Where did you come from?

Part of owning our personal power is understanding where we come from. As Mother's Day rapidly approaches I started thinking about all the women we've worked with... and how much the woman who raised them has influenced their lives.

Did you have a blessed childhood full of laughter, family, support? Did you struggle with abuse, neglect or misunderstandings? Or perhaps some complicated mixture of the two? Well part of personal evolution is coming to peace with all the experiences of our lives and reclaiming the power to decide what lessons we will take from those experiences. Forgiving? Perhaps. Finding new compassion for the complicated lives our mother's lead? Perhaps. But for certain understanding that we would not be the person we are today, with all of our wisdom, understanding and strength without the experiences of our youth.

A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to celebrate my mother's 80 birthday with her in the Bay area. Surrounded by family who had flown in from all over the country - family I hadn't seen in years, I had to laugh at our disfunction, our miscommunications, our various role playing, our struggle to come to the simplest group decisions - Where to put the flowers? The cake?. And yet I was amazed at our commitment to mom, and how all these people (102 of us to be exact) could overcome time, distance and various other life circumstances be it finances, or a mentally challenged child, or work schedules in our shared commitment to be together on that special day.

Truly, part of owning your power is understanding and making peace with all of your life experiences. And perhaps this Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate a little more deeply the love of a woman who did the best she could at the time, and to love not only her but ourselves with a little more compassion, and with a little more authenticity.

Kelly Sandstrom CPC
Workshops for Women