, and so I wanted to take today to offer you 10 of the lessons that parenthood has taught me. Lessons that parenthood has taught me and and I would say some of them are also if I could do it again, if I could do it again. While I don't live in regret, because I think that all of life is is gifted to us to learn from, there are some moments and some things that if I could do it again, I would probably do it a little differently, knowing what I know now. Okay, 10 lessons that parenthood has brought to me, dedicated to my oldest, tatum, who fun side story when she was really little she was kind of a late talker because we just read her mind and did everything for her, but when she was really little she couldn't say her own name, she couldn't say Tatum, it was too difficult. So she, she would say Tina, and she always, instead of just saying Tina wants blah, blah, blah, she would say I Tina, I Tina, tired, I Tina. So that's my nickname for her. That's a little bit of an aside, my Tina. So this episode is dedicated to Tina. So that's my nickname for her. That's a little bit of an aside, my Tina, so this episode is dedicated to Tina.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number one lesson Can you guys tell I'm doing such a good job, first of all by not crying yet. Number one they're mirrors, as everything in life is a mirror for our triggers, for our pains, even for our joys, what we see in other people that we wish we had but don't. That's an indicator of what we want in ourselves. But when it comes to children, that was the first time in my life that I was really faced with my lack of patience, because having a child really tests your ability to be present and patient like nothing else in my life has, especially when your first is quietly, strong, willed and not talking early on. And so my patience was really tested. But I didn't see that in myself until I became a mom. I just didn't see that. So that's thing.

Speaker 1:

Number one is that it shows you all of your opportunities to grow, and that feels like a really prominent theme, at least for me, on the early years of parenthood. That eventually shifted into also showing some of my greatest strengths as a mother. But number one they're mirrors. They're going to show you stuff, aren't they? If we're willing to see, if we're willing to see our own stuff, it is a different experience to look at them and go. I wish you would be more blah, blah, blah so that I could be more patient If we hold the mirror up to us and go, ooh, I'm impatient. Let me own that first. That is what a trigger is a teacher. A trigger is a teacher and taking radical responsibility for our own part of it cleaning up our own side of the street. Early on, I tried to control her behavior so that I would feel less impatient. But what I began to understood leads me into my second point is that as I worked on being a person who is more patient and present, she changed.

Speaker 1:

Number two is that we set the tone, and a lot of these parenthood things apply directly to leadership, and I don't mean leadership by positionship, I mean leadership by influence, leadership by stewardship. So we set the tone. If I I noticed that when I had great energy and I showed up that way around my kids and it's still true to this day it's hard for them to stay in a state that is vibrating at a lower place I set the tone. I bring that into the room. As a parent, that is a part of my responsibility. It doesn't mean that I have to be Pollyanna all the time. It doesn't mean that I have to be fake. That is also part of setting the tone, being able to communicate clearly when you're feeling a way that is whatever feeling frustrated or sad or a little emotional or irritable or whatever it is. Finding ways to communicate that, but understanding that our energy is everything and that we have the ability and the responsibility to shift that. And I have podcast episodes all about that for you. You can go check them out if you want. So we set the tone, we lead the way.

Speaker 1:

Again, it's really tempting and I've done this in adult relationships. It's essentially codependence. If I think that by me, fixing you is going to make me happier, I'm avoiding the reality that there's something in me that needs healing first. If I ever think, well, if I could just get her to be more happy as a kid, then I could be more happy. If I could just get him to do X, y, z, then I could be happy. That's just bypassing my own inner work. So if you're feeling that, remember here's some toughish love for you, that, like it's our responsibility to focus on us first and change our energy, heal what needs to be healed so that we can set the tone in a way that we want to set it.

Speaker 1:

Number three boundaries. The need to set boundaries, in my opinion, and which boundaries we set changes over the time. But boundaries are for safety until they become a cage, and that's big to me. And when they become a cage, that's when we experience resistance. And I will just say this this is like a little bit of a soapbox. I can feel it coming on in me right now, ever since my kids were little. So I have three daughters. They're 18, 16, and 13.

Speaker 1:

And ever since they were really little that's now, and maybe it's because I'm not holding space for this anymore but I would get comments like, oh, do you have kids? Yep, I have three daughters. And it was like, oh God, good luck. It was just this overwhelming response of like good, fucking luck. And I'm going to tell you what. Don't ever say that to me, because, because what is that saying? What A? What are you saying by saying that? What are you really saying? Girls are what Fill in the blank. And it's hard because why? So I'm just going to say, like that's a mirror for you if you're struggling with that. That's A, that's thing A.

