Mindful Matter
Parenting wisdom from the community.
In last week’s Reflection (Reduce the noise, focus on the essentials, and keep it simple.) I shared how I have been paring down and simplifying my life so I could make space for becoming a father. At the end of the email I asked you, the Holstee community, to share your lessons and words of parenting wisdom — the response was incredible. And what timing. Our baby girl was born this week and it’s been one of the most meaningful, magical experiences of my life. My heart has swelled in ways I didn’t know was possible. The transition from last month's theme of Simplicity to June's theme of Adventure was particularly pronounced for me this year. It was a great reminder of how much the former can be an enabler for the latter. The wisdom of this community runs deep so I’d like to reflect back what you so generously had to offer me, categorized into a few buckets below. Keep yourself healthy “All the baby needs is happy, healthy parents. If you are centered and strong, your child will be as well!” -Heather “Sleep when the baby sleeps” - Melissa “Make sure that you and your wife have each others back when either of you makes what may be an unpleasant decision.” - CJ “Your daughter will test your strength and push you to your limits of sanity. It will start easily enough and will quickly progress to full on chaos. You will lose your mind. When this happens allow yourself to step away and reset, until you can return to your normal state of mind.” - Dave E. Be in the moment “SAVOR EVERY MOMENT.” - Yvonne “Especially in the first months in the life of your little girl you can set the base of a deeply emotional relationship. I cuddled and hugged as much as I could with my daughter” - Carsten “Just enjoy the moments and embrace a beginners mind.” - CJ "Don't wish anything away. No matter what phase you are in, it will change. And it all goes by quickly. So do whatever you can to appreciate the now of whatever stage you're in." - Mike S. “When you are with your family BE with your family. Learn to be flexible. Listen to your child. If they feel heard, really heard, everything from there is doable.” - Lani “Put down the parenting books and pick up the baby.” - Gina "Parenting tiny humans is like living life in fast forward and slow motion all at the same time. Enjoy the show!" - Leslie B “We asked everyone to stay away for two weeks so that we could bond and find our new rhythm. Its difficult to put into words how special it was.” - Ben Trust your intuition “Keep it simple, do what your instincts tell you.” - Max “You can't mess it up. You will be the exact parent your child needs.” - Melissa “We're all wrong at least 50% of the time, and it turns out, being wrong isn't so bad, especially in parenting. With each "wrong" choice, you are teaching incredible resilience, flexibility, and forgiveness. And the world always needs more of all three of those things.” - Elaine “Don't feel that you need to listen to other's parenting advice. Take what you want. Smile and say no thank you to the rest.” - Heather On guiding your child “Enjoy them love them and know that you can influence not own and control them.” - Jane “Teach them character and integrity by example. Say yes whenever you can and when you say no, mean it.” - Barbara “Let her learn the value of a dollar and the satisfaction and personal pride that comes from working to earn something. As she saves for the things that she wants, she will learn to delay gratification. She is being born into a world of uncertainty. Create family rituals and routines that become sacred to your family. She is growing up in a world of disconnected people. Let her find her voice and know that her thoughts matter. Remember that ultimately, she has her own journey.” - Debbie And one more to look forward to ;-) “The best thing about children is they are a gateway to being a grandparent” - Jane Cecilia also resurfaced two poems on parenting for me I have always loved: On Children by Kahlil Gibran and Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Law Nolte - you can read both at the end of this note. Thank you again for sharing your wisdom and hard-learned lessons with me. I am honored to be able to pass them along. And thanks to Allaina for the great suggestion to share these responses! With gratitude and love, Michael, Setareh and Mala On Children by Kahlil Gibran Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them,but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;For even as He loves the arrow that flies,so He loves also the bow that is stable. Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Law Nolte If a child lives with criticism,he learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility,he learns to fight. If a child lives with fear,he learns to be apprehensive. If a child lives with pity,he learns to feel sorry for himself. If a child lives with ridicule,he learns to be shy. If a child lives with jealousy,he learns what envy is. If a child lives with shame,he learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with encouragement,he learns to be confident. If a child lives with tolerance,he learns to be patient. If a child lives with praise,he learns to be appreciative. If a child lives with acceptance,he learns to love. If a child lives with approval,he learns to like himself. If a child lives with recognition,he learns that it is good to have a goal. If a child lives with sharing,he learns about generosity. If a child lives with honesty and fairness,he learns what truth and justice are. If a child lives with security,he learns to have faith in himself and in those about him. If a child lives with friendliness,he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live. If you live with serenity,your child will live with peace of mind. With what is your child living?
