"Your Child's Self Esteem" by Dorothy Corkille Briggs
My dear friend Karen handed me this book while I was sitting at her dinner table one evening. I'll never forget that evening. I was trying to hold it together as someone who was just about to become a mother. I was someone who was just about to become a mother to what may have been a preemie. I was someone who was keeping her phone close because that call might come and I'd fly out to Oregon from wherever I was and, with my husband, help our birth mom bring our child into this world. Something we had never done before. Something we weren't trained for.
My mind was buzzing that day when I pulled up to her Zen retreat of a house. She was the most perfect soul to be with. It felt like she had gently enveloped me into her arms just by her reassuring whisper at the table that night. In her presence I just knew everything would be alright. I felt a quiet strength from her that I needed.
In her book {Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path to Motherhood} she talks very honestly about her experience as the new mother of a precious preemie. A book that has guided many mothers from all walks of life and from all experiences through a time where we are all feeling so raw and vulnerable and perhaps misunderstood. I was honored to be sitting at her table that night...eating her healing soup and soaking in every confidence she had in me as a mother to be.
Her and I giggled at the cover of this book (above) that she lent to me. A sweet retro image of a naked baby in the bushes, holding a flower and totally in bliss. This so reached out to the hippie in me. ; )
I just recently started to read it. It has been nestled in my book shelf since. I knew there would be a time when I would need to and I didn't rush. In fact, I stayed away from many books in the beginning so that I could learn how to listen to my own intuition.
Now that Cedar is crawling and exploring and indeed developing his own person, I have felt that need to open up my arms for help. But gentle help and how gentle does this cover feel?
So I opened it up and ohhh...it is wonderful.
There was this one quote I wanted to share with you. Mainly because it applies to anyone, wherever they are in their life and to me, it provided comfort.
"High self esteem is not a noisy conceit. It is a quiet sense of self-respect, a feeling of self-worth. When you have it deep inside, you're glad you're you. Conceit is but whitewash to cover low self-esteem. With high self-esteem you don't waste time and energy impressing others, you already know you have value."
Learning to parent a child is also like therapy for self. I feel like I have always had a quiet sense of self-respect. In an online world where I am encouraged to market myself and talk more about how fabulous business is going, it has felt a bit outside of my comfort zone. I have questioned if I am cut out for this because I have never needed that attention to fill me up. This quote helped remind me that how I am is okay and that perhaps my business will continue to grow because of my heart and who I am rather than me trying to impress the masses. There is a place for me in this online world of business and I will figure it out as I go. I want to learn how to grow my business through my story and not my ego.