Today was a good day. It began with a morning yoga class. This particular class’s structure was holding poses for three minutes each instead of moving from one pose to another in rapid fashion. Today was: follow the teacher’s instructions, shift, adjust, and hold and hold and hold. Three minutes.

180 seconds doesn’t sound like much, but when a pose may or may not feel good, it can be a looooooong time.

“Try to stay in the present moment,” we were advised. “Don’t think about what you need to do after yoga class. Focus on the pose.”

While I was able to get into the pose, make my adjustments, and hold the pose (well…I held the poses as long as my body said yes), I found myself distracted. So I began to look at my yoga mat.

Actually, I have two mats. I use both of them now that I want more support. The top blue one is my first personal yoga mat ever. The second red one is much newer, highly recommended, and costly. Spending more than I ever thought I would for a yoga mat, it was to be a big step up for my practice.

I was told, “It’s a game-changer. You’ll love it. It’ll take you to the next level for sure. You’ll never go back to anything else.”

And, that is what I wanted: to up level my yoga. Now, about four years later, I can barely see it because it’s under my old, worn out, original yoga mat. The newer, “better” one didn’t work for me. I had a hard time sliding my feet on it. Sure, it kept my feet in place for holding poses, so it might’ve been useful during the 180 second holds today, but I kept it under my good, ol’ faithful yoga mat. 

The next pose, pigeon pose, is one that requires nearly lying face down on the mat with one leg extended and one leg tucked under one’s belly. With my head angled downward, I found myself staring again at the 10+ year old mat with numerous not-quite-holes through it. They were more like divots as if on a golf course after a four-day tournament. 

In those divots, I could see years of stretches, sense sweat sliding down and dropping from my nose, hear labored grunts, and feel my dog’s tail touching my legs while he walked under my downward dog poses.

In the scratches and little tears on my mat, I remembered doing yoga with my daughter outside in the spring sun after a long Michigan winter. The grass was so new and eager for growth that it was the perfect cushion for our mats. 

Also, the old, blue mat brought back memories of doing yoga “with” my daughter when she was working in California. Because of the time difference,  we could do yoga together in the morning by FaceTime before she went to work. One of us played a class on the TV. We’d watch, move into Warrior II poses, and pretty much literally enjoy the class together. 

Being reflective – even if it is about a deteriorating yoga mat – isn’t new to me. As a writer, it comes naturally. I see far more in events and situations than most people. Yes, it can be an annoying trait to those who are literal.

“The person just chose mayonnaise for his burger, and there’s nothing more to it!” my husband would tell me.

My response, “But, from all the possible toppings, why mayo? And, why just mayo? It seems odd to only have one topping for one’s burger to me when a plethora of topping options exist.”

Oh yes, I could spend some serious time in that conversation.

So here I am gifted with a whole hour segmented into precious 180 second portions to ponder what this mat has meant to me, the memories held with it, and what future possibilities exist for it assuming I continue to engage in yoga practice. And, I will continue with yoga because

• What we value, we do.
• What we believe will provide us with forward movement, we pursue.
• What we like, we keep…like my old, worn out mat. 

These life truths are what drive me to write, speak, and help parents navigate the child-rearing years.

I value it.

I believe I am making forward progress.

And, I like it.

For more information about what I do, read the information here: https://middleschoolyearswithouttears.com/consulting/.

Lizabeth Jenkins-Dale, M.Ed., aka The Middle School Mom Mentor, writes, speaks, and consults to help parents navigate the sometimes nail-biting and nerve-wracking teen years. After nearly 30 years in education, which includes 10 years teaching in middle schools, eight years being a librarian, four years writing a weekly newspaper column called Purposely Positive Parenting, conducting parent-child events, speaking at educational conferences, and writing 15 books for both parents and teens focusing on a variety of topics such as gossiping, personal power, relationships, death, happiness, and many more, her empowered parenting method for this age group is fueled by much experience as a parent and as a teacher. Her approach begins with the universal spiritual fundamentals of life and then spreads out to any subject highlighting her belief in the eternal goodness of life: “You are never stuck. Your child is never stuck. You always have options with everything.”

