I told myself I would blog everyday this month....and give up that I don't have something inspiring to say all the time. This blog is called "Zen and the Art of Inspired Parenting" and frankly sometimes that title is exactly what stops me from writing. Sometimes parenting does not occur to me as inspiring. Sometimes I am not behaving as an inspired parent. Sometimes I want to quit. Usually I don't write on those days and that just has me feel stifled and stuck. That's not inspiring at all.
The past few days, feeling sick, like a mac truck has run over my body, and the muscles on my bones have just turned to putty...not much has been inspiring. I have been surviving. To top it off as soon as I get mostly better I have a den meeting of ten boys plus two siblings that swarm my home with boundless energy. I signed up for this, to be the den leader, and I knew sort-of what I was getting into. Most people wouldn't think of it as something they would ever want to do, and I didn't either. Scouts was supposed to be my husband's guy time with the boys at 6 pm on a Tuesday night. Then we moved and the pack we go to wants the meeting at 3 right after school. We happen to live directly across the street. They didn't have a leader. I am a leader (of adults in personal training and development) so I figured Why Not? I also have it the easiest way to teach your son to be a leader is to be a leader. So I chose to lead...but underneath was this "I am not supposed to be doing this, my husband is," and there has been resistance.
The den of Wolves I lead must be sensing that, sniffing out the hesitation in my leadership, because the last two meetings, although a riot for them, are occurring like a disaster to me...I am barely surviving them. There are moments, in between a seven year old boy looking me straight in the eye and mocking me, running away from the den and refusing to return and me getting a sore throat from talking over their interruptions and violent jokes, when I just want to scream "I quit!" and walk out of my own house.
Even though we are getting the requirements done and most of the boys behave, I have an expectation that EVERYONE should be behaving and we should ALL, including me, be having fun. And I am not.I feel like a gigantic failure of a den leader.I make myself wrong because I think I should know how to do this. I think I know how to be a leader. I think I know what is best and the boys just aren't listening to me. I think I know how it is going to continue to go.....and I dread the feeling of frustration I can see I will feel at the next meeting. I feel like a failure of a person and a Mom. I want to cry in my husband's arms in a ball and quit life.
But I won't, at least not forever. Not because I am afraid of what anyone thinks or feels, but because I know that this is my journey and my breakthrough to have. I know that there is something I can put in that will make a difference and it is up to me. It sucks now, but I know from my training at Landmark that I can transform anything. I just need to be willing. Clearly I am experiencing loosing the game the way I am playing and it's time to switch up the play before switching players.
Perhaps what there is to do is to, take the leadership advice from my husband and ask these boys that are interrupting and behaving disrespectfully, what they want out of scouts. Perhaps I need to ask them if they are willing to do what it takes to have what they want. Today I did a lot of telling them what to do. Perhaps...I could listen.
Today my triumph is simply writing even when I didn't wanna and looking to ask and wonder even though I think I know.
Zen Honeycutt
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