MOTHER's JOY

Pearl of the Day: Enjoy the Void

Mother Theresa is quoted with the pearl “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls” and I believe this love can fill even the most empty of hearts.

Being a mother is the most joyful experience and also the most challenging. From the moment we feel that life stirring inside of us the mother’s joy is turned on or so they say. Also kicked into high gear is fear unlike anything you’ve ever known before. This fear can be all consuming and sustaining the mother’s joy is an amazing race and lifelong process.

I often say that it is easy to attain enlightenment but hard to sustain it. Same goes with joy, happiness and love and the highs that are supposed to naturally be part of motherhood. We can have our “ah ha” moments and feel love at the sight of our children embraced in a hug but there are so many variables, vulnerabilities and distractions that detract us from permanent bliss.

Even children do not remain in a constant state of play, they have their balances and ebbs and flows throughout the day. It’s a natural cycle for them as well.

Mothers often seek to run and jump in the second we see any sort of void - whether in our homes, ourselves and especially with our children. Even on Mother’s Day many moms did not change up their routines or delegate responsibilities. They found themselves cooking, cleaning, prepping for their kid’s school week. When there is an empty space, we become consumed on how to fill it.

The void is a space that gets a bad wrap. The void is just as it sounds - a void.

Instead of honoring the natural process of the void we often feel there is something missing. Somehow the void became associated with lack. Once we sense lack we spill into negative space and move miles away from joy. We wonder why we are not happy and focus on what is missing from our lives rather than what we do have.

In every moment there is joy if we chose to fill our void with joy. You choose. If you know love then this will carry through. However, for those with overwhelming negative experiences it is very difficult not to carry these remnants into the void and repeat these negative cycles with our children.

If your mother was not present for you in either the literal or figurative sense you may find yourself conspicuously absent from your child’s lives. You may be in attendance with your body in driving them from place to place but noticeable absent from the experience and not reaping or giving any joy.

What we choose will be a pathway for our children. If we choose to see our friend’s successes and experiences as a jumping point to feel jealous and spiteful towards our own inability to create success rather than marveling at our friend’s successes then we emulate that jealousy is how to fill the void.

So when your child shares how their friends went on a family vacation – exotic or not – and begins to feel remorseful of why we aren’t going on a family vacation they become fixated on the fact that they did not have that experience.

What does it really mean to you and your child when you hear of the joy of others? Do you or your children let this tamper with the joy they feel in who they are and what they have? We should not experience a feeling a lack because other people have, rather we should be joyful that other people have what they have and experience wonderful things and we as their friends get to partake in their joy and better learn that new possibilities are out there waiting for us as well.

All of us have voids in our life. Yet rather than doing all we can to avoid the void embrace it. You may surprise yourself. Cast your momma net wide into the world and feel that happiness, joy and love fill your void.

Happy Mother’s Month!!

Copyright © 2010 Cynthia Litman d/b/a Tigris Imprints. All Rights Reserved.