Magic Happens when you step OUTSIDE your comfort zone
Would you like to have a meaningful relationship with your daughter?
Would you like to strengthen your connection and share time together?
Spark to Empower Changemakers Academy hatched as I was looking for something special for myself and my daughter. I noticed she started wanting more time with me, and I wanted to create a better connection with her, beyond our usual moments. I was looking for something to help navigate the challenges of being a 10ish-year-old girl in this ever-changing world.
When I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, and realized I wasn’t alone in the desire to participate in something like this, we went to work. The goals: Build upon a solid foundation of self, so that as more complex things begin in the tween and teen years the challenges are easier to navigate and the obstacles become manageable. Create a community where we tune in, and are safe to share out. With a stronger sense of self, we can better equip ourselves and our girls with strategies to navigate the world. When we ignite our own light, we are more able to shine out to support others- to be changemakers needed in the world.
As part of the Changemakers Academy we create sessions to reclaim fears and build an empowered mindset able to embrace challenges and become more confident. Ropes day is a powerful experience in which parents and daughters experience challenges that are sure to be “outside the normal comfort zone.”
Here is my reflection of that experience with my daughter. (and *Yes, I have her permission to share this.) It’s the short story that reminded me why this time together is important.
Feb 10, 2024
“I’m going to get gas for the car. She’s got 10 minutes to get dressed and get herself together..” I tell my husband as I leave the house to try to compose myself. Minutes before I had found myself in an attitude battle with my tween daughter. She clearly did not want to be awoken and certainly didn’t want to be leaving the house before 8 am on this glorious Saturday morning.
It was Ropes Course day. The anticipated day of the Spark to Empower Changemakers, the day to expand our comfort zone by attempting challenges to push us in ways we don’t typically encounter. The original date had been rescheduled due to rains and weather, and now several weeks later we were finally able to journey to the Santa Barbara foothills to experience this day of teambuilding with our changemaker family and the amazing WOLF staff.
The car was loaded with drinks, snacks, and gas as I pulled up to see if she was ready. Hair in a tizzy, shoes clutched to her chest, smoothie container barely balanced about ready to explode everywhere, and her beloved Stanley mug in hand she storms out of the house and plows into the front seat. As she starts ranting about something, I take a breath and say, “I need a minute.” No idea of which playlist is blasting in the car, I’m taking breaths and working on taking myself out of the mood I’m in because of the sass and attitude I’ve allowed myself to receive.
Mom update- I’ve been working on letting the “moods” flow by and not letting them get me in a “mood.” But, this morning was different, I wasn’t quite letting things go. It was the beginning of the weekend after a week of “things”, where mom mode was on super status. You know the kind of week- valentines prep, class party coordination, extra rehearsals, throwing together impromptu meals because I didn’t get to the store, extra after school activities and practices, choppy sleep, decision stress, coupled with weather causing kids to be home because school was canceled. Yes, canceled. And, well, everyone needed something extra for something.
Today was our something. AND I needed a minute.
It was a 30 minute drive. No talking. Music. Breathing. (Using all those fabulous techniques we’ve been learning in our earlier sessions!)
We pull in, the group of moms and daughters are already gathered round ready in anticipation of the Ropes Course looming above us. Noone really sure what they had signed up to do…but everyone was ready to try. Because that’s what it’s about. Trying. And when you get to the highest point you think you can go, going another two steps. And then trying some more.
Climbing on, even when life gets hard.
Yes.
Our first opportunity to challenge ourselves was a straight shot climbing wall towering above us. It was the duo climb, mothers and daughters together, supporting each other on the climb. All pairs had successfully accomplished their “challenge by choice”, and it was our turn.
Arms and fingers burning with each grasp pulling me higher up the wall, I tried remembering the advice about climbing I’d learned as a kid climbing up the chimney at my childhood home. It had been a while since I’d done this type of thing. One of my brothers had mounted climbing holds on the chimney and coached me to get to the top as a teen. “Stay close to the wall” he’d say, “Use your legs” was the advice. “Be slow and strategic about your next move” and “preserve your energy.”
As my daughter climbed up the left side of the wall one hold at a time, I slowly followed her, climbing next to her on the right side of the wall. Careful to stay close and try to push myself higher. Each hold became more challenging. Moments of frustration and exasperation. And then, about half way up the climb she yelled at me, “I’m sorry mom! I’m sorry!” Although she was probably referring to the fact that she was climbing closer to my side of the wall, thus taking the hand and foot holds that were closer to where I was trying to navigate my way up, making my climb harder - to me this was the “I’m sorry” for earlier. It was the “I’m sorry for this morning. I’m sorry for the times we have hard moments. And I’m sorry I let it out on you.” Sometimes the rest of the I’m sorry doesn’t need to be said, it is understood. And even if it wasn’t actually intended for any of the above, I imagined it was.
