EU420: A Field Guide: Accepting Our Nature

We’re back with the fifth episode in our series in which we’re working our way through Pam’s book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Today, we’re continuing our exploration of the deschooling phase of the journey with stage nine: Accepting Our Nature. This stage is all about the temptations from our old life that may lead us to abandon or stray from our unschooling quest. Our lives have likely changed quite a bit since we were living in our ordinary world, but, chances are, there are times when our new reality doesn’t match what we first envisioned our unschooling lives would look like. It is in those moments that we can give ourselves grace and accept ourselves exactly where and as we are. We hope you find this episode helpful on your unschooling journey! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE Learn more about Pam’s book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. We invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us. Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about exploring unschooling and navigating relationships. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT PAM: Hello, everyone. I am Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully, and I’m joined today by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hi. ANNA/ERIKA: Hello! PAM: And we are back with another episode in our A Field Guide series. We are working our way through my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, which is framed around the hero’s journey and is a weave of myths, contemporary stories and tales from my own journey. We are deep in the de-schooling phase. In the last episode of this series, episode 417, we dug into the idea of accepting the value of all experiences. As we continue our journey on the road of trials, in this episode, we are exploring the idea of accepting our nature. If you’re newer to unschooling, and this is your first time exploring these ideas, you’re likely dancing with them more intellectually to understand what they mean, and maybe even discover some of their further reaching implications. If you’ve been unschooling for a while and feel like you are already intellectually embracing these ideas, and have actually been bringing them into your family’s lives, now’s the time to maybe peel back some more layers to build more connections and context around them, strengthening your web of understanding with your own experiences. As we’re chatting, thinking about how this relates to things that you have had going on in your world, and building your own wisdom around it, as you move towards believing these in your bones as your own truth, a version that works for you. And all that’s to say, welcome to stage nine. This stage is all about the temptations from our old life that may lead us to abandon or stray from our unschooling quest. Our lives have likely changed quite a bit since we were living in our ordinary world. But chances are, there are times when our new reality doesn’t match what we first envisioned our unschooling lives to look like. There can be times when the stories we tell ourselves and the movies we play out over and over in our heads are more about what we think our lives should be rather than what they are, or what we envisioned when we first heard about unschooling. Maybe that just sounds amazing. All our lives will be perfect, things won’t go wrong, we’ll just do whatever we want. I found it so interesting just to recognize that around this point in our journey, we are far enough away from our old lives, that we might feel a twinge of almost nostalgia for maybe the seeming relative ease of doing things the same way as pretty much everyone else, with parents in control and kids learning conventionally. And when things got challenging, sometimes I’d experienced the pull of temptation to step off the path. And so maybe the trigger is sibling arguments, or time spent on an activity you’re uncomfortable with, or just worry about your child’s learning, they’re not learning X, Y, or Z and, and other kids their age are learning ABC, etc. At first, we might try to kind of ignore our growing frustration, right? Oh, no, no, this is our choice. This is the way it goes. We’re just going to ignore it, keep ourselves busy with other things, bite our tongue, because I’m not supposed to do that if we’re unschooling. Then maybe we start to feel a bit exposed, sure that others see the same challenge, and we fear being judged a failure on this journey, to oh, man, school didn’t work out. This is feeling hard right now. Am I a failure at this, too? And soon, we’re kind of looking around for someone else to blame. I don’t think that was only me. But do these frustrations and fears really mean that we aren’t cut out for unschooling? And hearkening back to our last field guide journey episode, maybe, maybe not. The point is, we are definitely not alone in these fears. Because there is literally a stage for it in the hero’s journey. This inner work in story language, battling with our inner demons is hard stuff. I feel like one of the important insights in this stage is the realization that even though we may try to blame others for our discomfort, our frustrations are really about us, not them, whatever they are. And they’ll just keep confronting us until we no longer ignore them. So maybe we’re tempted to exert a bit of control, like just cajoling your child to do a worksheet or two to prove that they’re learning. We may fall prey to these temptations. But that doesn’t mean our journey is over. It’s worth the effort to figure out what happened and make our way back to the path. It’s living and learning and growing. And this stage is a great time to remember to