I’m grateful that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. This is one of my favorite proverbs. I’m a mom who has great relationships with my teenagers. I know most of you will be shocked to hear this, but kids can make some pretty immature and/or bad choices (learning opportunities) sometimes (LOL). I know I did when I was a kid too. If any of my friends are reading this from my middle school and high school years, they know. If I didn’t make the choices I did then, and have the teachers I did, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Those choices gave me tons of opportunities to learn, and I’m STILL learning. That is what this journey is about. Nobody is perfect. We each have a journey that is ours to go through, I recently was shown where I slipped into judgment of others, and am learning to be better.

As a parent now, I keep having to put myself in check. As much as I want to align with love, abundance, and peace, sometimes I’ve seen myself get lost in fear, lack, and separation. I can go there in interactions that trigger me. I can go there when my kids make a big mistake, and when I make mistakes. When I slow down, I see these as a learning opportunities to be responsible and accountable, and get a clearer vision of the energy I’m aligning with by my choices in perspectives and actions.

My son recently had a big learning opportunity. He made a immature choice, or rather a series of immature choices. When he realized how much the choices affected other people and himself, he wanted to fix things. He held himself responsible and accountable. He apologized and wanted to to talk to all the people involved, and show people he learned. To me, this shows me signs of a kid on a good path. Some individuals put an instant label on him (bad kid), oh and me (bad mom). He is going to make choices as a kid that are going to have consequences, just like we do as adults. He learned a lot about trust, respect, judgment, responsibility, and consequences. He learned that some people will judge him permanently on one choice (especially in today’s climate of judgment). He had to learn that he has the choice to believe people’s judgments on him or just keep doing the best he can to make better choices and not go to a place of shame that makes him feel like he’s a bad kid, because he made bad call. I know he feels bad about the choices he made, which is good because it shows that he cares, but I definitely don’t want him to feel like he is a bad kid. Just writing this, I have to make sure I keep this message clear to him. If a child is judged as a “bad kid” for some immature behavior and he believes the message, he will start proving it true to reinforce the message to himself that what other people said was right.

Living from a loving place isn’t always easy. There will be people who judge us and our children. There will be people who operate out of fear, lack, and separation who want to go after us because we don’t think of things the same way they do, because we don’t see the world the same way they do. This is where the teacher appeared for me, after this happened I went to an old place of fear, lack, and separation. In this space, I started to see times I judged other parents. I saw where I judged my kids. I saw areas where I attracted other judgmental people to my life because I was in that energy. I saw where I gave my energy over to gossip, which is just another place for fear, lack, and separation to come in.

Here’s the part I love about this journey, when a bunch of stuff was energetically going down around me, I was in a place where my energy was going up. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you may have heard me talk about magnets. When we are energetically aligned with people, we feel a magnetic pull towards them. If we aren’t energetically aligned, it’s like flipping over that magnet and there is a resistance. I used to fight this sometimes when I would feel the distance. Now, I thank God for showing me, because it’s this energy that helps me keep my vibes moving in the direction I want to go. If I pray to be surrounded by the energy of love, abundance, and peace, then a bunch of chaos happens to show me who isn’t in that energy, I can pay attention to my energy connections to people. If the energies don’t align, I can walk away in peace. I don’t have to make their energy mine. If I don’t feel love, abundance, and peace when I look at social media, I can change where I look. We have choices to learn from the energy we put out, and what we get back, or be in denial of it and blame someone else. I choose to pay attention when the teachers show up to help direct me to where I want to go.

Today, I commit to learning from the teachers who are presented to me. I’ve noticed that these teachers show up in amazing ways. I was just watching a speaker yesterday who was talking about watching the people you invite to be around you. I needed that little sign post to tell me to pay attention. something I’ve learned about these magnets is that often times both people feel the alignment or the resistance. I usually don’t even have to have a conversation about walking away. I just leave in peace. It’s not my business what they do with their energy in the situation. I’m only accountable and responsible for my energy. It’s funny how I just posted about this yesterday, and needed to use some of it today. Pay attention today, if you read something, hear something, or see something that gives you an opportunity to be a student, look for the teacher. If you are open and ready to learn, you will get a lesson that could help you to align with the energy that you want to be living in.

If you noticed, I used a lot of different words like mistakes, learning opportunities, bad choices, and immature choices. Our language will look different, but pay attention to the effects the words have on your body. If you have a shame trigger around one of these things, go into it and look at where you are holding shame around it. Be gentle on yourself, we aren’t here to be perfect, or judge others because they’re not either. My perspective is we are here to learn and grow from each other. When we can stop judging ourselves and others so harshly, so many more teachers appear in loving and compassionate ways.

With Love, Abundance, and Peace,

©Rachael Wolff 2020

Author of Letters from a Better Me