| Celebrating Mom |
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| Written by Linda Palacios | ||||||||||
| Friday, 01 May 2009 08:25 | ||||||||||
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Everyone has a mother to celebrate, whether it’s a mom, a grandma, a mother-in-law or herself. With Mother's Day around the corner of the calendar, Mary Claybon -- a licensed life, health and wellness coach with Promoting Health: The Middle Way -- offers some tips on how to celebrate moms, with or without the national holiday.
Recognize the Dedication
Before you can celebrate everything a mother has done and everything a mother is, you have to realize just what there is to celebrate. Think about the role of a mother. "I once wrote a job description for a mother, and it was 13 pages long," Claybon says.
Think about everything your mother has done for you. "The job of a mother -- that heart, that listener, the person who cares with compassion -- cannot be replaced," Claybon says. Even if you have or have had a struggling relationship with your mother, think about what positive impact she has had on you.
If you are a mother, recognize yourself. Think about what you mean to your family and what you have done for them. Give yourself some credit and enjoy your accomplishments as a mother. "Remember how wonderful it is to be a mom," Claybon says. "Moms who have a baby or child who is disabled or sick many times are enjoying moments more than mothers with healthy children."
Show the Appreciation
"Flowers are wonderful. Cards are great. But time spent with your mother is the best sign of appreciation…. Time is such a gift in a rat-race world of technology," Claybon says. Mothers offer so much of their time selflessly, and they deserve to get some in return. Time is something that you can never take back but you will never regret giving, Claybon says.
And she knows from experience. Claybon lost both her mother and mother-in-law within a month of each other in 2005. She showed her appreciation for both of them by giving them time. "I closed the doors of my business to make my business the time with my mom, and I'll never regret it," Claybon says. If distance or any other factor makes it difficult or near impossible to spend time with the mother toward whom you want to show gratitude, call her up and give time through conversation.
Also, allow your husband or significant other to show his appreciation for his own mother. Mothers-in-law tend to be in a "sensitive predicament" and try to stay back and wait for acknowledgement, Claybon says. So step up and be the one to give that acknowledgement through your own words and actions of appreciation and in allowing her son to show his.
And don't limit the signs of gratitude to Mother's Day. "Celebrate your mother every day and the role of mothering every day. In fact, I would say celebrate as much as you can every day," Claybon says.
The same goes for yourself, however, if you are a mother. Many mothers do not look for recognition and do not provide themselves with acknowledgement. Mothers tend to do more worrying while grandmothers tend to do more enjoying, Claybon says. Let yourself enjoy being a mother (at least for a day)!
Remember the Jubilation
A way to honor a mother is through food. Our lives revolve so much around food, so cook your mom's favorite meal, Claybon says. In doing so, you take the load off her shoulders and give her a tasty treat. As you prepare the feast, remember the previous times you took part in sharing that particular meal.
Claybon uses her journaling time to write to her grandchildren about her life. Her journal is called Grandmother Remembers: A Written Heirloom for My Grandchild.
Some may say that their mother is or was hard to live with, but through journaling and focusing on the positive, you can "muster up some forgiveness and be at peace with your relationship," Claybon says. "Forgiveness is something you can work on forever."
Through journaling, author Jane Schulte was able to find healing after her mother's death and the subsequent death of her mother-in-law in the same year. She wrote through the process of planning the funeral, having the funeral and then living without the mother who had served as an inspiration to her.
She then merged her own journal with excerpts from her mother's journal to write My Mother, My Angel, a book about her mother's life of "charity and giving, suffering and healing and ultimately passing with style, grace and leaving a legacy that lives on through her family, friends and everyone who knew her," Schulte says.
The book serves to help more than just Schulte, her family and others who knew her mother, Doris Balasa. "My story will inspire the reader and show them why it is imperative that we live each day to the fullest for ourselves, for others and for the legacy we will leave behind," Schulte says.
While Balasa was still alive, Schulte painted angels that symbolized the guardian angel that was looking over her mother as Balasa used a holistic healing process to rid her body of breast cancer. One of those paintings is featured on the cover of My Mother, My Angel.
Her mother loved the angels, and the cover painting was one that Balasa bought from her daughter. "When I wrote the book that was the only thing that made any sense to be on the front cover," Schulte says.
So whether it is May 10 or any of the other 364 days of the year, recognize a mother's importance, show your appreciation and remember positive memories. Call your mom. It will make her day.
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| Last Updated on Monday, 04 May 2009 07:59 | ||||||||||