She offers opportunities for parents to hear her explain about an updated parenting paradigm for children, or the new spirits arriving daily on Earth, with such speaking titles as, “Grisly Gossipers and Bothersome Bullies And What To Do About Them,” “Who Is Your Child, Really?” “Tough Topics, Honest Responses,” “What Will Be Your Parental Legacy?” “The Problem Solver Solution That Works Every Time,” and “The Best Teen-Parent Communication For Modern Day Children.”

In addition to writing and speaking, Lizabeth has an online parental support group and an intensive parent rejuvenation program called The Best Parent Ever Toolbox in which she teaches and explains her parental tools and why they are successful for the older Earthlings to guide the younger Earthlings into empowered, positive living.

She can be reached at 843-576-9040 or lifebooks2011@yahoo.com. Additional information is located at www.middleschoolyearswithouttears.com.

In my consulting parents business, I find that the expectation of parenting a teen varies a lot when it could be as simple as, “I expect to love each and every moment!”

Not realistic, you say????

Most parents have built-in belief systems that are already bracing for the worst. I’ve heard parents say negative statements about the future even when their children were quite young! 

At school open houses before the school year began, often parents would be SURE (stand in a line to talk to me) to tell me how awful their children were going to be while handing me their personal telephone numbers with instructions to contact them at any time. 

I’ve heard parents say, “My daughter is going to be a bitch later.”

Wow. So no wonder parents commonly have experiences that are less than fun, loving, and exciting when they are already pre-paving the road for misery. 

I lived the loving each and every moment experience and is the reason I know it can be done. What makes it happen is a focus, mindset, perspective paradigm shift about parenting. 

Defining and knowing Who We Really Are makes all the difference and are the foundation to loving each and every moment of then parenting experience. This is what I explain in my Multi-Dimensional Parenting Program. 

It takes time to make fundamental shifts. It takes coaching and explaining to change the way to think, believe, and feel about parenting so that joy, peace, and cooperation are dominant.

It can be done and is so worth the shifting to create empowerment within one’s own life which automatically spreads out into all areas of one’s life including one’s children. It’s such win-win shifting! People start noticing the changes and ask what is going on. It’s really fun to experience when people make the shifts and to watch the magic happen! 

For more information, go to www.middleschoolyearswithouttears.com/consulting. 

No matter what happens, you can EXPECT parenting to be joyful, peaceful, and cooperative…really!

My Multi-Dimensional Parenting Program is all about utilizing your divine wisdom that is already in you (you were born with it) so that you can guide your children to utilizing their divine wisdoms that they already have as well. The issue I see in many parents is that they are 1. Not using this divinity 2. They don’t know it’s there to be used 3. They have no idea how to use it.

Spiritual technology, or our divine wisdoms, have long been shamed and revered as poorly as demonic for way too long. Fortunately, we are in an age where these people, such as myself, are no longer put to death or publicly shamed, but embraced, honored, and sought after. 

Parents who are overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed out have options with help. Counseling only goes so far. Talk, talk, talk makes one feel better for a while. Utilizing divine connection is where it is at to truly understand life, one’s path, and how to parent the new beings arriving on Earth with empowerment.

To know why one is here (it’s not random), what life is all about (it’s not what you’ve been told), and what one is to do while here (the answer lies within your cells) is freedom. Parents want freedom. I help parents to gain freedom in every aspect of their lives through our sessions regarding parenting.

What Do I Do?

The obvious: I am a spirit in a borrowed body suit on a life journey trying to have the best experiences right now. AND, I help mothers of pre-teens, middle schoolers, and teens who worry and struggle to positively communicate with their children to experience peace, joy, and cooperation in their homes with my Multi-Dimensional Parenting Program by understanding and implementing empowering, universal spiritual perspectives that result in co-creative homes that empower everyone.