look to our guides, our children. When I paid attention, I saw them wrestling with challenges, with fears, with temptations to quit on their learning path. And it didn’t take me long to realize that those moments were all valuable aspects of their journey, not things gone wrong. Does that sound familiar? And eventually, I was able to extend that kindness to myself. I realized yet again, that the point wasn’t for me to get strong enough, so I would never be tempted again. I need to understand, I need to believe in unschooling enough that I’m never tempted or worried about it again. But to understand that these moments are part of life, to compassionately recognize the challenges, the temptations to quit, were messages for me and about me, so I could do the work to move through them, which in turn helped me come to accept all facets of myself. Oh, all these parts of me exist, the confident me. “Yeah, let’s do this thing.” The fearful me. “Oh my gosh, what if X happens?” The tempted me. “If they would just listen to me, things would work out so much better.” And just not judge them as good or bad again, but accept them all as part of my nature. That’s part of me as a rich, real human being. ANNA: What came to mind for me here was kind of the idea of quieting the outside noise and recentering, maybe revisiting our why’s, which are things we talked about a lot. If I found myself wondering what things would look like on a more conventional path, I would just slow down, like we talked about last time as well, walk through what it would look like for the individuals in my family. And it didn’t take long to remember why we were here exploring this less traveled path. The conventional path just didn’t fit. And when I was honest, I’m not even sure it was an actual path, but more of an idea of a path in my mind and the vision that we are sold about this path. And that vision just wasn’t a reality, certainly not for us, and maybe not for anyone. In general, I don’t feel like this was an area where I struggled. I had plenty of struggles. But this wasn’t it for me. And I’m wondering if it’s more intense when you’re leaving a conventional path. So you’ve had that experience and the delta and even the community around that other path so that pull, I think, is probably really strong. We were never a part of that system, because everything kind of happened as a cascade of events after Afton’s birth. Our community was outside of the system. So there wasn’t a temptation to go back because there really wasn’t somewhere we’d been. But I think we all had brief curiosities about this path that we could see, that we were hearing about, because we would hear about it from other people, and see it in the media, of course. But I think we were really lucky to have so many people locally and far away in our life that were making similar choices, that those were just little data points versus something that had been a part of our lives before. And so it’s interesting, because looking back now, I wonder, should I have questioned the path more? Because I really didn’t at the time. But then I remember what it was like, and what we were doing, and how in tune we were with each other. And we were doing what was serving us best in those moments. We were super intentional about our choices. And we all knew that we could make any choice or change our mind to what felt in alignment at any time. For me, it was never really even about the unschooling, it was always about the relationships and living our best life kind of wherever that took us. But it is interesting. Now, I’ll get more caught up in that than I did in the moment where I was. I think I was maybe just being so much more intentional to live in the moment. And now I don’t have that, maybe I need to work on that. Now I’m looking back thinking, should I have thought more about that? But really, I did not. We were so in tune in the moment. ERIKA: I think it’s a common experience to have doubts and feel pulled or to question what you’re doing, especially when it’s outside of the mainstream. I feel like it was that questioning nature in myself that led me to unschooling to begin with. So of course, it’s still there. I’m gonna keep questioning everything. But as you both have mentioned, I feel like the outside voices are stronger in some people’s lives who are making different choices than it was for me. I was lucky that my extended family didn’t try to exert themselves, by reacting negatively to our choices or pushing judgments on us. If they had any, they didn’t really share them with us. So that’s nice. But I have heard other people share about really difficult struggles with close friends, judgmental family members, who are really pushing and those voices can definitely cause us to wonder and to worry. And so, in my life with my kids, moments when I feel like things are harder than they, in quotes, “should be,” I do start to wonder if I’m doing things right? Would it be easier for them if they were in school? But, like you were saying, Anna, if I play out that scenario in my mind, the answer is no, it would not make things easier. But I do relate to having those momentary thoughts if anxiety is “at the wheel” in my mind. And other families live in places where unschooling is a more legal gray area, or it’s just outright illegal. And that can cause a whole bunch more anxiety and worrying about all of the decisions that we’re making. And I think, when I’m looking at this idea of temptation away from a path, it’s really is about moments when I consider abandoning my core beliefs in order to get to match what other people are doing. So if I have a vision of, I should become more authoritarian, this might make it a lot easier if I am telling them what to do and they