Space to explore

[caressa]

This reading has stayed with me since I read it a couple of hours ago.

eor.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=spuds&action=display&thread=9392&page=1

It talks about giving others space to do what they need to do and I realized that being a single parent, I am not sure I gave my son that. In later years when he was using, but when he was growing up, I thought I had to be mother and father and I think I was too protective and didn't allow him to do enough things on his own.

I thought was was teaching him life skills and yet looking back, didn't have a lot of knowledge of my own to pass on. All I knew how to pass on to him was how to act when you are using or how you allow others to abuse you and take over your space.

It is also important for me to make my own space in today. To have that safe place for me in which I can go to and take that inward journey. Even when there were others around, I need to have my chair and my table with my things that I needed fo rme. i.e. A candle, my books (mystery and meditation), my angel, animal, and nature cards, and my crystals.

My space, by invitation only please. Which reminds me that it works both ways.

[SunnyGirl]

well said Caressa...

I just finished a post on this topic and went to preview
and somehow it erased. No clear what I did, but won't
attempt to make another one today... Hugs, Cherie

[majestyjo]

Space to explore

"No one can find his work, what he really wants to put all of himself into, when everything he does he is made to do by others. This kind of searching must be done freely or not at all."

-- John Holt

We all need space -- free from demands, deadlines, expectations and judgments -- to explore who we are and what life is all about. Free time, with absolutely no agenda, is rich with potential. How can we grow if we have no space and freedom to dream?

"Deny children -- or anyone else -- the chance to do ‘nothing,’ and we may be denying them the chance to do ‘something’ -- to find and do any work that is truly important to themselves or to someone else."

-- John Holt

I realize that I was never allowed my space and I didn't know how to make a decision for myself. We can't know what we have never been taught and we pass on our shortcomings to our children. We did the best we could with what we had, but sometimes, we fell short of who we would like to be.

A friend once told me that I was an easy 'mark' and I had to change those old behaviors and habits.

[majestyjo]

When I visited my friend tonight, her son came in to see her. You just never know when you are going to get a chance to carry the message.

I found myself saying, "You can't expect to know what you have never been taught." I was also able to give my little spiel on acceptance. I don't have to like it, but I do have to accept it or I stay stuck.

Always good advice that I need to take for myself. Recovery begins with me.