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Inspirational Mentor
Written By: Robyn Mills What I want to talk to you about in today’s blog, is the power of having a special person in your life who believes in you and your work, your ideas and your possibilities. Who tells you the truth when you are drifting off track. Who allows you to make mistakes but also asks you to see them for what they are and change them into a learning experience and a positive in life. A true mentor holds your vision for you, long before you can even see it yourself. I have been lucky enough to have several mentors in recent years. Right now my forever BFF is Rosina. A wise woman with insights into me that I can’t see myself. She is not afraid to tell me the truth or to hear the truth. This is an important trait that not everyone is capable of. It is imperative that I explain to you the distinction between an amazing mentor and a person who tells you what you want to hear. For example, if you make a mistake a friend might say to you “that’s not your fault…the other person should have known better”. That might make you feel better about yourself for a short while, but the lesson that comes from the mistake gets lost in translation and the whole things becomes clouded. A trusted mentor on the other hand might ask you to reflect from the beginning and see when the trouble began. Let me give you an example: I was having fun with a creative task with my grandchildren and had to leave the room to grab a sharper pair of scissors. We were making rainbow pom poms. I walked back into the room to a 6 year old (Scott) protesting that his brother had slapped him across the face. My first instinct was to take the craft away and get angry at Harry, the second grandchild. Luckily I have worked with Rosina (WinWin Parenting) long enough that she was whispering in my ear (metaphorically) and after a breath, I gently asked them to sit up at the kitchen bench and to take me back to the beginning of what happened between them. Let me paint the scene for you. Previously, Scott had asked me to teach him how to make pom poms and I had purchased wool and a plastic pom pom maker, that I hadn’t used before. Much further advanced than the cardboard ones we used to make. Still I made a mistake and the pom pom fell apart, leaving me to yet again, read the instructions and change to a stronger wool. While I was out of the room, Harry reminded Scott that he was having a turn next. Scott apparently said “No your not, I’m make lots” and against Harry’s protests got angrier and called him names. Harry reacted with his hands, slapping Scott across the face. They both agreed that this is exactly the way it had played out. I asked them to see where the first mistake happened. Yep…Scott not wanting to share the pom pom maker. Great moment! I got to ask them how could that have been different. Oh so many ways! I didn’t give them the answers, they worked it out for themselves. Firstly, trying to hold onto something that was a shared experience to prevent your brother having a turn. Secondly, saying things that are not nice to your brother. At the end of this part we got to talk about sharing and family and the joy of watching someone else achieve their goal of making a pom pom. Now to Harry…what could you have done differently? Well, not use my hands in anger to get what I want! Brilliant. Could you please look at each other now and apologise from your heart? Yes! Did I put the pom pom machine away? No…I apologised for my mistake in not reading the instructions properly and choosing wool that broke easily. I role modelled that it is Ok to make mistakes and lets work on it together to see where it went wrong. We also asked Grandpa, because he is great at reading instructions. I was able to mentor my grandchildren because Rosina, mentors me. Rosina teaches parents to mentor their children and she can do this because she is an amazing parent mentor and colleague mentor. A friend with benefits (LOL). She allows me the space to make mistakes and helps me nut them out and see if there is a better way. She holds me in high esteem as I do her and that is a powerful combination. Your takeaways from this blog is to see if you have a friend, mentor, teacher, inspirational leader, who helps you grow and develop and nurtures you along the way. Who ‘gets you’, who walks your talk, who holds you to account in loving ways. A mentor who can see where you are now and assists you to become who you are going to be. This is priceless. Find the person or persons who can be this gift for you and be willing to be vulnerable and open with them. The most important thing is not to be afraid of making mistakes, of telling and hearing the truth. In vulnerability comes great strength. Harry said to me “Your a GREAT Grammie”, I laughed and said “Let’s call me GG for short”. ================================================ Other Blogs Written by Robyn Mills 1) Change 2) Who You are Really Matters 3) Grandparenting: The gift the circle of life brings back to you. 4) What Does it Mean to Love? 5) Inspirational Mentor ================================================ 1000 Stories Creating 1000 Ripple Effects Across the World! ► Follow the 1000 Ripple Effects Journey: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ► Subscribe To: 1000 Ripple Effects Youtube Channel Share this Blog. Spread the motivation. ================================================ FOLLOW US: Facebook: www.facebook.com/1000rippleeffects Twitter: www.twitter.com/1000rippleeffec Youtube: Link to Youtube Channel Website: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ================================================
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What does it mean to love?
