Leading With Love

Hello, Cadresphere. Anila here from habit aware. I am coming to you live from my lived experience with body focused repetitive behaviors. That's things like compulsive hair pulling, skin picking and nail biting, and lived experience with anxiety, depression, alcoholism, postpartum depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, breast cancer, losing a parent to cancer. And the list goes on and on. Today in and welcome, Anna. Today I wanted to talk to you about love. This is what I want to talk to you about every week.

But in going through all those challenges I just listed, it really is about learning to lead with love, learning to meet those challenges with love. And happy Wednesday. Shannon, good to see you. And what I learned this weekend from my ten year old is what I wanted to share with you because he's learning it now at ten, and I'm learning it now at 40 something. And that is leading with love. And for him, he is working on a art project right now for school and project. And we just dropped it off this morning.

But this weekend he was working on making an animal out of clay and other materials. And our puppy ate the wings of this animal. He wanted to do a bat, and he made these awesome wings out of leather and wire to make them really nice and straight and tight. And I'm flying like this. And. And what happened over the weekend while I was away on a girls trip is our dog ate the wings. Our dog loves leather. He's eaten four pairs of leather shoes. And so it's no surprise that these leather wings disappeared over the weekend.

In fact, in hindsight, in my mind, I kept moving the leather wings up higher or to the center of the table so that he couldn't get them. But I never told anyone. Oh, by the way, I'm leaving. Make sure Einstein doesn't. Einstein's our dog's name. Hey, junk food. Junk junkie. Did I get it right? Good afternoon to you, too. So this was like something that was in my anxiety, in my mind, I was trying to prevent, but I never shared, hey, this might happen. Keep an eye out to prevent it. And so it happened.

And I asked, you know, I got my husband's text message and I asked, oh, my gosh, how did our ten year old respond? And he was like, well, he was a little upset, but he kind of just said, okay, we'll fix it. We'll figure out another way. And then he wrote, we cuddled Einstein, our dog, for his punishment. And that, to me, was like a shining moment because that was leading with love instead of, you know, when I came home and saw my leather boots having been eaten, I was not happy with that dog, and he knew it.

Afterwards, I yelled at him. I sent him outside. I, you know, kind of gave him the silent treatment. But here was my ten year old son saying, I'm going to give you a hug to this sweet dog that, you know, has forgotten already within the last five minutes of what he's done and why it's bad and has no, you know, concept. So it makes sense, right? Like, there's. There's nothing you can do other than laugh at the situation, other than find some moment of, like, joy in it, even of like, okay, that happened.

You know, it was me that was freaking out all the way in New York. I'm like, oh, no, please go to Michael's and get more leather so he can finish his, his project. I was freaking out. Einstein gate wings. Exactly. I was the one freaking out. I was the one upset and worried and trying to fix it, which I did, which I found the Michaels in New York City and went and purchased the leather so that when I came back, they would have it instead of, you know, leaving it to them to go get new leather over the weekend.

I was like, I'll just do it. Which also was leading with love, I think, but also with control, so that we could kind of move forward and not harp on it. And I think that was a really important lesson for me to learn as someone with perfectionist tendencies, as someone with control tendencies, as someone with. With that anxiety mind of, oh, to prevent this, I'm going to try to protect the wings, but as soon as I leave, it happens. And so for me, I was kind of sitting with a little bit of guilt, like, oh, no, I should have mentioned to them, I should have, I should have, I should have, should have, should have, should have, should have.

And so that was just on my head. And now that I'm here, as we're talking, realizing just how incredible my ten year old and my husband both have, and my seven year old, who is also there, have just this stronger outlook on not letting. Yeah, that was the mama bear coming out for sure. But not letting. Not sweating the small stuff, right? Like, ah, we'll figure it out. And looking at that dog with love and saying, you know what? We are gonna be okay. We'll get it sorted out. This mistake doesn't mean we don't love you anymore.

In fact, here is a hug. And I think that that, to me, was a wonderful lesson that I need to take with me as someone who wants to be more loving. I would love to know if any of you have a similar mama bear type story or have learned anything from your maybe younger children or nieces, nephews, or anyone that may be younger than you. I think we also have this tendency of, well, I'm older, so I know best, but really, it's the children that are teachers in a lot of ways. So we'd love to know if there's anyone out there that has another story where a child in their life taught them something about love and about leading with love.

And I think it's just so pure and innocent in that way of that's where it comes from, right? There is less, oh, no, what's gonna happen? And, yes, it totally does speak volumes to his values, to his forgiving nature, to his not worrying what other people think. Like, he just kind of let it flow, you know? And I think that's something that's really important when it comes to love, is letting it flow, is that that tap should never be turned off. Right. And for me, it's really trying to find those moments, where can I show more love?

Where can I move slow enough so that I don't react, but out of, like, fear or anger or frustration? But I recognize the fear, the anger, the frustration, and then instead choose to respond with love. That's the real. That's what takes strength. Right? And it seems to me that kids have more of that innate ability, but it's kind of almost beaten out of them with our culture of shifting them to this constant thinking of what's going to happen, what's going to happen. So, yeah, that is what my ten year old taught me about leading with love, when destruction happens, when something gets destroyed.

And, you know, the sweetest thing was my seven year old, who's also very vested in this project of making the bat and the bat cave, looked at the new wings and said, wow, these are even better than the first ones. And so there's also that little bit of spiritual aspect, too, pulling in from hindu culture of Shiva, who is the goddess of destruction. And this idea of sometimes destruction isn't the negative thing that we see it as, but it's actually a positive in that it makes way for the new. And in that bad thing happening of the dog eating the leather bat wings, the outcome was I got a really nice, long walk to Michael's in New York City to pick them up.

My son learned how to handle a tough situation with love, and he got even better wings out of it because he'd done it the second time, and they came out better, so. And all in all, like, no one was hurt. It was just silly little bat wings, you know? So, yeah, I just wanted to share that story. And I love this exact thing, right, that you're saying here, the innocence of kids eyes, that their view, they can always find the good in situations. I think as we get older, we're trained to start the protection mode goes on, right?

And we are trained to see the bad or kind of prevent or preempt or predict what's the wrong thing that can happen. But kids just have, I think, a little, like you say, more innocence to them, that life is always good for them. And even when something hard happens, it's that attitude of being okay, of going with the flow that really seems to keep them able to meet the need of the moment by choosing love. So, thanks for being with me today, and I will see you next Wednesday at 230 Central. And I am going to be talking about coulda, woulda, shoulda, and looking back on life and how we need to not do that and how leading with love helps us not do that.

So thank you all for being here today. Kids do teach us. I think kids are a gift in that sense, right, of really bringing you back to the present moment where he wasn't thinking about, oh, it's due Wednesday, and today is Saturday, and how am I gonna finish? And I think that's part of the project is learning time management and order of operations of what needs to happen and all of this other stuff. But he allowed himself not to get too into all of that and stayed in the moment of, okay, can't work on the wings.

Can't, you know, but I can do this other piece while I wait. So. Yeah, I appreciate that comment, too, as well, Shannon, about how kids are our teachers, and especially in grounding us in the present moment, that's their job, right? Come play with me, mama. Be with me. Not your screen or your computer or your iPhone or on the phone with someone else or worrying about something, but be with me. And that's what I take away from that lesson, from that experience, is the lesson of leading with love, even in moments of frustration.

So thanks for your time today. I will see you next week wishing you love, strength and awareness. Bye.