At North Star Family Matters we operate according to the following beliefs:

--Every child is born with an innate curiosity and love of learning.
--Every child is unique and his/her individuality is valuable to the family and the world.
--Every child is born with unbounded potential.
--Any child can have high self esteem, be self-motivated, and be respectful of themselves and others if given the appropriate tools and experiences.
-- How we treat our toddlers and children today has a direct influence on their self-opinion and the choices they will make as teenagers and young adults.

As parents, it is our responsibility to:

--Support our children’s unique talents and abilities.
--Foster our children’s innate curiosity and love of learning.
-- Empower our kids to make meaningful decisions every day.
-- Respect our children’s thoughts, ideas, & emotions.
-- Help our children reach their full potential.
-- Treat our children with the same respect, understanding, and love that we expect them to show toward us.
-- Acknowledge that parenting is as much a learning process for us as for our children.

You have a backpack. We all do. You carry it with you everywhere you go. Your backpack has an infinite capacity, and carries whatever you put in it. The best part about it is that you get to choose exactly what goes inside your backpack. Let’s talk a little about what you can and often do put in your backpack.

Emotions are carried in your backpack. The important thing to consider as you choose which emotions to keep is their weight.

Joy is very light. You can carry around acres of joy, and it is light as a feather. Other wonderfully light emotions you’ll want to keep are ones like playfulness, peace, calmness, gratitude, enthusiasm, and relaxation.
Heavy emotions are things like anger, frustration, or sorrow. When you hang on to these, you are putting heavy stones in your backpack. Often it feels as though these stones are thrown at you. Catch them in your hands. It’s okay to catch them. Toss them around a bit, from hand to hand. Feel them. They are yours for that moment. The important thing to remember with these heavier emotions is that while it is important to feel their weight and learn from them, you do not need to put them in your backpack. Once you are done with these emotions and have received all you need to receive from them, simply put them back on the ground as you continue along your journey.

Experiences are another thing you carry in your backpack. These too have different weights. Victim-ness is a very heavy experience to carry in your backpack. It weighs you down. It slows you down. You use a lot of energy to carry it with you. Each time you feel yourself a victim, you put a new stone in your backpack.

Have you ever listened to people list all of their bad experiences? Their backpacks carry many heavy stones. Consider their lives. Are they moving and growing, or have they remained in the same place for years?

Take a moment now to sit down. Look inside your backpack. Just sit in the grass at the side of your road. Take your backpack off. I’m sure you can use the breather from carrying it. How many heavy stones do you have? Are you ready to take them out of your backpack?
One way to release your heavy load is through forgiveness. As you forgive, you remove the heavy stones from your backpack. Forgiving others is important, but sometimes the heaviest stones are removed by forgiving yourself. You don’t need to do this all at once. As you continue along your journey, simply sit down from time to time and look inside your backpack.

As you release your heavy experiences, your load begins to lighten. You stand taller. You have more energy to pursue the activities that bring you joy. You experience freedom in a way you may have forgotten. As your pace quickens, and the spring in your step returns, you see many more beautiful experiences to put in your backpack. Joyful memories are surprisingly light. You can carry a lot of them. Fun is another experience that absolutely belongs in your backpack. Celebrations fit in there effortlessly, seemingly not adding an ounce.

As you stop on the side of the road from time to time to look through your backpack, you will notice how much lighter it is getting, yet when you look inside it’s so full! Before long, during these picnics along the roadside, instead of taking out stones and putting them down, you’re looking through the abundance of memories and feelings you’ve consciously chosen to carry with you. They seem to multiply right before your eyes. As you stand to continue your journey, you feel surprisingly light; even more so than you did before you sat down. You notice how many more light and joyful experiences are along your path. It becomes fun to look around for them, and to test just how full you can get your backpack. What do you choose to carry in your backpack?

Check our website for more information or you can also subscribe for more info on conscious parenting, empowering kids and also EFT

at www.northstarfamilymatters.com

 

Wendy Garrido

Editor -in-Chief

North Star Family Matters

698 East Promontory Road

Shelton, WA 98584

360-426-6478

wendy@northstarfamilymatters.com