Written by: Robyn Mills When I think about loving another person, It is easier to understand what love might look like. When I think about how I treat someone that I know I truly love, my grandchildren come to mind immediately. When I am around them my heart feels softer, I am kind and understanding, I can’t wait to embrace them, and I certainly afford them graces easily and forgive them when they make mistakes. I love them when they are well behaved and I love them equally when they are behaving poorly. I treat my grandchildren, with kindness and patience. I am happy to repeat something many times while they are learning. I accept that they make mistakes and I teach them how I want to be treated and tell them how to respect me. I make sure there is fun and laughter between us and that there is always time to just BE together. Where does “I love you” come into this conversation. Most people can say “I love you”, but just ‘saying’ you love someone isn’t enough. You can say it 20 times a day and still treat someone in aggressive ways or be mean to them. Love in this way is more a repetition of empty words than a feeling in the heart that vibrates love. It is important to back up your words of love with behaviours that show love towards the other person. Be clear, that I am not saying that we all have to be saints and that we don’t react when something irritates you. But shortly after reacting, you take yourself back to a state of love. Let us look at the love we share with our grandchildren. In a state of love, you are surrounding your grandchild with a safe, loving environment where he/she knows and feels that love. Of course when they are giving you a cuddle, you can feel their unconditional love come towards you and you to them. The key here is to embrace that feeling of love and take it into your heart, that is where the patience and the ability to tolerate the disruptions comes from. Love is like a buffer creating resilience to the daily stressors of being in relationship. Imagine for a moment you go down the street and a stranger looks at you in disgust and yells at you or calls you names. Your hackles rise quickly and you either runaway or get angry and retaliate. With no prior relationship, no love, it is going to be very hard to be calm and loving towards this person. But a grandchild gives you an angry look and says I hate you, you are still shocked, but you try to understand whatever in the world is going on with them in that moment. Love acts like a buffer, like a shock absorber, creating a filter that helps you view incidents in a more understanding way. I must say, that it can be easier to love a child because your expectations of them are far less than the adults in your life. We know they are learning and we give them a safe space where learning can take place. I have given a grandchild as an example, because it is this love that we want to be able to cultivate and replicate with the adults in our lives. In my case, the love I have for my grandchildren has softened me in ways I would never have imagined possible and dissolved barriers that I had built around my heart to shelter me from past emotional wounds. The question that this raises is how then do you also love the adults in your life with the same unconditional and pervasive love that you share with your grandchildren. As I have said, our expectations of our grandchildren are far less than that of an adult. Especially when you think of tiny babies that just need feeding, changing and cuddling. Mostly you know what they want and you are happy to give it to them. Even sleep deprived parents are still able to flood their newborn with love. As children get older and their demands get higher, particularly a two to three year old, who answers back and stomps their feet at you, yelling ‘Nooooo”, your expression of love can often be hindered by overwhelming feelings of frustration. I don’t believe you can feel two emotions at once. Especially polar opposites like anger and love. We talk about unconditional love as being something that goes beyond behaviour or demands of another, as always being there, as an infinite resource between parents and their children, and grandparents and their grandchildren and of adults you are in relationship with. That for me is true. But…what I am exploring here is the expression of love, so that you feel it and your child/grandchild feels it. How many of us grew up not knowing if we were loved, yet if we asked our parents they would say “of course I loved you”. This raises the question of whether the expression of love in the everyday interactions with others is the key. I am not talking about saying ‘I love you’, or writing beautiful cards on valentines day, or a bouquet of roses, which of course enhances feelings of love and is a wonderful part of love. I am talking about the caring, sharing, forgiving and the inclusion of someone into your life, love isexpressed in the everyday moments of life. Love requires being present to yourself and the other. It is easy to be distracted in our fast paced world of technology, not just for teenagers, but for people of all ages, from babies to grandparents, technology consumes and diverts us away from focusing on love. Whether it is television, mobile phones, Ipad or computers, we are all guilty of being distracted from being totally present to the people that we love. We can be experts at multitasking getting many different things done at once and maybe achieving great success in them. But love is different, it can’t be slotted into a multitude of other tasks and distractions. It deserves full attention. It only takes a moment to express love and to feel love. My grandchildren are teaching me that love is in the little moments, the times when you have eye contact and smile from your heart. Little Emily, is still an infant, and when she gains eye contact and a smile from someone, her face lights up and she smiles back. It reminds me of a pure love. She is responding to love with love. The older grandchildren give and receive love too, in many different ways. They say “I love you” all the time without being prompted, they just feel it and express it. If I am ever feeling a bit stressed or under the pump and they ask if there is anything they can do to help, I instantly feel their love by by their thoughts and actions. They sense that I’m not on my “A” game and they step in without hesitation. Likewise, when they want to play something and they want me to join them, I say yes as often as I can. We are teaching each other that the love is in the moments that you choose to share with one another. As adults, we can learn a lot from children and the way they love. Moments of connection