I’m here for you, hun. You’ve got this. We can do this together.
We climbed on.
She led the way and I followed.
As we reached the top and she high fived me with her foot - I knew we’d not only moved past the morning muck, but we’d successfully created another new connection between us.
With this moment of challenge, surrounded by this supportive community us moms were able to safely show our girls that we too have weakness, fears, vulnerabilities. We are human, we have feelings. As our tweens are on their journey of becoming and figuring themselves out, they can also begin to learn to have more compassion for themselves and others. Knowing that they are surrounded by a supportive community, they can ask for help, and that they aren’t the only ones working to expand their comfort zone and push beyond the limits can be incredibly reassuring. And thus, the understanding and metaphor that life is a climb becomes easier to understand. It becomes less about perfection and more about expansion and growth. Let this be the journey.
Today we pushed ourselves beyond our usual limits - becoming empowered. As a mother I’ve noticed my “limits” have changed and as one would expect the “danger zone” is vastly different than it was in my 20s. Stepping outside my comfort zone looks different in many ways, but the growth that comes when we challenge ourselves and push ourselves to do something that is scary is just as, if not more, profound. Now as a mom, I find my “growth” moments are sometimes around allowing myself to let go, to release the fears that sometimes surface for my kid. The worry that I feel when I want to protect my son from climbing the tree that he’s got his mind on, and being less of a helicopter and more of a yes mom. Or the ping of frustration or hurt I feel when I hear about the person at school who wasn’t very nice to my daughter. It’s funny how things have changed. Yet, regardless of what the fear or limiting belief is- there is always potential to grow.
Growth comes from pushing the boundaries of what we think is possible.
From reaching beyond the usual, the comfortable.
When we grow we allow ourselves to see what’s possible and then take another step or two beyond that to realize we are capable of even more.
Rock Climbing Magic
I want my daughter to grow up and believe in herself. To believe in her ability to face challenges and fears with conviction and know that she is capable of moving through the obstacles that come her way. Knowing that she is capable and powerful and supported. It is okay to ask for help and to fall.
I’ve come to realize that the only person holding me back from fully stepping into my power is myself - so it’s up to me to get out of my own way. And I want this for my girl. I want her to acknowledge when fear is holding her back and I want her to have the reminders that she can move through the fear time and time again, because in life we need to be able to climb.
I now know it’s up to me to decide which obstacles to overcome, which patterns to untangle, and how to allow myself to become unhinged from the “norm” and allow myself to fully be. I can get out of my way and reach new levels.
One of the moms shared with me that she was desperately afraid of heights. In her 20s she would force herself at least once a month to go to the swimming hole and jump from the high rock, just so she could remind herself she could do it. Now some 20 years later, she would do the same. She felt it was time for the reminder that she could do it. And she wanted her daughter to see that she was capable. So, with conviction, a smile, and some major gumption, she did it. She climbed the pole to the leap of faith and with newfound importance, she took the leap to remind herself, and show her daughter that although she was not comfortable with heights, she was capable of pushing herself beyond her fears.
It’s moments like these where we deepen connections within ourselves and with our community.
Today we rose. We climbed. We laughed, we cried, we shook, we tested ourselves. Today the muck that can often get in the way, cleared.
And tonight I am reminded of why this matters.
My daughter brought her Polaroid Camera to my room, where I was ready to turn in for the night.
“Today was a big day mom. We need to take a picture.” A sacred moment that is done with only her most prized moments. To decide which people and moments to preserve is thoughtfully done, after all there are only a handful of images in each film roll. An act quite different from the standard iPhone photos that capture everything. The Polaroid captures that single moment in time that then requires you to shake the photo and patiently wait to see how it turned out.
Similar to shaking away the muck from the frustrations of the morning, the stuff that gets stuck inside- we clear it out, shake it away and allow the polaroid to create the lasting memory that is the reminder of the day. The memory worth holding onto. The one to replace others. The image of a momentous day.
Tonight we even took TWO.
One Polaroid image for me and one image for her. To remember.
Of course the memory is already there. The climb up the wall, the laughter, high fives, and we did it! But now the Polaroid image is next to my bedside. I can look at it when I wake, and when I click off the light to sleep. It’s captured in my heart and mind.
I love you sweetheart.
Always will.
Thank you for today.
Xo