Until parents truly connect with their divine wisdoms, they will continue to feel lost, worried, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed… the list of the unwanted goes on and on until it stops with a change. My program provides the change. New perspectives are like a breath of fresh air lifting the darkness. Suddenly, parents see anew. They see paths that weren’t in their sight previously. They see parenthood in a whole different light. They analyze their own lives with broader perspective. 

The United States celebrates its freedom today. Freedom is everything. That is why it is celebrated, fought for, and desired. It is our innate state of being, and anything less than freedom is being a fraction of what it means to be human. A lack of freedom makes us feel lost, worried, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed…the list of the unwanted goes on and on until it stops with change.

For your freedom and parental divine right to parent with empowerment: https://middleschoolyearswithouttears.com/consulting/

Multi-Dimensional Parenting Consulting

Feeling stuck like your parental feet are in cement with nowhere to go? Feeling overwhelmed like you can’t even get a whiff of Life is good? Feeling anxious about your present and future parenting experience? Feeling like you made a mistake by becoming a parent?

Your parenting reality is negotiable. It’s flexible. It’s malleable. It can be bent, turned around, and shifted into positivity so that you and your family can live in The Land of Possibility.

It is a fact that all of reality or Life on Earth is negotiable, flexible, malleable, bendable, turn around-able, and shift-able. Have you noticed? People are talking about it. People are doing it. People are living empowered lives because they were willing to at least think it is possible to negotiate, flex, change, bend, turn around, and shift Life. 

Why the capital letter L for the word Life?

Life is capitalized because Life here on Earth is 100% pure Divine Love manifested in a solid experience. There’s no 99.9999999% about it. 100% pure Divine Love from Source created this Earth for itself to experience as many perspectives as possible.

And, there are sooooo many perspectives here, yes? All the plankton in the sea, all the millions of bacteria that are in a postage stamp-sized space on your arm (yeah…start multiplying that for your entire skin surface!), all the variations of plants, fungi, and animals, all the variations of humans that inhabit this planet, and so much more that encapsulate the entirety of the Earth experience are Divine Love.

Once this perspective is completely understood, Life on Earth becomes amazing! From this perspective, Life on Earth is gentler, kinder, and loving. Now, you the parent, are ready to contemplate all your options with the beloved, 100% Divine Love beings you call your children. From the perspective of Who You Are, you can identify Who Your Children Are.

This IS the empowerment perspective that is THE game changer is creating a peaceful, joyful, and cooperative home that makes parenting fun, enjoyable, and pleasant…your parental legacy begins today. 

Strategy – Create Paths To Enlightenment

Feeling Lighter? From this state of being of feeling lighter or en-light-en-ment, one can negotiate reality into what is desired. When one is… Feeling stuck like your parental feet are in cement with nowhere to go? Feeling overwhelmed like you can’t even get a whiff of Life is good? Feeling anxious about your present and future parenting experience? Feeling like you made a mistake by becoming a parent…no one can create peace, joy, and cooperation. This isn’t living in The Land of Possibility. 

When feeling stuck, paths to feeling lighter are necessary to shift the heaviness into lightness. This can be done by talking to a friend, exercising, petting a dog, reading a book, napping, or meditating. From the lighter state of being, one can change one’s life.

It can also be done by hiring experts like me. I’m in the business of lifting parents and helping them feel lighter so that they can negotiate their parental experiences. Why? Because this 100% Divine Love experience is to be lived with empowerment in all areas including parenthood. Read about it here: https://middleschoolyearswithouttears.com/consulting/

EXCERPT FROM MY NEXT UP AND COMING BOOK!

My child is an incredible, multi-dimensional Soul on a life journey in a borrowed body suit trying to have the best experience right now. I can choose at any time, and hopefully often, in my parenting experience to acknowledge the awesomeness of being a parent to my child and the thrilling opportunity it is for me.

There may be days you’ll need to be reminded just how awesome and thrilling it is to be the parent of a  schooler who truly is a multi-dimensional Soul on a life journey in a borrowed body suit trying to have the best experience right now. If this is one of those days, this is your reminder.