Speaker 1:

Thing B is that, um, I just never adopted that mentality. I just never have mothered them from a place of fear or terror, and I think part of it was choosing this and part of it was believing this in in some days were different than others and I still feel this way. But like their younger years were really hard honestly the hardest years of my life in some ways but but like they are such a blessing and they are so uniquely beautiful and they are beautiful young women and I don't say that in defense of them or in defense of my mother, mothership, motherhood, mothering I say that to say I, what we expect is really important. If I expect them to be teenage terrors and I make decisions that way and I project that energy on them, what do you think is going to happen? If I expect them to fight me on everything and I hold my ground firmly and set boundaries because they need boundaries, like, do you think there's going to be more resistance there? Probably, to be honest, I haven't gotten that with them. And I've got one that I'm moving into college and she's an amazing woman. And I have a 16 year old who is equally amazing. They're all amazing. We have really real conversations and we are really humans and we have really real relationships, but they're far from good luck girls. They're like amazing human beings.

Speaker 1:

So what we expect that's number four. What we expect also informs what becomes reality. So check your expectations, check the words you're speaking, check the framework that you're setting around it. I have no doubt that it impacts how you show up, because it impacts how you feel internally. If I'm operating from a place of like oh God, this is going to be horrible I'm constricted internally and I'm showing up differently. So check that out. And back to just close the loop on the boundaries thing. They need boundaries for safety.

Speaker 1:

But really my grandmother said this once. She said say yes as much as you can, because when you need to say no, you need to make it count. And that really stuck with me. Like, can I get my septum pierced mom? Yes, because it doesn't matter to me. When I say no which is really pretty rare it really means no. It means no. So I say yes as much as I can.

Speaker 1:

And I also want them to understand that they have autonomy. We want to teach them autonomy and empowerment. Then I want them to understand that the decisions that they make are the ones that they make for better or worse. That they make are the ones that they make for better or worse. And so if I don't need to set a boundary there, then I'm going to let them set the boundary and have a really clear conversation with them, asking them have they thought through the consequences? Are they willing to live with it? What does that look like, feel like? So I'm going to help guide them through that, but I don't need to impose a boundary on the life that they're choosing to live.

Speaker 1:

There's all kinds of caveats. There's books and books and books on this topic. So I'm not, and I'm also not a psychologist. I'm just giving you my experience. Okay, there's my disclaimer Number five love is endless. These are in no particular order, by the way. I feel like that's number one, but whatever on my list, it's number five.

Speaker 1:

Um, you hear parents talk about like the moment they were born, they fell in love. The moment your child is born, you just instantly in love, and that is absolutely true and I have love. I love my children wildly. I feel it so deep. But I had this really like poignant experience. It was probably four or five years ago. It was my oldest daughter's birthday and I was putting together a Facebook post for her and I was going through pictures. And this is again in during these years that I'm doing this like deep inner work and really focus on opening my being to love. And so I'm in this tender place, like looking at pictures of her and working on not constricting in that moment. So if I feel tears come up, letting them fall and and as I'm opening to that sensation and opening to that feeling of love, I tap.

Speaker 1:

It was like I tapped into or experienced the deepest depths of love, like and I wrote about it it's actually pinned at the top of my Instagram profile if you want to go look but that, just like love, is an ocean, that it is endless, that we dive deep into these caves and that there's this underground water system and that is love and that source of love the ocean. There is no end to the depth and it is at the center of the earth and I know this is very poetic and I didn't have words for it until I experienced it and words don't do it justice. I didn't have words for it until I experienced it and words don't do it justice. But but having that experience was the thing that tapped me in most deeply for the first time, to love being an infinite source and feeling that in my sensorial, like having a embodied experience of that, not just this knowledge or this heart feeling of love, but a depth of love. Love is endless.

Speaker 1:

She taught me that, number six, there is a tremendous amount of value in listening without fixing. Uh, in my masculine, for so many years, uh, my girls would come to me with a challenge or a problem, or I would see them and think that there was a thing in them that needed to be fixed. And one of my daughters oh God, I love them all so much she one day just called me out on it and she was like mom, I don't need you to fix this right now. And this is just classic, right, like what a woman would say to a man in a relationship before talking about heteronormative. I'm sure it goes all kinds of ways in relationships, but she was like mom, I don't need you to fix this, I just want you to listen. And that was a moment on my journey of like, oh shit. A, my kids are cool and I'm glad we have that relationship.

Speaker 1:

And B, yeah, what does it feel like to listen with the eyes of compassion and a heart of compassion and not be trying to get through the conversation or figure out what there is to solve, but sit with with the best of your ability, with empathy, and ask like, what? What does it feel like to be in her shoes right now? Not like, I understand what it feels like to be in your shoes. I was in your shoes once and here's what I did. That's, that's fixing. That's very different from like. Let me do my best to ask questions that help me to really see through her eyes and experience what she's experiencing, and then respond from that place Like, wow, how does that feel? That must feel blah, blah, blah. Is that right? And be with somebody in their experience rather than walk them out of it. So that's my number six.