throughout the day seem to be enough to build a deep relationship with them. Not just when you are trying to get them to bed and to sleep, but throughout their day. They easily ask for what they want when they want it and they bring their joy and love into the adults world without hesitation. I wonder, how many of these moments we can create with the adults we love. In such a task orientated world, how can we build significant moments of love into our primary relationships. Some might say we are time poor and therefore can’t stop what we are doing to think about the other person. Yet, it only takes a smile, a touch, a kind word for love to be built. In the adult world, sometimes love can seem like a finite resource. You start with a cup of love that’s overflowing and then over time when rejection and hurt take their toll, little by little, the glass is emptied and eventually dries up. That feeling of being unloved can certainly feel dried up and empty. I prefer to think about love on a continuum, where unloved is a feeling at one end and totally loved is feeling at the other. For some people, who may not have experienced love as a child or have been wounded in some way that has shut them down, love has to be rebuilt and they need to be helped move along the continuum. Thinking about love on a continuum can give us awareness of what behaviours and thoughts you have that move you along the continuum towards love and what behaviours and thoughts move you away from love. Likewise, the behaviours and thoughts that you have with your loved ones can also take you towards love or away from love. Of course there is a balance here, it is not the other persons responsibility to make you feel loved or push you along the continuum, however, your interpretation of their thoughts and behaviours towards you will take you towards love or away from love ================================================ Other Blogs Written by Robyn Mills 1) Change 2) Who You are Really Matters 3) Grandparenting: The gift the circle of life brings back to you. 4) What Does it Mean to Love? 5) Inspirational Mentor ================================================ 1000 Stories Creating 1000 Ripple Effects Across the World! ► Follow the 1000 Ripple Effects Journey: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ► Subscribe To: 1000 Ripple Effects Youtube Channel Share this Blog. Spread the motivation. ================================================ FOLLOW US: Facebook: www.facebook.com/1000rippleeffects Twitter: www.twitter.com/1000rippleeffec Youtube: Link to Youtube Channel Website: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ================================================ Grandparenting:
The gift the circle of life brings back to you. Written by: Robyn Mills In this blog, I ask you to reflect on your family, in particular your grandparents influence in your life. I came home from hospital a week after the birth of my first child, an excited and proud first mum. As night fell, my daughter began to cry and cried all night long. I realised then, that even though I was a trained nurse with many years experience, I was unprepared for the task of being a parent. My husband who had never been around children was in the same dilemma. Luckily, my motherinlaw was there to help. There is nothing like experience in any area of life to help those who are novices in their field. Parenting too can savour the wisdom of those who have gone before and be bolstered by the hands on experience that our mothers and fathers had. Experiences that have been handed down from the generations before, each tweaking the information to suit the moment at hand. However, in this modern, fast paced society, with multitasking at its fore, how valuable is the experience of the past generation. I know that the world has changed dramatically since I was a young mother and so have I. The current dilemma for parents is one of “expectations vs time” and this seems to be at a greater dissonance now than it has ever been. Often grandparents have more time than parents and less expectations. Grandparents have valuable years of experience whereas the current generation of parents has a wealth of knowledge and advice available to them at a mere click of their fingers. On face value, it would seem that the two positions are miles apart. The most prominent tool that my parents used was to whack us across the backside and send us to bed without our tea. When pushed to his limit, my father would hit us across the face. In his later years, he came to regret this when his son lost his life to a brain tumour, he was riddled with guilt as he thought that the regular whacks to the back of his head may have caused this. My father and brother were heavy smokers and this was much more likely to be the cause, but nevertheless my dad felt he had let Harry down. As a young mother, I never slapped my children across the face, so deleted this parenting reaction from my list of possibilities. I did however hit my children, rarely I might add, across the bottom, in my earlier years of parenting. I stopped doing this overnight when I realised it was a sign of me being totally out of control and that I was repeating a pattern that I did not want to be part of. I certainly wouldn’t send my children to bed hungry either, a threat often made by my parents. It would seem that each generation has had to adapt to the trends of parenting that are resonating in society at the time. My parents adopted the view that children should be seen and not heard. In my time, I decided that my children should have a voice, even if I struggled many a time with the noise of three girls in one household. Everything has changed in parenting for the current. ================================================ Other Blogs Written by Robyn Mills 1) Change 2) Who You are Really Matters 3) Grandparenting: The gift the circle of life brings back to you. 4) What Does it Mean to Love? 5) Inspirational Mentor ================================================ 1000 Stories Creating 1000 Ripple Effects Across the World! ► Follow the 1000 Ripple Effects Journey: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ► Subscribe To: 1000 Ripple Effects Youtube Channel Share this Blog. Spread the motivation. ================================================ FOLLOW US: Facebook: www.facebook.com/1000rippleeffects Twitter: www.twitter.com/1000rippleeffec Youtube: Link to Youtube Channel Website: https://www.1000rippleeffects.com ================================================ |
Stacey Huish
I am going to blog and document the journey of creating 1000 Ripple Effects across the world. Archives
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