Changing My Mind for SoCS

This post is part of Linda G.Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday meme -an unedited stream of consciousness piece that ties into the weekly prompt: the word ‘mind’.Use it any way you think to. Have fun!

I’m a little late to the SoCS party  today, and, at the end of this post, you’ll have a quick peek at why….

Dr. Jillian Taylor: Sure you won’t change your mind?

Spock: Is there something wrong with the one I have?

OK, that’s the absolute first thing that popped into my head when I read this week’s prompt. I love that quote. In an often uproariously funny film (if you’re not a Trek fan, and you don’t believe me, give it a try – it translates well to those beyond Trekdom), this line Gets. Me. Every. Time.

Why?

Well, there’s our half-Vulcan friend, freshly reunited with his marbles (long story), but no longer even as familiar with human speech as he once was, because his mind was retrained Vulcan-style, and Vulcans just don’t express themselves the way we do.

So, he’s got this tendency to take things literally that provides ample comic misunderstandings.

This one, though – it goes deeper. It gets personal.

Is there something wrong with the mind I have?

Well, like most members of my species, I’m prone to treating my own perspective as though it’s always right – as though the way I see things is the only valid way to see them, the only way that could be correct…

I have this tendency, if I don’t watch my mind carefully, to believe that it’s infallible – when, of course, it isn’t remotely so.

And yet, I’ve changed my mind vastly, and it’s an ongoing process for me.

I was raised with a mindset that allowed parents to humiliate, hit, knock down, bully, and otherwise abuse their children. The phrase “Children should be afraid of their parents” has been uttered, in my childhood home, more than once.

My children used to be afraid of me. I thought that meant I was a Good Mother.

They aren’t afraid of me today, and not just because the difference in our sizes had shifted significantly over the years, so that I now have a child who stands shoulder-high, and another I have to look up to.

Unscary Mommy – from September 2013, when they were both still shorter than me.

It’s because I changed my mind. I realized that I didn’t want my kids to be afraid of me. I wanted them to trust me. I wanted them to know, that if I tell them I don’t think something’s a good idea, that I will have a reason better than, “Because I said so”, and that I will share the reason. I wanted them to know that my only agenda is their safety, happiness, and readiness to step forward into the wider world, sure of who they are and their ability to claim their own lives.

It’s taken a huge changing of my mind to go from what I was raised to see as normal, and what is normal for my own children.

And I didn’t stop there.

I believe this.

So, I meditate each morning. I practice tai chi. I attempt to live each moment, make each choice, mindfully.

Do I always succeed?

No. I’m still human, and fallible.

But there’s something in the attempt, the intention, that has gradually changed my mind. Because there was something wrong with the one I had, after all….

Have you tried stream-of consciousness writing? Come join in – there’s just a few simple rules. Check out the brand-new #SoCS hashtag, or get more SoCS right here!

Now, as promised, a hint about why my post is so late, today….

Life Happily Reflected in Art. Annalise at the Saratoga Arts Celebration, earlier today. Photo by Shan Jeniah Burton.