We can tell when a body doesn’t have spirit or life force in it. Divine Breath enters a body (any time between conception and birth), has as many experiences as possible, and then leaves the body (a process that begins with dying and ends with what we call death). The physical apparatus we identify with, touch, and use to experience this Earthly journey is quite a temporary tool. The eternal part of us uses the multi-celled fleshy contraption until the experience is complete. This is what is meant by the “borrowed body suit” of the definition.

We parents need to remind our children how to have “the best experiences right now” because this can get confusing once in the borrowed body suits. There is so much stimuli that we get quite distracted and forget to listen, tune into, or focus upon Soul-level feelings that’ll guide us exactly to what we want to experience – joy. If we get off-task or off-course, the Soul-level feelings will ding us with less-than-joyous feelings much like when we play the hot, warm, cold game. When we are really off-course, it’ll be like the feelings are yelling, “Hey! You’re super cold right now!” It’ll feel yucky, weird, and downright horrible.

The problem is some of us don’t know how to fix it. Some of us stay in the yuck. Some of us stay in the yuck for so long that we think that is all there is. But, the Soul never gives up on us. It keeps on trying to refocus us back to joy through leading us to the better and better feelings.

Before this happens to your child on whatever level, before the  school drama begins, before the huffing and puffing along with the eye-rolling occurs, explain this. Explain that joy is always available through the path of listening to the Soul-level feelings for we are all multi-dimensional Souls on life journeys in a borrowed body suits trying to have the best experiences right now. 

Got these: Senioritis? Summer-can’t-come-fast-enough-school blues? I-don’t-wanna-study-anymore comments?

We’ve all experienced it as a student. Nothing will go in the brain anymore. The desperately needed break. The will-this-ever-end facial expression.

How did you get past it? How will your child get past it? Here are some ideas:

1. Talk about it. No demanding it. No yelling about it. Talk about it. See what’s behind the academic drag. Understanding it and expressing it’s normal will go a long way. Just allowing the venting can help reach the school year finish line. 
2. Plan future events. And, make ’em good! I suspect this is how we all got to the finish line. Call this suggestion whatever you’d like, but bribery works. Plan future events such as vacation time, events such as a manicure or a new clothes shopping, or friend gatherings to motivate a job well done to the end. When inspiration isn’t holding out, try motivational events. 
3. Provide planned and spontaneous breaks. Nothing speaks as loud as a plate of fresh, warm chocolate chip cookies to brighten the mood. How about a head, neck, hand, and/or back massage to go along with them? Do some form of physical exercise together. Get silly. Jump on the bed. Run around the house together yelling. Kiddos love parents who are willing to be spontaneous and fun especially when it’s done in sympathy.
4. Give ’em a physical outlet. “Boxing” empty cardboard boxes or ripping apart an old blanket can serve as a means of letting off steam. What is around the house that you’ve been meaning to send to the dump? Throwing such items into a pick up or into the large trash containers at the dump can provide that physical release.
5. Take quiet time/meditation moments. These don’t have to be time consuming. Instead, try five minutes of yoga stretches and/or yoga nasal breathing. Walking pets around the block will help, too.
6. Break down the end of year testing schedule into smaller chunks. It can be overwhelming to look at the whole end of year process. Break it down into smaller, easier to digest and manage chunks. This is a good strategy for the entire year, but is especially effective during the last few weeks of school. “I only have to do my best on this one test right now. Then, I will focus on the next one tonight.”
7. Encourage positive self-talk. No matter what a parent says, it is ultimately important that a child is saying the good stuff, too. Inquire what is spinning around in your child’s head. Is it saying, “I can do this?” Bringing into focus the necessity of positive self-communication will bring clarity to what is really your child’s mind-chatter. 

Understanding, sympathy, and allowing of certain behaviors like venting will enable your child to end the scholastic year well. You got this, parents!

Consider this book to help you to help your child with test-taking. It’s loaded with practical ideas. 

Choosing to investigate curious events, comments, and requests before judgement will serve you well as in the case of hearing, “I want a tattoo!” or “I want to drop out of school!” from your child.

