360 Degrees

I heard a phrase on Oprah the other day that literally kept me up last night and then had me thinking again early this morning. The phrase is 360° Life. It was coined by this magazine mogul, Lisa Black, who runs a seriously successful publishing empire and has a book out called Basic Black. It’s all about being a true success in your life – your whole life. Anyway, I loved her idea of remembering to have a 360° Life, because so many of us seem to forget to do that. We’re either burying our selves in work trying to make our way in careers, striving for that perfect life for our children at home, or for the growing majority, we're doing both. Whatever our path, we’re so wiped out at the end of the day that all we can bear is a little TV and as much sleep as possible. That’s where we begin to fail ourselves.

There is no doubt that I am doing the job that I want to do right now. For me, I just want to be the one here with my kids during the day, so we’re living tightly in order to make it happen right now. Even though my husband doesn’t always get this feeling at dinnertime, most days really are great. (They all have their challenges though, too, and right now I have to say that I remember the work force to be less challenging!) On weekends, which are chock full of all other types of responsibilities, there just doesn’t seem to be a break anywhere in sight. If Mike has other things going on, which he has every right to; my chief complaint is that there is no variation in my life. How many weekends is this going to come up before I just plain do something about it?

I am definitely a self-helper, constantly thinking about and striving to make my family members’ lives and my own better, fuller, more abundant. I can get on a roll and talk and write about it really well, but it’s the long term follow through that seems to have escaped me. But now I’ve got this new perspective from this idea of the 360° Life, which is helping me focus not only on all my responsibilities, but my passions, my plans for me, my happiness – and not only that happiness that is derived from all the wonderful people in my life – but the joy that I am solely responsible for placing in my own heart.

I know that I have done those closest to me a disservice by leaving myself in the dust for most of my married life. It’s happened naturally and I don’t think it could be more common for us moms. It’s what we do and in today’s world it happens with such frenzy we don’t even see ourselves taking our place on the back burner of life. It just happens, if we let it.

So I won’t. As far as my kids go, I will find good in more diaper changes, grit my teeth through the constant milk spills, strive to never say a shameful thing “just because I’m tired” and above all, say “yes” to playing more often. For my husband, well, I guess I could say the same things! We need to make the time for our marriage plain and simple. For me, I will follow my passions and be passionate about what I am so blessed to have. I will stop thinking about what I would love to obtain someday and focus on loving what I already have. I will do things that feed me too and focus on every single aspect of my 360° Life and I know life will just flow and absolutely anything will be possible.

Actually it already is.