Holding Space For Two Truths
Welcome to the Joyful Mom Podcast!
After coffee with a friend, Megan reflects on something many moms know well: feeling judged when your choices are different from the people around you.
Homeschooling versus public school, home birth versus hospital birth, working mom versus stay-at-home mom, vaccination choices: these are areas where Megan has often been in the minority. She describes what it can feel like to sit in a room where people voice strong opinions against the way you do things, and how easily that can turn into spinning thoughts like “They think I’m stupid. Something is wrong with me. I’m the one making the wrong choice.”
Using home birth as an example, Megan shares how she’s moved from anxiety to peace. She loves her home births and is personally terrified of epidurals, yet she has friends who love their hospital births and epidurals. Who is she to tell them they should have their babies at home? They’d likely have a terrible home birth, because it’s not what they want.
You can hold strong opinions for your own life without pushing them on others. Megan has very strong opinions for herself, her husband, and her family. But what’s right for her family may not be right for everyone.
What if everybody is doing the best they can? When you notice yourself judging someone or looking down on their choices, Megan invites you to ask whether everyone is simply living the way they believe is best, with the knowledge, tools, skills, and resources they have.
Peace with your own decisions quiets other people’s opinions. The more content Megan is with her choices, the less other people’s opinions bother her, and the less she feels any need to convince anyone. She’s happy to talk all day about homeschooling if someone asks, but she has no desire to change anyone’s mind.
“Best for now” doesn’t mean forever. Your choices can be right for this season, and you’re allowed to change your mind later.
Other people’s opinions say nothing about you. What you hear from others is their experience and their lens. You have yours. Both can be true, and neither has to make the other wrong.
In a divided world where so much feels extreme, Megan believes there’s real beauty in finding the middle ground and holding space for more than one truth.
If you want to learn more about how you can clear anxiety more automatically by rewiring how the mind is working and processing things, go to my website www.meganhillukka.com or connect with her in Instagram, where you can click on a link to register for my free training, where I will show you what you need in order to do this.
