Let’s talk about culture. By definition culture is this; (as a noun)

the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. The characteristic features of everyday existence. The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization

All of that, in correlation to being a person, really hit home, but it was as a verb that truly spoke to me — to maintain in conditions suitable for growth.

As a woman, I’ll go out on a limb and tell you, we wear a lot of fucking hats. Mother, professional, SAHM, therapist, big sister, motherless adult child, sister in law, neighbor, oh; wife. Ya know. All that, and a bag of gmo-free/gluten-free/fat-free cape cod chips in size party bag.

There is a lot that goes into the cultivation of becoming a woman. There is planting seeds, for ourselves, for our children, for our husbands, for our future successes. There is the tilling, tending and caring for those seeds throughout all the changes we go through. From young lady to independent 20 something, to an engaged woman where we literally think and believe we have the world by the balls, to then becoming a wife, a teammate, and someone for a partner through the worst and best of life, til death to us part.

But there are still the seeds. The tending, the caring. And then you throw in the creation of a new life made from the love between your partner and you. And then, you quickly realize that the world now has YOU by the balls, and you need to somehow, through all of this MAINTAIN. In conditions. Suitable. For growth. have an attitude worth adjusting. A set of beliefs worth standing in with your convictions. A moral compass that always points NORTH.

The growth for you, your husband, your values, your morals, your CHILDREN, their morals and values, and the growth that one day will be seen as millions of little circles swelling out from the one before it, from one pebble thrown into a vast open sea.

You. Are the pebble. This world and all we touch is the vast open sea. We are all making ripples every single day. Some good, some bad. Some truly life changing.

Lately, at night I tell my babies that they can be absolutely anything they want to be. That their thoughts become their words and their words become their actions. I’ve talked about mantras and we say them many times a day with eachother. My oldest is just beginning to understand how thoughts become actions, my middle one listens intently and absorbs what he can, but from what I can tell, he is certainly more interested in biting his toe nails, and as for my little girl, these are the very beginnings of words and seeds being planted in her ears, her mind and her soul.

I know I am only one person. And my opinions aren’t for everyone, that’s why they are called mine. But every day I can find myself in a situation where I stop in my tracks, and think about what I’m about to say or do. Sometimes I carry through with what I thought I was gonna do, sometimes I don’t. I’m almost 36 years old and I still know when to check myself. When I may actually BE the problem. And how I can start becoming part of the solution. I’m not perfect, and I don’t have every answer, but when it comes to being deep down in my soul good, I can genuinely say I’m happy with myself. With the seeds I’m planting, the energy I exude, the people I choose, and who I give my love to.

Not everyone is worthy of your inner most best self, but everyone is worthy of peace. So since it’s been a minute since I’ve written, I kind of do this to check in with myself to walk myself through a hard season or lesson or loss, I present to you my take away:

Each one of us walking through life, be it Target, your local farmers market, or driving through your neighborhood, you hold within you an entire culture. A system of values and beliefs and morals. Legacies you’re living out and blueprints you are creating for your children to honor and live by, and eventually when they reach parenthood or adulthood, tweak, and make even better. So, try to remember this when you walk into someone who maybe didn’t hold the door for you, or let you cut in front in traffic, or didn’t smile at you back in the dollar spot at target. Give them your peace. Give them the grace you wish someone would give you. Pay it morally forward. Because this world has become a really scary place. Full of one uppers, opportunists, everything experts, fear mongering, violence, hatred and so much more darkness. And because of that, us good ones? We need to up our game that much more. To be the change we wish to see we must radiate our light, our God given light, out of us. Even when the world is dark.