Since it's the time of year where we are putting the final touches on our planning for the fall, I wanted to repost this from June.  It is just as important for you to schedule what you'd like to do for yourself.  This is just a reminder...

** If you'd like to see the original post and comments as well as the slideshow, please visit http://www.theintuitiveparent.com/1/post/2011/06/liberal-arts-living-ii.html.


June 24, 2011

This is my 2nd annual Liberal Arts Living blog.  I hadn’t planned on this being an annual thing but I decided that since I have done a whole lot more living since my blog a year ago, I wanted to share with all of you.  My only hope is that it will inspire you to get up and do something new.

Over the past year:

•  I decided to publish a book; which most of you know already.
•  I learned how to knit.
•  I learned how to sew wool felt playthings for my kids.
•  I learned how to get over my fear of singing in front of everyone.
•  I have learned about adding more raw food recipes to our family food choices.
•  I learned how to grow my own organic garden.
•  I am learning how to play the bass; something I have said I wanted to do since high school.
•  I made my first herbal tinctures.
•  And most recently, my husband, 14 year old son and I decided to participate in the NH 48 Hour Film Project.  We had to write, shoot, edit and complete a 5 to 7 minute mini-move with all work being done in the 48 hour period.

There are a lot of new things that are in the works for the next year but I will keep those under wraps until I actually do them.  A lot of them are new for me.  The ones I am most excited, as well as nervous, about are the ones where I will be out there helping other parents.

How does all of this fit into my parenting?  I am living the kind of life I want my kids to live.  A life not filled with “I always wanted to”s and “someday”s and certainly NOT “when the kids move out”s.  What kind of example would that be for them?  If I haven’t been always learning something new and actively pursuing my interests, I do fear what kind of message that would give my kids.
Would it tell my daughter that to be a stay at home mom is to be boring, or bored?  Would it tell my sons that their future wives couldn’t pursue what their interests were unless it were making an income?  Would it tell the kids that mom can’t start living her own life until they are out of the house?

Instead I am showing them that you can be an involved, loving parent with close relationships with your kids without smothering them or living your life vicariously through them.  I am showing them that parents need to feel fulfilled and it makes them better parents.  I am showing them, and go look this one up for yourselves, that the key to staying younger is to always learn something new.  I could sit here and just “tell” them about all of this, but actually doing it shows them that I would know what I was talking about if I did talk to them about it.

I hope I have inspired you to get up and just go do one new thing.  I don’t care what it is or how crazy it sounds!  There is no excuse good enough not to.  Would you do it if I told you your kid's future happiness depends on it?

This is my 2nd annual Liberal Arts Living blog.  I hadn’t planned on this being an annual thing but I decided that since I have done a whole lot more living since my blog a year ago, I wanted to share with all of you.  My only hope is that it will inspire you to get up and do something new.

Over the past year:

•  I decided to publish a book; which most of you know already.
•  I learned how to knit.
•  I learned how to sew wool felt playthings for my kids.
•  I learned how to get over my fear of singing in front of everyone.
•  I have learned about adding more raw food recipes to our family food choices.
•  I learned how to grow my own organic garden.
•  I am learning how to play the bass; something I have said I wanted to do since high school.
•  I made my first herbal tinctures.
•  And most recently, my husband, 14 year old son and I decided to participate in the NH 48 Hour Film Project.  We had to write, shoot, edit and complete a 5 to 7 minute mini-move with all work being done in the 48 hour period.

There are a lot of new things that are in the works for the next year but I will keep those under wraps until I actually do them.  A lot of them are new for me.  The ones I am most excited, as well as nervous, about are the ones where I will be out there helping other parents.

How does all of this fit into my parenting?  I am living the kind of life I want my kids to live.  A life not filled with “I always wanted to”s and “someday”s and certainly NOT “when the kids move out”s.  What kind of example would that be for them?  If I haven’t been always learning something new and actively pursuing my interests, I do fear what kind of message that would give my kids.
Would it tell my daughter that to be a stay at home mom is to be boring, or bored?  Would it tell my sons that their future wives couldn’t pursue what their interests were unless it were making an income?  Would it tell the kids that mom can’t start living her own life until they are out of the house?

Instead I am showing them that you can be an involved, loving parent with close relationships with your kids without smothering them or living your life vicariously through them.  I am showing them that parents need to feel fulfilled and it makes them better parents.  I am showing them, and go look this one up for yourselves, that the key to staying younger is to always learn something new.  I could sit here and just “tell” them about all of this, but actually doing it shows them that I would know what I was talking about if I did talk to them about it.

I hope I have inspired you to get up and just go do one new thing.  I don’t care what it is or how crazy it sounds!  There is no excuse good enough not to.  Would you do it if I told you your kid's future happiness depends on it?


** If you subscribe via rss feed, please visit www.theintuitiveparent.com to see the slide show.

      I have really wanted to write about how to overcome the excuses that keep you from living your passion and doing things that you really want to do.  However, I wasn’t about to post a blog about something I haven’t completely finished working on myself.  To me, that would be presumptuous, controlling and hypocritical.  How can I give anyone good guidance on something, even if I know the steps to take, unless I have taken all those steps myself?  Instead of writing about it, I have been focusing on what my own excuses have been for not doing things I know I can do, but just haven’t done.  I realized that the excuses weren’t holding up to my own scrutiny anymore.  I also looked at them through my kids’ eyes and saw that I was setting a bad example!  I can see how my Liberal Arts Living blog seemed to suggest that I already was living without excuses, but I knew that wasn’t completely true…

      A couple of months ago, I started reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron due to a recommendation from Kerri Richardson.  Not only did I notice the recommendation elsewhere, but I was also offered the title for trade at Swap.com.  Once I start to see repeating patterns like that, I have learned that I should pay attention!  I received the book and read a few chapters, hoping it would help me focus more on my writing.  You’ll never guess what happened!  Not only did my “writer” self decide to completely clam up, but it totally took a backseat to the artist that I had hidden away many years ago. 

