Hands Upturned: The Wisdom of Mick

Every year around Christmas time, my best friends and our families gather at our house for a holiday dinner, singing and celebration.  One of the highlights for the kids is their annual gift exchange of $10 or less.  As the kiddos wait expectantly to share and open their nerf footballs, bath gels and  iTunes gift cards, they can also plan on hearing what I call the Wisdom of Mick in the background, as he and the Rolling Stones remind them, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want!”

No you can’t.  Not when it comes to Christmas presents and certainly NOT, as we all know, when it comes to parenting!  It’s a song I love playing, not just for our kids at Christmas, but also in my Mindful Parenting classes when we talk about Acceptance.

There’s a wonderful story  I like to share from the book, Golden Rules, by Wayne Dosick.  It’s about a woman who plants a garden that blooms beautiful flowers in the spring but also blooms an abundance of dandelion weeds.  No matter how hard she tries, the woman can’t get rid of those weeds.  Finally she hears about a Zen Master who can help her with her problem.  He comes to her garden, looks around, and tells her, that the best way for her to solve the problem of the dandelion weeds, is for her to learn to like dandelion weeds!

Acceptance.  That inner orientation which acknowledges that things are the way they are, whether we want them to be or not.  How often have we been in those moments–standing knee deep and stuck in the dandelion weeds of parenting?  Maybe it’s the weeds of our spirited child’s challenging temperament (intense, persistent, active, or sensitive)?  Maybe it’s the dandelion weeds of challenging situations (10 minutes late to practice with crazy traffic?  Or a melting down child with three people ahead of us in the Target checkout)?  Maybe it’s feeling stuck in the weeds of the past, whether it’s our own imperfect childhoods, or last night, when we hurled hurtful words at our child when we were tired?

Acceptance.  Knowing that we can’t always get what we want.  But as parents, it’s  important to remember that acceptance is NOT the same as resignation or passivity. That just because we accept something, doesn’t mean we are powerless. And here’s where the Wisdom of Mick comes in again, going beyond that first line of the song, to the just as important second line: “But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!” (See the accompanying video.)

So accepting the weeds of my spirited child…why do I need that?  Because by striving to accept rather than resist my child’s true nature, I can help him channel his spiritedness into ways to optimize his success, while also seeing what accepting him, teaches me about myself, and MY true nature.   Acceptance also helps me become a more mindful parent by reminding me that I’d better have real clarity about the “why” behind the  boundaries and decisions I make, as they will undoubtedly be questioned and researched by my child.

And what do I need from life’s challenging moments?  It’s in situations like these, I can practice letting go and accepting that I can’t and don’t control everything, especially when it’s difficult.  These situations also give me the opportunity to reflect upon our daily schedule and demands and how they are influencing our family.  Maybe those traffic jams and meltdowns can help me see the need to become better organized or downsize/eliminate some of the things we are choosing to do?

Finally, acceptance of my past, whether 30 minutes ago or 30 years ago, helps me to see what I need to do for the future–how to learn from my mistakes, rewrite the scripts and internal dialogues going on in my head, take better care of myself when I’m tired, and model the importance and power of apologizing to my children when I do or say something I regret.

So if like me,  you need a little clarity and guidance this holliday season, while wading through the gardens of beautiful flowers and tenacious weeds blooming inside and outside our homes, I invite you to join me in this practice of Acceptance…with hands upturned and the Wisdom of Mick.