have to do it. Push through my children’s consent to get them to do what’s expected, and so on. So, the path that I’m tempted from is not about school or not school, it’s more like the type of person that I want to be and having connected relationships with my kids. So whenever anxiety is at the wheel, and I’m getting feelings like, let’s just buckle down, and I’m going to become this type of parent that I would never want to be, that’s going to be the solution, then I know that’s my red flag. I am straying from what I truly believe in. And the connected relationships with my kids is what grounds me. Coming back to that relationship, knowing that together we figure things out, focusing on that connection that we have, brings me back to that calmer, more confident feeling. And there’s no way, if I look at them and think about our relationship together, that I would want to be pushing through their consent, or becoming this strict and mean parent. PAM: Yeah. And just as you were saying, for me, whenever I would feel a wobble, (I don’t like to say always or never, because you don’t know,) but in those years, it was always looking back to my kids that moved me through the wobble. Remembering why we’re doing things, imagining what it would look like if we did something different, if I changed my parenting style, if we brought school into the picture, what would they look like? And that’s the difference is that this is coming from me. Right? It’s not about my interactions with my kids and my kids wanting things different or wanting change, etc. That is something completely different from what we’re talking about here. These are temptations that are so often those outside voices making us wonder, what should I be doing? So, the next aspect we want to explore is living mindfully. And the point isn’t to expect to get to a place where we’re never tempted to quit again, or to change things up again. But with time and experience, we can learn to recognize these moments of temptation more quickly so we can start moving through them sooner, with less of that swirly impact on both us. It’s not fun to sit in discomfort and anxiety. So if we can have some tools, it can help. For me, the most useful tool was and continues to be the idea of living mindfully. To me, that means things like being curious and paying attention to what’s actually going on around me, not what I’m interpreting or envisioning. Letting go of expectations and the need to control things because that just tunnels me in even more, becoming more comfortable with that discomfort. So I’m not like trying to exit as soon as possible. I want to notice my feelings of resistance, what am I resisting? And why? And appreciating the many things around me that I’m grateful for, big and small. When I stopped judging myself for having these moments of fear or temptation, stopped trying to push them away or stuff them down as wrong, eventually, I was at least more often than not able to sit with my discomfort for a while. There’s a quote from Pema Chodron that resonates for me here around this idea. She wrote, “Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.” And Maria Popova expanded eloquently on that. She wrote, “Holding one’s imperfection with gentleness is not the same as resignation or condoning harmful behavior. Rather, it’s a matter of befriending imperfection rather than banishing it, in order to then gently let it go rather than forcefully expel it.” So, sitting with my discomfort often meant discovering the roots of the stories that I was telling myself that were at odds with my experiences with the people that I love. And then gently letting go of the bits that I no longer wanted, the ones that didn’t mesh with the person and parent that I wanted to be now. But I needed that space to literally do the work to get to that space to understand why that was showing up for me and what particular part of it I wanted to release that isn’t feeling good because of that. Oh, now that makes sense. And now I kind of understand why I want to release it, versus, oh my gosh, I shouldn’t be feeling this. I need to stuff it down. Or, oh my gosh, I’m feeling this, I need to fix everything. ERIKA: I think that’s a really important distinction. When we are analyzing our thoughts and digging into them, it is so important to remain compassionate to ourselves and kind to ourselves. Mindfulness is a really important practice in my life. And to me, it feels like it’s about keeping things in a bigger perspective. And then in combination with not judging myself, and what you were just talking about, just makes me think of, when we can question our thoughts, notice our thoughts and our stories, and ask ourselves who we would be if we didn’t believe that or we didn’t have that story, or who could I be if that wasn’t my thought right now? I think of things that our kids are interested in, maybe, that trigger us. And so, we have that discomfort of like, this is a scary interest or you know, this is something dangerous or, or things like that. But there are people in the world who don’t believe that. And so how would it feel? And I know, Pam, you mention things like this all the time. What would it feel like for me if I didn’t have that belief? And so, I really like realizing that our thoughts are not us. They’re separate from us. And the stories that we tell in our minds about things are not the whole story. Mindfulness, I think, is becoming aware that you have thoughts and then getting some separation between who you are and your thoughts. And so, when I get too attached to a story that I’m telling, it makes it harder for me to shift when things are changing, it makes it harder for me to solve problems. Presence in the moment and open awareness is a much