      You see, a long time ago, I used to dance and sing!  I don’t need to go into the history of why I stopped, I will leave that for the book I am contemplating, but I can say that I was still a child and was in an abusive situation where those passions were purposely squashed.  You know how some kids get really into one thing and they are always doing it?  Not just for a few months but they are into it for years?  Well that was me with dancing and singing.  Sadly, after certain events made me abandon those passions, I never went back.

      Now years later, I am completely supporting my kids in their passions yet somehow feeling like a hypocrite.  It was when I started reading The Artist’s Way that I realized I can’t sit back and tell my kids all the reasons I wasn’t allowed to stay on my path when I was a kid and also give them excuses for why I didn’t ever try to follow my passions once I was calling my own shots in life.  I didn’t want to show them that it’s ok to make excuses not to do something they really have an inner urge to pursue.  After all, I know that most of what you tell your kids will never override how they see you living your own life!

      So here’s how I solved it… I contacted a very, very talented dance instructor I had gone to dance school with years ago to see if she could refer me to a local dance school.  It turns out that she is friends with someone who has a school only 15 minutes from me!  Not only did I sign the kids up, which was my original intention, but I signed up for a Jazz class for myself.

      The next thing I needed to accomplish was much harder for me.  I had become so afraid to sing in front of anyone that I didn’t think I ever would.  I felt pretty ridiculous about it since I am married to a musician!  It took me about a week or two of talking myself into it.  I even mentioned it to a few friends that I knew would be supportive, that way I’d have the push I needed.  I know that if I tell someone I am going to do something, I will never embarrass myself by not doing it.  I only told friends who I felt like I could answer to safely; meaning I knew they would never judge me or discourage me if for some reason I changed my mind.  And you know what, not only did I finally do it, but I did it on a PA system, microphone and all, with full support of my incredible husband.  I have even survived a night or two where I just felt “off”, even saying the words “I suck” with tears in my eyes, and yet shook it off and got back up and did it again a few nights later.

      So how does this all fit into being a more intuitive parent?  Being an intuitive parent is a lot more than knowing your kids well and figuring out how to help your kids navigate through life while living true to who they are.  That’s only half of it!  The other half is being the living example of the type of life you want your kids to have.  I can only keep focused on what that means for my family and hope that what I do not only benefits my own well-being, by each of my kid’s life paths as well.  Above all, I want them to see that there is always a way to do something they want to do.

_    Everything I know today I learned after I graduated from college.  Truly, that is when the real learning began.  When I say “real” learning, I mean all the stuff that has been of interest to me as well as things I may have needed to know for a job.  I have to say that the ONLY thing I have applied from my 20 years of formal schooling, besides reading, writing and math, has been the elective business courses I took in college.  And I mean “elective” as in my own college advisor thought I was crazy taking on serious business courses even though I wanted to take them. 

      My first job had nothing to do with what I went to school for yet I got this decent paying job because I had been playing with computers and computer programming since I was a kid.  I mean, what did I know about retirement planning and database programming?  All I knew how to do regarding finance was balance a checkbook!  I’m pretty certain I was hired not because of what I was or wasn’t trained for but because of my attitude and willingness to learn anything based on the skills I had already (self) acquired.   In fact, I’m willing to bet I was the only applicant to say that I used to write programs on our old Commodore 64 computer at home for fun!   And, yes, within the month, I had learned how to program the database program to spit out usable reports. 

      Since my stint at that job, my husband and I have purchased five houses and sold four of them in three different parts of the country, even in a bad economy.  We have learned how to purchase classic muscle cars at a discount and then completely restore them on our own and on a budget, including the engines.  We learned how to scavenge flea markets and purchase classic video games and auction them via e-lists in the days before eBay even existed.  When my husband had a software idea, I set up a business registration, designed the website and learned how to get top search engine placement in the days before AdSense and the like, all in a matter of a few months.   I also learned how to design and place ads in industry magazines in order to increase our distribution.  These are just a few of the things we have done and none were born of necessity.

      This kind of self learning hasn’t stopped.  I took the same approach with parenting, food, home improvement, and even interpersonal relationships.  I am currently learning about growing our own food responsibly and organically.  I am learning about the amazing healing effects of herbs through trying them out for myself.  And I am even foraying into the world of self publishing through writing a book with a friend.  I also have a mental list of things that I would love to set aside the time to learn about in the future.  If they are still important to me by the time my current projects are done, then I am sure I will give them a try.

      So what is the point of telling you all of this?  The most important lesson I have learned is that if you want to stay happy, vibrant and present in your life never, ever stop learning something new.  You don’t need a fancy liberal arts education to choose liberal arts living.  If you have kids, know how important it is to show that learning never stops by LIVING it.  I am no more “special” than any of you are.  If I can learn how to rebuild a car engine out of curiosity, then so can you!