End of month review

There was an interesting forum about sibling rivalry which I enjoyed, but since we've only the one daughter i haven't had to really deal with any. Fi's biggest issue right now is that she loves assigning different objects (even different slices of the pizza!) to different people, and gets upset if her assignments are changed, though she doesn't mind it if she changes them! I've been going along with her, like a game, but I'm thinking sometimes it might be better if I acknowledge her effort and point out that people can pick whichever piece of pizza they like! And sharing stuff she really likes and thinks is hers...but that seems pretty natural.

My biggest breakthrough recently has been really learning to be encouraging with myself. I used to have such roller-coaster emotions after noticing something we, as a family, were doing well, I just thought I had to get used to the ride! Hearing another mom describe something similar, I immediately thought, "You need to be encouraging with yourself!" Naturally, after that, I realized I had to walk the walk (yet again!). And it's SO COOL to have permission to be encouraging with myself. As I understand it better, I notice more and more when the environments I enter or see are encouraging or are not, and as I talk about it and my understanding flavors my conversation, Brian is noticing it more, too. It's so neat.

Okay, there's another biggest breakthrough, which is that as I've been encouraging Fiora to trust herself, I've finally started opening up to trusting myself. This resulted in a big conversation (no details) where I was willing to trust the things I was feeling, even when sometimes they might be a little contradictory, and have a deeper, more articulate, and more satisfying conversation on this topic than I've ever had before. Pretty amazing.

I feel like as these awarenesses start to click for me, it's more natural and easy to approach Fiora (and other kids and people) with the respect they all deserve, and it FEELS good. I think starting to learn to trust myself is also really helping my ability to connect, with Fiora and the dogs and my patients, and that's been great, too.

Kindof wish I had more stories of Fiora and the family, but this is truly the guts of the month. Hope you are all well!