May Inspiration Collage by Sarah Hairston
So much of growing up is learning to parent ourselves – to soothe our own aches and pains, to listen to ourselves even when it’s late at night and we are tired and would rather go to sleep. We have to learn how to watch ourselves make mistakes and treat ourselves with compassion. Maybe we learned how to do this from the adults who reared us in our childhood. Maybe the adults who were supposed to take care of us didn’t have the tools to do so, let alone give us those skills.
This month at The Lighthouse we are thinking about all types of caregiving – the people who have and do take care of us; the times we’re called on to take care of parents or siblings or other people in our lives; taking care of ourselves and our communities; the systems that should, but don’t always, take care of us; and ways we can honor all the care that comes into our lives.