When establishing an empowered home culture and environment, you may hear your child say he or she wants to do things that you may or may not agree with. Empowered thinking allows for all options to be considered for their positive or negative effect. Instead of, “No! No way! Nope! Not under my roof!” an empowered parent will say, “Let’s investigate that idea.”

An empowered parent will be quite curious to know the energy behind such a statement as, “I want to get a tattoo,” from a child under the age of 18. What is driving the interest? Is it a temporary idea that will fade in a matter of a few minutes or days? Is it coming from peer pressure? Is it one tattoo or multiple ones? How big? What design? And, of course, where?

A delve into the history of tattoos would be beneficial as well. Tattoos have been used for positive reasons for ages. There are current royalty societies that still utilize tattoos as signs of dignity, honor, and respect. How is tattooing different than other forms of body mutilation such as haircutting, hair shaving, ear piercing, liposuction, and applying makeup? Every day, we manipulate our bodies just by breathing. Some manipulations are permanent like tattoos while others are not. And, some are required to live such as eating, drinking, and exercising.

There is a big difference between a response of, “Absolutely not!” and the investigation into the tattoo subject. This difference of response is the open door for any communication to occur now or in the future on any subject between you and your child. An empowered parent wants to know what is occurring in a child’s mind so that the empowered parent can have the opportunity to be a part of it. A response of, “Are you crazy? Just who do you think you are??” immediately shuts down all communication. It only takes one time, and the communication doors close with Viking-like locks and at least one guard on duty 24/7. Any reopening the doors will undoubtedly have a filter on for years.

Open communication begins with being open. Generational changes, attitudes, likes and dislikes, and opinions are guaranteed just as they were with every previous generation. Being willing to explore any subject of question or concern is enabling you to have the opportunity to have the conversation in the first place. An empowered parent will not only want this honor to be on the inside of a child’s thinking, but will relish and appreciate the opportunity.

Romantic relationships commonly become highlighted during the teenage years, and I can choose to embrace these as an important, essential, and intricate part of my child’s development. I can choose to be involved through discussions and sharing about the reasons for starting, having, and ending many romantic experiences now, if it is his or her wish, so that she will have plenty of relationship experiences before fully committing to another in adulthood.

Do you believe this statement? “School is the perfect garden to grow your child.” So much happens in the school garden that it can be overwhelming to a student and to parents, but even the weeds (unwanted people, events, and situations), storms (tidal waves of academic projects and work), soil erosion (thinning of friends), overcrowding (too many people in your child’s business), and connecting (friendship and romantic relationships) are all important and purposeful for the highest good of your son’s present moment and her future.

Romance and romantic relationships are vital pieces of the human experience education for it is a rare person who ignores or chooses to decline this essential part of life. School is the perfect place to play out, explore, and learn from the budding relationships that exist in this awkward developmental stage if it is your child’s interest to do so. Be ready, be accepting, be involved, be positive, be encouraging, and be proactive for this important developmental and parental opportunity.

Middle School romantic relationships generally are short-lived from a couple of hours to a couple of days to a couple of weeks. It is an abnormality that middle school students date for long periods of time such as a whole year or years. Middle school romance is a hodgepodge of short-lived attraction/withdrawal events with plenty of sideline curiosity seekers ready to spread the word in lightning middle school whisper fashion. Seemingly, any coupling of any type of students will send shockwaves throughout a school. No matter how hard one tries to keep things quiet, it is nearly impossible for it to remain so with the hundreds of middle school romance antennas all attuned to and on high alert for this kind of behavior. For this reason, parental guidance is the necessary grounding energy to shift the attention from the gossip to the relationship’s learning.

Romance in middle school is a powerful parental opportunity no matter if it is your child in the relationship or not. Much guiding can be done with others’ experiences. Open, non-judgmental discussion is essential. Establish a “all conversation topics are allowed” climate in your home now if not already for this is the beginning of all other conversations. This is the beginning of guiding your child toward healthy relationships in the future. This is your powerful, parental opportunity now.