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Reduce the noise, focus on the essentials, and keep it simple.
You may recognize this as our Simplicity mantra for the month (found in our latest guide and on the back of this month’s art -- photos below!). This theme is timely for me, as my wife and I prepare to welcome our first child to the world. The due date was May 19th, so it’s literally any day now! I am excited to be a father, to see what my daughter looks like, to play with her and learn from her. But also circling my mind is the knowledge that the greatest gift you can give a child is time — something that there is never enough of, particularly when you run a small business. Still, I am looking for ways I can further “focus on the essentials.” For example, I recently decided to step down from our local Food Co-op board. It was a really difficult decision, because I loved the community and felt fulfilled by the work. But I had to remind myself that saying “no” to things now means I’ll be able to say yes to other (smaller, far more adorable) things in the future. Speaking of babies, I’d love to take the opportunity to learn from the collective wisdom of the Holstee community. If you have tips, books, or words of wisdom as I enter parenthood, I’d love to hear from you! With Love, Mike RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee Display this art and explore this guide -- check out the Simplicity Kit today!
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The noble art of leaving things undone.
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”― Lin Yutang I needed this reminder today. A reminder that just because I had planned on doing something, and am able to do something, doesn't mean it needs to be done. A reminder that there is beauty in emptiness, and that silence can be serene. A reminder that even though it can be hard to say “no” to something that is already on our plates, sometimes we need to in order to say “yes” to something that matters more. A reminder that it is up to us to decide what needs to be done — if anything at all. Do you, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Our members say that small reminders like this are one of the things they love most about the Holstee Membership. We created the membership to serve as a consistent reminder to live fully and mindfully — to be proud of the lives we lead and the choices we make. A post shared by Holstee (@holstee) on May 17, 2018 at 9:02am PDT
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5 Things We Learned About Simplicity This Month
Jennifer Lioy, Creative and Community Lead at Holstee
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Your three most meaningful possessions.
It's incredible how easy it has become to consume. Clothes, food, cars, toys, electronics — they’re always available, delivered direct to our doors sometimes within hours. We are constantly reminded, by media and advertisements, friends and family, how much we “need” these things. It's hard to take a step back and realize that we are in a system of hyper-consumption. It can be even harder to face the fact that we are often a contributor to it. The convenience is far too great, the feeling of instant gratification far too strong. This month's theme of Simplicity reminds us that living with fewer, more meaningful objects is not only better for the planet but also more fulfilling. In the past we explored ways to declutter your life. But this year we want to focus on the objects in your life that you truly hold dear and that add meaning and depth of your life. The objects that make your life easier, that bring back fond memories, that make you smile. In this month’s Simplicity Guide, we shared this activity question: Imagine this scenario: You pull up to your house to see it has caught fire. All people and pets are safe — don’t worry! The firefighters tell you the fire is contained just enough that they can safely run in to save three items. What three items would you choose? Extreme hypothetical questions like this can help break our existing mental models and self-limiting beliefs. They remind us how little we need and how resilient we can be when challenged. So, what three items would you choose? Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Members: Share your answer and read others (including mine!) in our private Facebook community!
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Time isn’t the enemy.
For the past few months, I’ve felt behind, constantly chasing after my to-do list. Yet every week it gets longer instead of shorter. I think to myself that I just don't have enough time — that there aren’t enough hours in the day or enough days in the week for my work, let alone for all the fun things I want to do. This pressure is what Leo Babauta, creator of Zen Habits, calls the Time Scarcity Demon. Babauta writes: “The problem isn’t that we have too little time — we all get the same amount of time each day and each week. It’s the exact right amount of time, because it’s all there is. It’s possible that we have too many things to do. But actually the real problem is that we want to do too much in the time we have.” It's a simple notion, but it changed my perspective. Time isn’t the enemy, time just is — it’s a simple but enabling idea. The problem for me is that I am greedy. I want more: more time and more from my time. But the reality is that I have the same time as everyone else. And though we might want more, we are probably better off just being present in the magic of this moment and appreciating what we have accomplished with the time we’ve got. Simplicity is all about understanding what we have and realizing that we often don't need more, even if we might crave it. Check out our Simplicity Guide to dive deeper into Babauta's shared wisdom, along with the concepts of lobha — the Buddhist concept of greed — and dana, its antidote. Simply yours, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee
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