more powerful place from which to live. And I try to practice getting to that place. I would say one of my warning signs that will remind me to go back to that practice is when I start spiraling and panicking about something. Because clearly, at that point, I’m telling a certain story about what’s happening, and I feel so certain about it. But in the discomfort of that panic, I’m like, I need to feel better. That reminds me to come back to curiosity, accepting what is, openness to possibilities. And so, it feels like mindfulness is something that I will always get more opportunities to practice again. Because no matter how much we learn, things will always come up that trigger that tunnel vision panic. And mindfulness is the key there, I think. ANNA: Yeah, cultivating mindfulness and presence was such a big part of my parenting journey, because I did tend to run ahead in my mind and actions and would create this huge disconnect with those around me. And so, bringing that curiosity to the moments that you talked about, helped me connect not only with my kids, but really with myself too. And I would say that’s where my discomfort usually was when my own stuff would come up, and I needed to figure out where my reactions were coming from and why. And was I ready to let it go? And I got more and more comfortable with that process. But it was always a lot of work and could be exhausting at times. I definitely remember thinking many times, “no more lessons, I don’t want to peel back any more layers, I don’t want to learn anything else about myself.” Because it can be exhausting, but it does get easier. My kids were really great guides for not judging and really being with their emotions, so that they can move through you, so that those emotions can be experienced and that they can pass through. And that wasn’t really modeled in my family of origin. And it felt really good to be creating a different environment where we were all learning the skill together. And gratitude, that I think you mentioned, Pam, and just noticing those glimmers was such a helpful tool to bring me back to the moment, to feel my way through the trickier times. I found those glimmers were always there. Even when things seemed the most grim, there was something, a spark of light, a bird, a little thing, whatever it is, that is almost like that little mindfulness bell to bring myself to what’s actually happening around me when something feels so big or panicky. And I think there’s just a lot to be gained from just noticing when something comes up about the journey or situation and allowing ourselves to feel through to the other side. I’ve come to see that that’s really where the learning is right in these moments in living life as uncomfortable as that may be at times. And it’s funny, I was thinking about just jumping back a little bit to this idea, Erika, when you were saying, I could try on being this authoritarian parent. But really, I think the biggest thing is, and it’s kind of like when you walked through it, when you have children who live in an environment where they’re empowered, that’s not going to fly, right? They’re just going to call you on it. So, to some extent that ship has sailed once you start opening up to, we’re all human beings and we all have a right to express ourselves. And I actually love that, because I think it can be a trap to think, well, if I just fall back in. And for me, it’s not even just parenting, just everybody doing what I want them to do would be really nice. But when you’ve cultivated that environment of being able to speak your mind and say your needs and with kindness, you can’t really go back. I think that’s why we always say, look back at your kids. So, in some ways I think people think that to mean like, oh, observe them, they’re cute, look at them, that’s so great. But it’s also just, they’re going to lead the way in what as humans we need for interaction. Anyway, that just came to mind for me. PAM: I love that. They really are. I remember I wrote so many years ago, like one of the moments, like when you’re looking, am I done deschooling, right? And really, if you’re asking that question, you’re not. But one of the things that you’ll notice that will be like a little clue that you’ve moved through the bulk of it is when you can’t answer, “Because,” to your kids anymore. That’s exactly what that reminded me of. So, the next aspect to explore is this piece now of sitting with discomfort to discover what we want to let go. And back to the Maria Popova quote about holding one’s imperfection with gentleness. In the Unschooling Journey book, I spent two full pages, two full big pages describing how this process unfolded for me around an uncomfortable, stuck feeling I was experiencing while being overwhelmed and exhausted with three kids under 10 now at home, while also feeling uncomfortable with the messages I often heard aimed at moms. “You gotta take time for yourself.” So, for me around this, sitting with discomfort is about giving myself some time and space to hear the various messages that bubble up, and get curious about where they seem to come from. Notice how they bounce off each other because it’s not wrong when you can have the opposite ideas bubble up. That’s just being curious. Like you said, Erika, we are not our thoughts, right? It’s just so interesting to see what comes up. And certainly at the time I wasn’t literally “sitting” other than maybe a couple minutes in the bathroom, but it was about letting my subconscious toss things around. So, sometimes bubbling up a thought here or another question into my focus. That’s curious. And then consciously pondering those bits. Well, maybe I was washing a few dishes or making some sandwiches or pushing someone on the swing