springdellgirl

The Daffodil Principle


Last Sunday in Relief Society our lesson was on the "Daffodil Principle"...the story of a lady who plants a huge hill of daffodils...acres and acres of them...for years. Anyway what I got out of it was that this beautiful, glorious and vast hill isn't created over night. The lady in the story said that she planted it one bulb at a time and one day at a time and ended up creating this landscape masterpiece.

The ladies in RS were talking how about how this principle related to them etc. and another friend of mine stood up and bore this beautiful testimony of how she wished her soul was like the gorgeous hill of daffodils but that she often felt like she was a weedy and rocky hill with a few flowers here and there. That's how I feel too.

I have this image in my mind of the kind of person/mother/wife/friend I'd like to be. I can see her so clearly. I can almost touch her but then she fades away what's left is just plain old me who feels like I am falling so far short of the mark.

This last year and particularly this summer has been a time of STRETCHING for me. I feel the growth I'm making but it's coming in painful lessons and glaring errors. I wish growth more often came from "Ah-Ha" moments rather than hard knocks. I feel like I am falling so far short of being the kind of mother/wife/sister/friend I want to be. The last few months have been full of so many things requiring stretching...relationships mainly...with my own family, extended family etc. This summer hasn't turned out to be quite the carefree sunshiney fun I was hoping it was going to be.

In particular it has been a really rough summer with Reilly. SO HARD. She is in a really unpleasant (to me) stage. I know that prepubescence is never easy. It's an emotional roller coaster. Mad and angry one minute...without knowing why...and emotional the next....bored and apathetic the rest of the time. This has been a summer of butting heads, fighting, tears and hurt feelings...on both of our parts. My dreams of this idyllic summer of all the things I wanted to do with Reilly and all the things I wanted to teach her have been shot to heck. This is the summer...probably one of many...that she LOATHES me. Seriously. What really sucks it that this loathing isn't shared between both her parents. She ADORES Tyler which makes her loathing of me even worse.

I majored in Psychology. I know this is natural. I know that she is trying to develop some independence and I am raining on her parade. I know that it "really" isn't personal. But yet I am left every night feeling like "What am I doing wrong?" and that I am some how failing her. I have no patience. I have no tolerance for crappy behavior. I also have the shortest temper known to man and every day ends in a screaming match. So I over analyze, I worry, I stress, and I fret.

It has also been a summer of where I have really had to step back from my original family and their problems and baffling decisions and focus on MY family. That's hard to do. I am used to being in everyone else's business and taking a much needed step back has been difficult. As the oldest child...letting people live their own lives doesn't come easy to me. Sitting by doesn't come easy for me. Tyler has NO PROBLEM doing this in his family. But his family dynamics are very different than mine and not ones I would want to have. So you can't really compare the two. Yet we do.

It has also been a summer of "letting go"...of anger, annoyances, dashed hopes, unfulfilled wishes and having to reconfigure what I "thought" things were going to be like. It's been a slow process. Growth...it isn't easy for any of us at any age.

Lessons learned from the Daffodil Principle:

• learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time,
  (often just one baby-step at a time)...more often in my case one step forward and two steps back.
  
• learning to love the doing,
  
• learning to use the accumulation of time

When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world. We can change ourselves. We can become who we want to be.

Tyler is addicted to music...he collects it...he lives it...he breathes it. He has the most extensive and unique collection of music of anyone I know. I turn my Ipod over to him and give him some basic suggestions and he makes me a play list extraordinaire. Every once in a while though he likes to surprise me with something unexpected. I have been working out at the gym for several weeks now listening to a song I "thought" was by Duran Duran only to find out last night as I was telling him how much I liked the "new stuff" by Duran Duran...and saw him chuckling away...that it wasn't Duran Duran at all but Christian Rock!! WHAT?!?! He knew that if he told me that he found a great Christian rock group that I wouldn't listen to it so he sneaked it onto my play list.

Today at the gym this song really seemed to be my anthem and I must have listened to it about 20 times with tears rolling down my face while huffing and puffing on the treadmill undoubtedly looking like a complete fool. But I left that gym stronger physically, emotionally and spiritually. So download this song. Put it on your Ipod. It's great...AND...you can work out to it too!! It's called Stay Strong by Newsboys.


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On a completely different note:

Happy 26th Birthday Kirk!! I am very lucky to have such an amazing brother. I know my sisters know that they are 3 of my best friends but I don't think I tell you very often that so are you!! Life would be so dull without you and your craziness.

I love you!!