Try this:

Read the sentences below as you would to your child/ren or someone you love:

You are enough as you are.

All you need is already inside you.

You are not your thoughts.

Your feelings aren’t a problem.

You are love.

Now read these sentences aloud:

I am enough as I am.

All I need is already inside me.

I am not my thoughts.

My feelings aren’t a problem.

I am love.

Notice the space between. How you feel giving to someone else. How you feel receiving this yourself.

This is our work right now. As parents, as teachers, as neighbors. If we want to love the world into becoming the kind of world we want for our children, for all children, for all of everything, we need to sit in this between space. Allow ourselves to be inside the discomfort, the boredom, the whatever you want to call it, of loving, accepting, and being ourselves.

To read the full piece (a guest blog for Remake Learning) click here.

Everything we need (for grace or presence or anything else) is already inside us.

There is much overlap in the Venn Diagram of parents and teachers, including brilliance and love.

Melissa A. Butler writes for children and adults. She speaks, facilitates workshops, and consults around practices to help others slow down to notice and wonder about small things.