or playing with Legos, pulling apart Lego pieces. There were actually times during my day, if I just watched out for them, that would flow into my lap. But eventually I found the root of this particular issue for me, which was I’ve been thinking about my life as kind of divided into two slices, right? Time with the kids where I met their needs and felt like I basically ignored mine and then time without the kids when I met my needs and I can ignore theirs for a while. And I kept looking for time without the kids so I could finally meet my needs without actually leaving the kids, because that didn’t feel right to me either. So, of course that wasn’t going to work. From there I could figure out what was really true for me. What did I think about this? What kind of parent did I want to be? I didn’t want to be a parent that feels like she needs to escape her kids to be her true self. I didn’t want to view “mother” in quotes as a role that I play. Like, here I’m turning on being a mother and now I’m turning it off to be me, right? Mother is an integral part of me, a fundamental part of me. And my needs, the things that nurture me, are also an integral part of me. So that meant the thought that wasn’t working for me in the end, the one that I gently let go of, was that I needed time without my kids to meet my needs. That was the thing that wasn’t working. I thought I valued my work as a mother before this stage. I left work, I came home, all these pieces that were very valuable to me. But now I understood it at a deeper level. Once I decided to bring my full self to each day instead of feeling stuck, all of a sudden now I saw so many more possibilities. I rediscovered the joy of being just wholeheartedly with my kids and ways to weave my needs into our days. I was no longer desperately looking for alone time to replenish myself. And when I did want some time alone, because there’s nothing wrong with that, I could arrange it not as an escape from them, but just as part of me and I want to do this. I don’t need to push others away to do something that I wanted to do. So that’s just one example of the many, many, many times I’ve sat with discomfort over the years and continue to do so, right? We’re talking about human beings here. And remember that this isn’t often a one and done process. This isn’t a battle to judge over power and eliminate parts of ourselves. We’re not trying to perfect ourselves. It’s about accepting that these ups and downs are part of our nature. It’s holding ourselves with kindness, compassion, exploring what works for us, because, all together now, people are different. And no matter the choice that we make in the end, we are experiencing the process, learning that with self-awareness, with finding tools that work for us, like sitting with discomfort, we can move through these uncomfortable moments with more care and more grace and just more. ANNA: Yes, moreness. Moreness. Oh my goodness. I would say sitting with discomfort historically has not been easy for me. I tend to want to find a solution and move forward. But what’s interesting about this is that it is in the slowing down that I learned so much, because if I’m feeling uncomfortable, then most likely I’m wanting things to go a certain way and they aren’t. So, recognizing that gives me something to examine. It helps slow me down. I could start to look at, what is my expectation here, remembering that expectations are pre-planned resentments, but why was I holding onto it? Why were others seeing it so differently? What story was I telling myself about this situation? Just being able to ask the questions, it’s kind of like you were saying, Erika, it’s that little bit of separation from the thought. And so, my first thought is to run out of this uncomfortable situation. And then it’s like, oh, I can slow down and just examine these thoughts as they’re going by. And that was super helpful to me. I think the rush to solve often has us reaching for control and it can have very little self-examination. So, if mine is like, I just want this to stop, I want you all to do these things to make it stop, I’m not learning anything about myself in that situation and I’m harming our relationship. Part of my commitment to myself and my own growth was that I wanted to try to own my stuff and to not let that spill out on others. Because I had that experience in other relationships in different places. And yes, this is definitely not a one and done, but a practice. And sitting with discomfort is really such a great first step in learning what my triggers are and then peeling back some layers to find out where they are coming from, to understand them a little bit more, versus being controlled by them. What I realize now is that’s that first reaction. But if I slow down, I can recognize the process that’s happening. And invariably it’s about me. Even when I may be saying I’m uncomfortable with my child’s behavior or my friend’s behavior or my spouse’s behavior, it’s an opportunity to learn more about me. And once I’ve done that work, I’m more open to understanding the other person. Why are we seeing something so differently? And it leaves space for a conversation if the behavior of the situation is really impacting me. Because it’s never about stuffing down our feelings. These are clues and information, right? It’s really about giving them space. It’s kind of the opposite. They’re valid, but if left completely unexamined, they can lead to challenges in our relationships, because we’re not having that awareness. So, giving space and kind attention to those feelings, they can really reveal the root of what’s happening and allow us to open ourselves to have those conversations and to learn more about each other. So again, I think