Stephen James

“Rather than seeking to be safe and in control, we become capable of living life on life’s terms. Instead of striving for perfection, we find rest in the reality that we will be, for the rest of our days, a constant work in progress, perennially unfinished, perpetually imperfect—always becoming in the experience of daily living. When we begin to accept that clumsy is the best we get—like giraffes on ice—we can begin to offer what our children really need from us: heartfelt relationship. This encompasses empathy, sensitivity, grief and celebration, perseverance, authenticity, understanding, boundaries, and reduced demands while still having high expectations, gratitude for others, gratitude for gifts they have, acceptance of others and self, understandable anger and frustration about life, and hope as what holds it all together. This sounds like a lot—and it is. These noble things cannot be achieved through knowing more but only through gaining and surrendering to the heart experience of living. The good-enough, clumsy parent is a wise-hearted person—someone who lives from a place rooted deeply in their authentic emotional and spiritual core and who has struggled truthfully to accept this clear edict: it takes a lifetime to learn how to live. Living the way we are made to live means acknowledging our feelings and asking for help and confessing that we are human. Living fully requires the ability to struggle daily with this truth: if we are going to experience the joy of life, we cannot escape the pain of love. If we don’t stay sensitive to life, then we revert to perfectionism—insisting that life and our children and other people behave according to our preset agendas.”
― Stephen James, Parenting with Heart: How Imperfect Parents Can Raise Resilient, Loving, and Wise-Hearted Kids