I just took a moment to scroll back through my posts on this blog, and I must say, I am quite proud of it. I love being able to watch my emotional growth unfold.
If you have a child, I urge you to encourage them to keep a private diary. One you won’t read. Give them the gift of a place to lay down the burdens they don’t feel safe bringing to you. Give them the gift of trusting your word. Give them the expectation and freedom of true privacy, even if it’s only between the pages of a single notebook in which to record their thoughts.
To this day, I catch myself censoring my writing, fearing the unexpected reader. It sucks.
And they will test you. They will write some secret and wait for you to confront them with it, or the more foolish ones, like myself, will be trusting, and believe that they had the luxury of honesty in their diaries, at least… until they are blindsided by their own words getting them in trouble, and losing their trust in their parents, unsuspecting to the very moment they’re cornered. If you fail this test… good luck. May you be blessed with either the first children that ever did nothing their parents would object to, or be blessed with a child who is smart enough not to write about it any place you will come across it.
Your trust with your children is sacred. Though I have no children of my own, I was that child, and to this day, it affects my relationship with my folks.
There are many ways parents screw up their relationships with their kids… an obvious one like reading a diary should not be one. Or at least, it should be a last, nearly life or death, resort.
I don’t know why this is coming forward for me right now… except the conversation I recently had with my mom about this very subject. I hadn’t realized the incident had affected our relationship to the extent it had. I guess I have some reflection and meditation to do about this.
Hopefully this post helps someone. If your parents snoop, leave no clues. If you’re a snooping parent, stop. Talk to your kids. They might be hormonal little jerks, but they’re still human beings, with human needs, and at least one place where they are free to be exactly who and what they want to be is what they need. If you take away a safe, home-based way to do that, they will find it other places.
I did.
Semantics Station 
Nice post Amanda.
You know when I first started to blog, I was living in an overpriced shitty one-bedroom studio. The ceiling was leaking and my neighbors (a family of 12), had coach-roaches that found their way through the walls of my apartment. I was broke, going through a breakup and on the verge to get evicted. I don’t know where I would be today If I had sugar coated my blog. It saved and healed me in a way.
But at first I was like you. I feared the reader. I feared the outside world. I feared judgement. I feared the unknown. I feared change. But as I started writing I started realizing that the only way for me to truly grow and perhaps help others also expand, was to overcome those fears by layering out the ugly so that it can make room for the beautiful.
Then I started following people who went through hell and back like me and what I notice is that the most successful people on the planet don’t sugar coat. Most of them I consider my mentors (Louise Hay, Les Brown, John Rohn, Bob Proctor, Napoleon Hill, Iyanla Vazant…).
All those people had the courage to openly talk about their story and I realize it is through them sharing their hell, that it helps people the most. I mean Louise Hay had an abusive childhood. All throughout her childhood she’s been sexually molested by members of her family. She then had to face her demons when she diagnosed with cancer. Today, she is 90 and healthier she has ever been. She’s a millionaire but her life didn’t start until really late (she was in her 40’s when she founded Hay House).
Les Brown with his twin brother were abandoned on the streets when they were babies like me. And just like me, they have no idea who their biological parents are.
Until the age of 25 John Rohn was financially so poor he could not even afford paying a 2 dollar box cookie.
Iyanla Vazant was formerly a welfare single mother who spent years in a physical abusive marriage. Her daughter died of cancer at a very young age. Prior to that, all throughout her childhood she was molested and beaten by members of her family…
All those people are brave… But what makes them even greater is that they had the courage to speak up and not sugar coat. In the midst of opening up, they created great wealth… not just financial wealth but spiritual, psychological and emotional wealth.
There is great power in being vulnerable, Amanda. Once we own our story, our story stops owning us. Throughout sharing my story online, I realized it was a great way for me to let go, heal, forgive, surrender, overcome my fears, grow, progress and find myself. If I had sugar coated and let fear drives me, It wouldn’t have served any real and deep purpose.
Just putting it out there…! and I’m still waiting for my reading 😛
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Thank you! (This is the first time I’ve had a chance to actually catch up since before the weekend, I saw you ask me to pull a card… I will 🙂 will try to get to it today after I meditate!)
As to the ‘meat’ of your comment… fear has been a common denominator in my life, and whether it comes across in my writing yet or not, the fear is dissipating.
Right now, I’m working on implementation of the information I have been learning. It seems as though I go through this endless evolution, wherein I soak in some stuff a few ‘levels’ above where I am currently performing (vs where I am currently ‘understanding’), some incident occurs where I gain another fraction of understanding, and the cycle starts again.
It’s a slow process, incremental even, but the SPEED of the progress after each ‘level up’ seems SO much faster (and exhausting) than the previous method, which basically consisted of locking myself into a cage and poking anything that came too close with a sharp stick, lol.
I never know if one of my blogs will ‘serve any real or deep purpose’ or not, but it helps clear my thoughts, and I’m as forthcoming as I can be, all things considered.
Reading soon, I promise!
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Thank you for this post, Amanda. I was going to say that I wish that my mother had read it. Sadly, it wouldn’t have made any difference. But hopefully it will make a difference with someone’s mother and give them the freedom to explore who they are and pour out their secrets on paper. ❤
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My mom thinks she accomplished something more important than broken trust, too, Judie.
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