Introduction: 21 Days to (More? Better? Some?) Inner Peace and Harmony for Single Parents

As a little kid, did you fantasize about getting up in the middle of the night alone to deal with your sick child, realizing their vomiting would cost you hundreds of dollars in lost income? To get up in the dark to finish laundry, do dishes, and get kids organized for school? For years? To deal with phone calls from the school regarding your son’s behavior either alone or with someone who would blame you for their mistakes? Did you look forward to the shock of meeting a virtual stranger at a coffee shop (realizing the person you thought they were while you were flirting and salaciously texting for 2 weeks is far from what you thought they were)? Did you imagine you would need to move, and then move again, and perhaps even 3 more times, before finding the affordable home for you to raise your kids alone? I did not and yet I did all of these things. 

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Being a single parent is not what we wished for or envisioned while making daisy chains in grade school. We didn’t imagine this lifestyle even existed while sinking hoops in 4th grade phys ed class But maybe, just maybe (probably), it could turn out better than we could have ever imagined. I have been there, twice, in fact. I am twice-divorced (before I turned 40!). I have made many mistakes, but luckily fell in to the hands and books of wise sages who have helped to guide me from victimhood to health. I would not say I am completely healed, or completely healthy, completely prefect, or even completely sane. But I am complete. I am a single mother of 2 imperfect young adults, and have been a student of this single parent business for over a decade. I am not an authority, I am a fellow traveler with you on this quest for more harmony in my life.

I don’t know your situation, and don’t know how hard your battles are, or what you went or still go through. But you are complete too! We can only start to have more harmony with our lives when we start to make a few changes, a few new habits. I want to share with you a few secrets I have learned to help you through this challenge in your life, to help you be proactive, to help us see the rewards in our hard work at making new habits. What would it feel like to move away from the merry-go-round spinning out of control and towards inner peace?

I wrote a book: 21 Days to More Inner Peace for Single Parents.

There are actually 6 mini books in the works, with 6 habits for single parents to practice for 21 days each:

1. Be Present (currently publishing here on a daily basis)

2. Be Responsible

3. Build Community

4. Be Thankful

5. Be Optimistic

6. Be Courageous

Book #1, Be Present is designed to help us get a fresh perspective, to allow our lives to unfold as divine gifts, not the mangled lost dream it occasionally feels like. This book is going to be published here 1st, day by day… It is a book with silly stories to laugh at my mistakes, heartfelt stories of my mistakes to inform you that your feelings are shared, hopeful inspiration from published sources you can delve more deeply into on your own, and some “not so easy” breakthrough actions to help us on our journey to building the habit of being present. It takes 21 days of consistent effort to make a new habit part of our daily lives. So give yourself 10-15 minutes for 21 consecutive days. Obviously this is not deep therapy, or a 12-step program. I won’t turn you into the second Buddha, but see if your journey is a little more peaceful, harmonious, maybe a little more joyful, and a lot more purposeful.

“The best is yet to come”. E.E. Cummings