My humanity, when will I accept it?

I am writing today with a more serious tone. I have been on an emotional roller coaster for a couple weeks and rather than do my usual, “I’m fine” to you all, I thought I would take a chance and let you in, hoping that what I have found may help someone out there reading. When I say that I have been on an emotional roller coaster, what I mean is, I have been struggling with feeling overwhelmed and emotional and just plain dabbling with “depressed”, but I have nothing really be sad about, so it was bothering me that I was allowing these emotions to affect my life. After some talks with my life coach I began to see where I was putting “expectations” on myself and not allowing myself to be human once again. I will let you in on some of my internal dialogue and you can let me know if you ever feel the same. This is what I, at times, say to myself. “Jamie seriously you forgot to send in lunch money again, get it together, Jane always has her kids spit shined and out the door with lunch money every day, and she certainly wouldn’t forget to send in the fieldtrip slip. Oh my gosh look at your house, you have really got to step it up, if someone saw your bathroom or your kitchen floor right now what would they think, well, I will tell you what they would think, they would think you are disgusting and certainly wouldn’t want to have dinner with you. And why do you teach a parenting class. Just the other day Bo threw a bag of spaghetti noodles at your head, while demanding that you give him spaghetti for breakfast. Seriously, if your kid misbehaves like that you really should find a different career path” So there you have it, a couple minutes in the mind of Jamie Lightner when she is upset with her own “humanness.” This fight with my humanity seems to a common theme for me, and probably for many of you. Fighting with our humanity is what us “humans” seem to do. When you think about it logically it seems ridiculous. I mean you don’t see a dog sitting in the yard trying to be a cat, and a horse isn’t thinking “gee, I really should be a better horse, maybe I should lose weight or get glasses so I look smarter”. Nope they just do what they were meant to do, live and like living! Yet we, as human beings never seem to be enough for ourselves, we are constantly wanting to be what I like to call “super humans.” But when you really think about it, if you spend your whole life unhappy with who you are, what is the point of even being here. If I spend my whole life always guilt loading myself for the parent I am not, seriously what is the point? So after talking with my life coach about my “emotional roller coaster” I came to the conclusion that once again I needed to throw out the expectations of who I thought I should be and just enjoy who I am. And I am the mom that gets the note home that says, “Hey, send in lunch money for your kid.” And I am the mom that has had a bag of spaghetti thrown at her head.” But that is ok, hey it makes for funny stories later, right! I am human and I am going to make mistakes. I am going to make mistakes as a parent, as a wife and even as a life coach. But my goal is to keep learning to accept my mistakes as a part of me and a part of my life, and learn to let go of those crazy expectations. I am going to have sunny days and rainy days. And on those rainy days I would like to just throw my hands in the air, tip my head back and feel it hit my skin, cause that is how I know I am alive! So once again, I challenge you to accept your humanity. Even just for one day. If you just tell yourself it’s ok to be human for one day. Ok to forget a kids lunch or take the a kid to the wrong practice, or forget to bring snack on your snack day. Just give yourself a break for a day, and then maybe you will like it so much you will give yourself two!