“You do not have to be good.”
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
“You do not have to be good.”
How comforting these words are!
Since we’re little children, we’ve been asked to be good. By our parents, teachers, and society; and society even have a definition of what good is supposed to be.
Now as parents, we’re telling our kids to be good, to do good, behave good as well…
Are you wondering what’s wrong with it? We should be good, right?
There’s nothing wrong with this, actually.
Except, Just one thing.
There’s a hidden subliminal message in all this – “You are already not good enough.”
You need to do something, in order to be good or prove that you are good.
This somehow denies the innate goodness in every child, in every human being.
When we let go of trying to be good and start seeing the pure goodness in our children, they start seeing it as well.
Then they don’t feel the need to prove themselves to others that they are good.
They start getting connected with their natural goodness and innate greatness within them.
As a parent, we just need to get out of their way, trust them fully, and allow them to connect with themselves.
We have so many HAVE TOs… have to be good, have to keep in improving, have to be this… to do that… Right?
What if we could let go of the burden of ‘we have to’?
And lighten up the load from our children’s little shoulders as well?
Listen to this trailer of Raising Parents “You Do Not Have To Be GOOD” on Spotify, Anchor, Castbox, Apple or RadioPublic
Raising parents podcast on Pocket casts
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Looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Much love.
Saloni.