RELATional fitness
your family's heartbeat depends on it
Relational Fitness — There probably isn’t a mother who believes she’s completely “ready” to help her children become who they want them to be. We parents rise to the current challenges as we go along, but perhaps the question to ask is this:
Sammy ~ October 2015
Do you feel emotionally and relationally fit—in a state of readiness—to tackle the challenges surrounding the heartbeat of your family? If you’re feeling something lacking; if you could use more capacity, then the answer might point to the need for more personal growth and development.
Let’s look at this idea. Your daily decisions for your physical health will either increase your capacity for life or severely limit you. It’s the same for relational health. The decision you’re making today to delay your personal inner growth will limit your capacity tomorrow to lead your children through increasingly more mature processes of growth, development, and learning.
The reality is that your child’s development is completely dependent upon you to become the best possible version of yourself along the journey of life. You can only transfer to your children what you have known for yourself. If you are still the same person you were when you started having children, you will limit your children as well.
As parents, we all need to become as familiar as possible with the inner workings of how growth processes work so we can confidently bring our children with us instead of pushing them to fumble and flounder on their own.
your inner and outer worlds
Your level of personal development in your outer world (health, finances, relationships, home education, and the knowledge, experience, mindset, and beliefs in each of those areas) will always be a struggle if you don’t dedicate time each day to your inner world to bring order out of chaos.
Your inner world includes your thought life, your character of heart, your habits, and your emotional receptors. Your outer world will always parallel and reflect this inner world.
most parenting concerns
are relational ones
In all of my years of meeting homeschooling moms and answering their questions, I found that nearly every question has had a relational answer. Even many of the academic concerns moms have had can be solved with a relational answer that addresses either the character, learning style, interest bent, age-readiness, or other soul-felt need of the child. The real problem lies within mom who often can’t see past her own weaknesses, fears, anxieties, biases, and cultural expectations to get to know her individual children to learn what they truly need. Mom isn’t in a state of internal readiness to address her parenting and educating challenges and so keeps looking outwardly for what will fix her kids.
2014
You don’t have to develop emotional or relational intelligence—an ability that trained professional therapists and psychologists have. However, you do have to become emotionally and relationally fit. Relational fitness is a state of readiness where you’re ready to tackle the challenges of parenting and educating your children, but more importantly addressing their heart-level needs. You don’t have to go to school to grow into more fitness. You only need God to parent you and He is very practical and knows you and your children better than you do.
Only you can take actions in harmony with truth for your life. No one else can do it for you, not your spouse or the “wishing fairy”.
You can’t afford to wait for someone else (like your husband, perhaps?) to do what you think they ought to be doing. You can choose this day to become the best version of yourself who will create and add value to everyone under your charge, every single day.
who you are right now matters to god
It’s true that you are not everything you are meant to be, but you matter to God just the same. And, you are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating health, great relationships, love, and success in your life as any other mom who carries the weight of responsibility for her family’s home education, no matter what your circumstances are now.
Who you are now matters to God, and your growth and development matter to Him too. Your family depends on you knowing that, so they will know this truth too—that they matter to God and that He wants to help them personally. It’s absolutely crucial for the impact you make on your children and husband that you start living in alignment with the truth that you matter to God, and He wants to help you along your way of personal growth and development. “Man plans his way, but the Lord orders His steps.”
Autumn 2015
A Personal Story from Summer 2015—
When my son-in-love, Aaron, began a personal early morning routine that included time for prayer and exercise, his life had been over-stressed for nearly two years with the complete care of his two young boys every morning before heading to a full day’s work. My daughter had been in an extensive recovery period from complicated double jaw re-alignment surgery and the serious health issues that ensued to her neurology.
She spent much of her time in bed and couldn’t help him in those first couple of hours in the morning before he went to work.
I’m sure you can imagine the burden of carrying his wife’s daily duties, including laundry and dinner
when he got home from work. It really took a toll on his own health and he was pretty desperate to regain some control. He was inspired that he didn’t actually have to “add” something to his morning that kept him from tending to his kids, he just needed to bring his boys into it with him, and he did. He was much relieved and they loved it, and he’s been going strong ever since, losing a bunch of weight and feeling better than he’s felt in years. He found a way to make it work for him. God inspired him and he took action.
Do you believe that God wants to help you further your own growth and development? Can you see how you might fit in one thing toward that purpose? Receive inspiration from the Lord. He wants to give it to you! Let me know what you do!
NEXT ARTICLE
#3
5 WAYS TO SHIFT YOUR FOCUS
TOWARD FRUTFULNESS IN YOUR FAMILY'S RELATIONSHIPS
