The most important thing of all...

Every Thursday for a couple of hours I get to sit in an incredible circle of wise goddess women. It is the most affirming hours of my week and I leave every circle feeling inspired to greatness.
Yesterday celtic goddess said this, in regards to mothering: "The very most important thing you can do is to love yourself so much that you can love your children for who they really are."
The words vibrated through my soul, bouncing off all the tender spots in my spirit before I promptly burst into tears. Why didn't someone tell me that before I had children? Why is it so hard to love myself? To really love myself. On all levels. All the way to my deepest core. I can love my children completely. Why can't THAT be the most important thing of all... Because, of course, it's not possible. It is simply NOT possible to love our children unconditionally unless we first hold equally unconditional love for ourselves. Otherwise there will always be something in our children that we are (often subconsciously) trying to change. And we ALL know that THAT is not in the vision we hold for our children (that we forevermore be niggling about, trying to tweak this and that in their little souls...)
So many of my friends wonder why their mothers are still trying to change them? My friends are incredible women, in their 30's and 40's, many of them mothers themselves, most of them evolved far beyond their mothers. Yet they continually get an underlying current of desired improvement from their mothers. And now we know why. Because of that one very most important thing...
Then another goddess friend of mine said "okay,so our mothers all made mistakes, but look at us! We're good people! Don't you think it's the striving that's ultimately the most important?" And I felt hope. I can strive. I AM striving. If striving were a sport I would excel...
So now I know the most important thing AND I have perspective. I can strive to love ALL parts of myself. All my shadows. All my weaknesses, ALL of me...
One of the things that I am struggling to understand in my children is that they are not always kind. Something deep inside me (emanating, you can be sure, from one of my own dark spots I am now striving to love) wants them to be always kind. It was pointed out that we can try to make our children be nice but we cannot make them be kind. We can inspire kindness but we cannot build rules around it. And the thing is, I don't WANT them to be nice. I want them to be real. And it was so clear to me that by doing anything around kindness (except modeling), I am instilling the desire to be nice. And anytime you TRY to be nice, you've already stopped being real. Kindness comes from the depths of your heart, from a place that is completely untouched by trying.
So then, what is my true vision for my children? It's pretty clear. That they love themselves so completely that kindness towards themselves emanates from the depths of their beings and thus spreads out to everyone around them... There is no nice in my vision at all.
So it goes without saying that that first has to be my vision for myself: to love myself so completely, to feel such depths of kindness towards myself that this same kindness fills my aura, drips from my fingertips and touches everyone around me (everyone, of course, being the population of the planet)... Not bad, hey?
What's your vision? For your children? For your own soul? For your life?
Happy Loving. Happy Striving. Happy Friday.