sometimes people take this, maybe especially depending on personalities, but like, oh, I’m not supposed to have needs. If somebody’s impacting me, that’s all mine. And it’s like, no, but there is a piece that’s mine. And so then, how can I own that? Which then allows me to communicate more effectively with that person that may be impacting me and we can find a solution easier than if I’m coming in with a real defensive posture towards them. ERIKA: Yeah, that makes sense. I agree with what you were talking about there about expectations, because when I think about when I’m sitting with discomfort, it’s almost always that my expectations are not matching reality. But reality is the real one. So, obviously the expectations are what I need to release. Maybe I’ll have a vision of how my child should be treating their friends, or what their friendship relationships should look or feel like, or maybe what their interests should be, what they should like to do and how they should spend their time, how they interact with adults. Or maybe I just want them to move through their upset more quickly. That can be so uncomfortable. It’s such a common one, especially when they’re young, like, why is this so hard for them? Or why is this such a big deal? And just wishing things would be easier. And that feels so uncomfortable for us. And, and I love that you’re talking about how we can then notice like, why is that triggering? Why is that particular thing triggering us? And it’s always something else about us to learn, which is really fun. And I know we’ve talked about this so many times too, but I’ve seen it happen over and over that as soon as I slow down and start feeling comfortable with whatever the discomfort is and start to accept reality as it actually is, things can begin to shift. If I’m holding on to expectations and not like staying too tight about it, that is where we all get stuck. And so, I think getting comfy with how things are seems to be this vital step in that growth process for me. And it’s so interesting that it affects others too. My energy about it is affecting my kids’ ability to move through something. And so, I think the key for me is realizing discomfort is not the same as failure, which I learned about in school. That kind of failure does not really exist, but life has plenty of challenging moments, seasons that feel really hard, but that’s not because we did something wrong. We should have known how to avoid this, whatever that self-talk can be. And so, I don’t have to spend time being mean to myself about what I think I did wrong to get us to this situation. I can go straight to compassion, kindness, acceptance of where we are. Not all the time, obviously. As we’ve all been saying, we’ll have more opportunities to try this again, but eventually I can get there. And I think more quickly than I could when I was younger, because yeah, I’ve just had so much practice now. PAM: So much more practice, so much more experience. And yeah, I find the language, the self-talk is usually one of my first clues. If I’m being mean to myself or like, why didn’t you figure this out? Or why did you do that? We just notice it a little bit more, a little bit sooner, right? It’s like, oh, that’s my clue. Something is up here. And then moving to the tool. Oh yes, I know I need to sit with this for a little bit. I can be kind and compassionate to myself and understand myself and just feel out more of what’s going on here. Okay. So the last aspect to explore around the idea of accepting our nature is discovering an undercurrent of joy. So, in this stage, we’re learning to accept rather than fight our nature. We move beyond judging ourselves so we can mindfully move through moments of temptation and discomfort, learn what we can, and continue on our journey. What I found really fascinating about this stage was that in this deeper acceptance of myself and the resulting freer flow of our days, I discovered an undercurrent of joy running through our lives. That was the phrase that came to me to represent it. It felt and continues to feel like a subterranean river flowing beneath all our experiences and through all of my different states of mind. It’s yet another aspect of the flow of time that we talked about in the last stage. Another aspect of the nature of being, I think. I realized that most uncomfortable or distressing moments aren’t as dire as they first appear as I make them out in my mind. I found I could be more present with both the happiness and the disappointment in those moments without taking a huge internal roller coaster ride up and down. Because I no longer equated the deep longer term sense of joy that I felt with the emotions of the moment I was in. That was interesting for me, not seeing joy so much as an emotion. I discovered that my joy was rooted in knowing more deeply that I was in control of my life. I was free to make the choices that made sense to me without judging myself. And since writing my book, I came across a great quote from Sebene Selassie that speaks to this feeling for me. It was so fun to discover it out in the wild. She’s using the lens of belonging in her book, and I think that’s another great word to describe this feeling, this undercurrent of joy. She wrote, “Belonging is our capacity to feel joy, freedom, and love in any moment. As the late Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck said, ‘Joy is exactly what’s happening, minus our opinion of it.’ She made a distinction between joy and happiness. Happiness has an opposite, unhappiness. Joy is not about happy or unhappy, liking or disliking. Joy is accepting each moment for what it is without contention. We belong to any moment simply by meeting it with joy. This is freedom. Love is the ultimate expression of joy and freedom. Joy, freedom, and love could be considered synonyms for each other and for belonging.” I just really love that piece. That was a wonderful another layer explanation of just what joy was feeling for me and how it was an undercurrent that could flow through all the moments just by simply meeting it with joy. We’re here. We’re here. Hello. ERIKA: I love it. It’s such a deep explanation of joy. I feel like it’s inspirational. It makes me feel like getting present, like just being there in the moment, meeting each moment, like this moment is how it is. How that connects to the idea of belonging is really cool too. The undercurrent of joy is so powerful. I feel like, for me, remembering that or staying connected to that helps me get more playful in the moments. It helps me access creativity. It helps me stay more present. It helps me stay tuned in to who I really am. It allows me to give others the space to be themselves too. It takes away judgment. It has that feeling of awe for me, just being amazed that we get to experience life. And the experience of life has all sorts of feelings as a part of it. For me, the undercurrent of joy feels like gratitude and awe and presence and non-judgment. I just want to be able to access that as often as I can. ANNA: I love the feeling of that, because awe isn’t about judging anything. It is just this experience of that moment, just really taking it in. I love that. I love the sound of just the undercurrent of joy and that subterranean river. I think it feels really good. I do feel like this was a huge shift for me, because David is the one who enjoys life and finds this joy and always has. I feel like in our 20s, we both felt a bit bogged down with the realities or now I would say even what we thought were the realities of adulting. After everything that happened with our oldest’s birth and the medical challenges, everything really shifted. We were so much more focused on those moments, the joy that could be found in the tiny bits of things in a sea of all these other pieces. The striving, the productivity above all else really felt like such a sour note and kind of missing the whole point of life. It was as if my eyes opened to awe. It brought me to a place where I could experience the awe. Over the years, I feel like that awareness just kept growing and that undercurrent of joy was more recognizable and more accessible. I love how you said, Erika, just staying connected to it. That’s a practice, I think, staying connected to it. As you know, kids will lead the way here as well. They naturally flow with life, the ups and downs, not really getting stuck in any place too long. Feeling it all without judgment, especially in young kids. I think, partly as a product of school, we put so much weight on everything. Mistakes are catastrophic, setbacks are devastating. When we get to that place of flowing and not judging but experience, we really do see the gifts in all of it. We can remain open to what comes from any given situation. We can feel it all, because it’s not about a surface-level happiness. For me, it’s this deeper level of appreciation for being human, for being able to feel the feelings and see the things, for being present in the moments. My kids definitely taught me what that looks like and helped me create that practice. I feel like it probably shouldn’t be so hard, but it was for me for a long time. I feel like now I’m much more tapped in, but I think we have a lot of things that pull us out of that, a lot of things that disconnect us from that piece. It’s really interesting seeing my kids as adults now who do get pulled by some of these messages, but I also see this deeper trust and knowing. I think it comes from their childhood. They’re definitely on their own unique journey, but I’m super grateful for the life that we created together and that that awe and presence and flow was such a deep part and foundation for them. When they hear the outside noises, they don’t feel as intense, I think, as for those of us that were raised in school and families that maybe had that and then all these other outside noises in our 20s. I was trying to think about words I like to use, because this is a very energetic thing for me. It just has this energy. Peace, acceptance, surrender, contentment, appreciation just all helped me recognize the flow, you know, moving with this current of life, not against it and watching for when I felt that I was moving against it and moving away from this connection with that undercurrent. PAM: Yeah, I think we’ve talked so many years about flow, so I think that’s why my vision of that energy was more of a flow, an undercurrent, a river versus something a little bit more static, but yeah, it really is. It really is an energy that comes and yes, I love that, Erika, reaching for it, touching it, bringing it closer, I think that’s a great way to think about it and it’s definitely a practice. So, thanks so much everyone for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this dive into the fourth stage in the deschooling phase of our journey as we explored the idea of accepting our nature. We invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network to continue the conversation. It’s a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents, a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these more unconventional unschooling ideas and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. Your first month is free so you can get a sense of whether the community is a good fit for you. We are excited to welcome you and to learn more and join us, just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfully.ca and choose Network in the menu. Wishing everyone a lovely day. Bye!