Speaker 1:

Number seven I kind of already said this, but resistance causes rebellion and I don't even know that. I would say that any of my kids have, quote unquote rebelled because there's not a lot to rebel against, because I haven't set boundaries where they don't. I don't I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, it sounds really arrogant maybe, but like I haven't had to set boundaries with them that they've had to push against. So I don't have like rebellion and maybe that's because, like the way I grew up, there were a lot of religious boundaries that I quote unquote, rebelled against. Looking back, I don't think I was that rebellious, I was just being human, you know living life. But, um, and the freedom with guidance is what empowers them to make decisions.

Speaker 1:

Number eight time moves fast. I had people stop me at the grocery store so many Costco, you know when they were little in a shopping cart and people stopping to say, oh my gosh, look at her smile and how adorable is she. And just like you have the sweetest. I'd get stopped a lot Like you have. It's kind of like getting stuck with my dog. Now people stop me like she's so sweet. I get that comment a lot with my girls when they were little, cause they were just genuinely pretty happy kids. And then the next comment is like it goes so fast, just like enjoy every moment. And that's fine in that moment when they're being really sweet. But when I go home and they're exhausted and they're throwing tantrums and I'm up every two hours breastfeeding and like there were moments that were pretty trying, right and exhausting and I remember having a little bit of like F you enjoy every moment Like I just need to survive this phase. So I'm sorry if you're in that place and this is really annoying to you, but like it goes fast.

Speaker 1:

I remember when my first was a baby. Oh gosh, you guys, do you think I could do an episode without crying? I remember when my oldest was a baby and I was rocking her at night. I was having a really hard time nursing Apparently. It's harder for redheads. For what it's worth, if you're redheaded and you're hearing this, I love you, I'm here for you. It was really challenging and quite painful and I remember just like wanting to, just like get through the night and then get through the week and then get through the month, and I kept looking to the next thing ahead. I kept looking to the next thing ahead and if I got to do it again, man, I would savor those moments. What a blessing to have children choose us. That's a belief that I have now and that they incarnated to have me be their mother. Just these super sweet little beings, little burritos swaddled in these blankets, just with these little burrito butts. If I had to do it again, I would save her every moment that I could, even through my exhaustion.

Speaker 1:

I went back to work with my third when she was four weeks old, and I had her in a baby of Bjorn while I was leading a church service with hundreds of people or the rehearsal for the Easter service. She was born on April 15th and might've even been less less old April, the four weeks, something like that. And why did I do that? I felt pressure, not not necessarily from anybody, but I was like, well, I can, I mean I'm going to be doing something anyways. It might as well just be up and like living my life and moving on with life and getting through this phase. And man, that went fast. I wish I would have stayed home and like enjoyed the snuggles with her more, rather than moving, moving, moving, moving, producing.

Speaker 1:

So it goes fast and I know it's hard. I know it's hard if you're in the thick of it right now, or maybe you do have a teenager. That's really, really challenging and that's really hard. And so this, this point, might be falling a little on a tender spot for you, and I recognize that too. And while I'm on that point, you might be wanting children and not able to have any, or going through an adoption process and struggling with that, and my heart is with you in that too. There's hard stuff in all of this sometimes. But yeah, or maybe you've lost one or more to miscarriage, and that is really painful too. So I just want to acknowledge that. Okay, nine, Enough of that. Let me just fan myself off so I can breathe. Okay, number nine life just keeps getting better. That's a lesson that I have seen through parenthood, that for me, every phase just keeps getting more rich.

Speaker 1:

My oldest and her relationships and, um, my middle. The other day we were driving and she just got her license and got a new job that I didn't even know about, cause she, like applied herself and went to the interview herself and was like oh yeah, mom, I'm starting work at this job at the mall of America and I'm like what she's like, yeah. And so we were in the car driving and she looked over at me. She's like hey, mom, I'm like what she's like. I feel really independent and it feels good. I'm like, and it should, and you should be proud of yourself and it's just such a joy. It's such a joy. My dad used to say that all the time about me, and he said that when I had them keeps getting better.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the last one I had. I already said so. I don't know how many that was. Was that nine? Was that 10? Maybe it's nine, maybe it's nine parenting lessons and we're just going to have to go with that uneven number. There you go. This is what parenthood has taught me, mothering has taught me. I hope this is helpful to you, whether you're a parent or not. I think that there are these lessons that we can apply to all of life, and so take with them and do what you will and, in the meantime, have a banging day.

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