Living Wide Alive
In 2006, Gayle King began hosting The Gayle King Show on Oprah’s XM Channel 156. Like many during that time, I was a huge Oprah fan. I watched her shows, I listened to her radio programs, I even went to two of her conferences; one in Los Angeles and one in Miami. Listening to The Gayle King Show was one of my favorite things to do. With three children under the age of seven, it was an escape and my happy place.
On this particular day, I was driving with my oldest who at the time was seven. Usually chatty, my son sat quietly listening to The Gayle King Show. After a few minutes he asked, “Mom, is this Oprah?” I replied, “No. This is her best friend, