Jamie Lightner

Please don’t misunderstand…as misguided as I may seem, lol, the message brings Freedom and Progression

Over the past 6 months or so it seems a few of clients have misunderstood my new found message… “It’s perfect not to be perfect.” Fortunately, when they are sitting in my office I can clear things up, however, this got me thinking…what about my readers? So please let me explain…It’s perfect not to be perfect does not mean… “do a poor job, be a lazy parent, who cares about work ethic” so please don’t misunderstand. “It’s perfect not to be perfect” simply means… “We are human…and that is just perfect, it is exactly what we are meant to be.” The saying simply means…Let go of the judgment we place on ourselves, accept our mistakes as tools for learning, and be at peace with who we are as we continue to progress in this life.”
A couple years ago, while sitting in a seminar, I realized what a perfectionist really is. For the longest time I never considered myself a perfectionist. I viewed perfectionist as those who do it perfect. As I sat there in my seat listening to someone talk about how they never feel they are enough, not being the wife she wanted to be, the parent she wanted to be, the sister she wanted to be, even though she strived so hard to get it right, I realized, OH MY GOSH. A perfectionist isn’t someone who does it perfect all the time…it is someone who is always striving for perfection…and sometimes they don’t even realize it. A perfectionist is someone who believes they are far from perfect yet aims for the highest and impossiblest of standards. Yes, I just made up the word “impossiblest” but you know exactly what I am talking about. And I think it’s the PERFECT word to say what I am trying to say. Lol

So I decided tonight to leave you with a couple stories from our book, 2 Sisters’ Misguided Manual to Motherhood. As you read them, I hope you hear the true message. And please, don’t hesitate to write or contact me with any questions. The message is meant to bring freedom and peace. Because, in all honesty, the more we accept our humanity and embrace our mistakes, the more energy and capacity we have to actually be who we truly desire to be. So Happy reading….I hope you enjoy it.

Do your best…what?!?!

(Story from 2 Sisters’ Misguided Manual to Motherhood)

What is your best? All throughout life we hear the common phrase, “Just do your best.” Well, for those of us who are perfectionists, this concept gets hazy, ‘cause there is always, I could have done better. Ya know how it goes: I could have worked harder, I could have worked longer. Then, when we throw this concept into the parenting arena, we are wondering how much therapy our kids are going to need by the time they are twenty, ‘cause, I could have done it better!
As parents, we want to do a GOOD job of raising our kids. We want them to know we love them. We want to be a patient teacher to them. We want to have tea parties and play Legos, all the while teaching them values that will help them throughout their entire lives. We want to teach them responsibility, respect, love, and compassion. Naturally, we are not perfect, and as we see ourselves falling short of our “BEST” ex¬pectations of ourselves, we begin a destructive cycle of guilt and never feeling like we are ENOUGH.
For example your day might look like this…
You were up at 1:00am with a crying baby and up again at 3:00am with a kid who insisted there was a monster in his closet. Finally, at 4:00am all were sleeping once again, only to have your alarm ring at 6:30am to begin your day. You drag yourself out of bed, doing your “BEST” to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, getting your six-year-old and eight-year-old out the door to school, but you feel like a truck hit you, so rather than make them a warm bowl of oatmeal like all the parents who do their “BEST” do, you throw a bowl of stale Captain Crunch in front of them. Now, the stale factor is not actually your fault, ‘cause the kids keep leaving the bag of cereal open when they put the box away. But it inevitably becomes your fault as you tell yourself you need to do a BETTER job of teaching your kids how to clean up after breakfast. I mean, HOW are they going to keep a job someday if you haven’t even succeeded in getting them to routinely fold down the cereal bag? Fi¬nally, with a kiss planted on their cheeks, you send them out the door at 7:30 to catch their ride. Then you run back to your bed as fast as you can, hoping your three-year-old and ten-month-old sleep at least ONE more hour. You lie there trying to catch up on some lost sleep, but in the back of your mind, your “Do Your Best Sergeant” is chanting, “Laun¬dry! Dishes! Toilets! Don’t forget to mop the floor so when the baby eats off of it today you won’t feel as bad!” Your body’s need for sleep wins THIS battle, but the feelings of inadequacy are still there when you wake. Your three-year-old pulls you out of bed after you finally quit thinking long enough to sleep for just 20 minutes. Again, stale Captain Crunch is on the breakfast menu. Afterwards, while you are cleaning up the breakfast mess, you feel guilty for yelling at your daughter when she stuck her elbow in her bowl, dumping it all over. NOW you are telling yourself how you need to be a patient mom who doesn’t “yell over spilt milk”. The rest of the day is filled with a couple tea parties with your toddler and lots of household chores, that is, when the baby doesn’t in¬sist he be front and center. That afternoon, when the “sacred” naptime is almost near, you clean up the smeared jelly on the table from lunch and you begin to make the IMPOSSIBLE list of all the chores you intend on finishing while the kids sleep. Later that afternoon, you load the younger kids into the van and go pick up your older kids from school. The rest of the afternoon is filled with more chores, keeping the baby out of the toilet, putting your three-year-old in time-out for coloring on the walls, and convincing your first-grader that it is against the law to make water balloons inside the house, ALL while somehow managing to cook dinner and wash a load or two of laundry so your husband will have clean underwear to put on before work tomorrow. Oh, and then it is off to the little league game at 7:00pm! After the game, the evening is filled with dinner cleanup, followed by baths and a bedtime story. You kiss the kids goodnight and tuck them in three times, ‘cause they need to go potty, get their OTHER favorite teddy bear, or tell you about an owie they JUST discovered on their finger. Once tucked away for sure, you throw a load of laundry in the dryer. As you collapse into bed, your “Do Your Best” sergeant orders, “You need to be MORE patient! You need to have more tea parties! You need to keep a cleaner floor and DEFINITELY cleaner toilets! You need to read more stories! You obvi¬ously aren’t doing your “BEST”, because you can do BETTER!”
Now, obviously, your day may not look EXACTLY like the scene above, but I’m sure many of you can relate to the demands of parent¬hood. I remember, when my kids were babies, I would feel guilty for napping when they would nap. I thought I should be doing housework, or better yet, reading my Bible or some inspirational book that taught me how to be a better person. But the fact of the matter was, what I really NEEDED in that moment in order to be my true “BEST”… was a nap!!!
So, I challenge you to redefine your “BEST.” Look at yourself hon¬estly and have end goals rather than expectations. EXPECTATIONS re¬quire perfection and instantaneous results. GOALS require commit¬ment to progression, but take TIME. And if you’re making progress toward your goals, don’t beat yourself up about the rest—that will only hold you back. And seriously, set REALISTIC goals….not goals that only parents who don’t require sleep can accomplish! And in those moments of “yelling over spilt milk”, go back and teach your kids one of the most valuable lessons they can learn, and that is how to say, “I am sorry.” Our kids learn the most by example. So, yes, do your best! My definition of doing my “BEST” is simply this: learn from yesterday, accept who I am today, while growing and progressing as the future days unfold.

I am human… and that’s okay

(Story from 2 Sisters’ Misguided Manual to Motherhood)

I am finding myself asking the question, “WHY do we struggle with our humanity?” It is perplexing to me that we are ALL human, yet we all strive to be SUPER-human. All the superhero movies are not too far from what we wish we were and attempt to be. We may recognize the fact that we aren’t bulletproof and we don’t have x-ray vision, but we all want to essentially have bulletproof character and emotions and be able to see through every moment to the best way to handle any situation.
I, myself, try to be WONDER WOMAN. I find myself striving to be the mom that has it all together. The mom that doesn’t forget lunches, fieldtrips, or appointments. The mom that is never late and arrives with each kid showered and no dirt under their fingernails. (Let’s not even talk about the length of those fingernails which sometimes remind me of Ed¬ward Scissorhands by the time I notice they need a trim!) I want to be the mom who is never impatient and always knows what to tell her children when they are down. I want to be the perfect wife, with dinner on the ta¬ble and a smile on my face. (Yeah, my husband would probably love that, too! Some days we have WHATEVER we can find in the fridge. I call it, “If it’s not Moldy, Eat it for Dinner” Day.) I want to be that perfect friend who never lets anyone down and NEVER says anything stupid. And one day I realized I was striving for PERFECTION. My search for perfection wasn’t some quest to be holier-than-thou, but to be the BEST I could be, not necessarily for me, but for everyone ELSE. Yet, in that moment, I knew that perfection, just like tomorrow, would NEVER come.
However, what I am beginning to realize is, I AM perfect. I am a perfect human being, learning and growing every day. I am a human being who, at times, struggles with depression or yells at my kids. I sometimes cry over stupid stuff. The truth is, I AM going to let people down, and I’m learning, that is OKAY. We all learn from our imperfec¬tions, which is TOTALLY perfect. I learn from my mistakes (eventually!), and others will learn from my mistakes as well.
I need to accept that I am NOT Wonder Woman, and forgetting a lunch or burning dinner is going to happen. I may discover their as¬tonishingly dirty, long nails while sending them out the door at the last second to catch the bus and have no time to do anything about it. Or, even worse, I am going to come up short emotionally for my kids.
When I am at odds with my own humanity, I unintentionally rob myself of enjoying and living life. For instance, today I was cranky with the kids. I was irritated over chores left undone and snapped at them for toys left out. When they didn’t listen, I responded with very short words and irritated tones. I could feel the CRANKY energy just oozing off of me and it was NOT pretty. Bo had decided to quit being potty trained and I was not shy about showing my disappointment! Josh and Kate were exercising their rights as “pre-teens”, and Timmy was determined to put Bo in his newfound wrestling moves. Each time I addressed the kids I would get upset, and I felt justified because THEY were not listen¬ing and had been told a MILLION times.
At the end of days like this, though, I feel remorse. I find myself wishing I had been more patient, more like the “Kid Whisperer”, be¬cause at the end of the day, very little of the stuff I ranted about MAT¬TERS anymore. I just want them to know that I love them and I am proud of everything they are learning.
It is at this point in time that I have a CHOICE to make. I can either feel GUILTY for all my shortcomings as a parent or I can LEARN from my mistakes, lay my head down for the night, and start all over again tomorrow. ‘Cause frankly, I am a DANG good mom. I love my kids so much that to think of them creates a lump in my throat and a pang in my heart. It is in moments like these, the very best I can be for them is “human.” To be a mom who bleeds and knows how to say, “I am sorry.” To be a mom who, despite all my shortcomings, is determined as heck to keep moving forward. To be a mom who may get knocked down, but pulls herself right back up.
It is times like these I humble myself before my Creator and thank Him for all He has given me, and all He teaches me every day. Life is too short to spend so much time not accepting our Humanity.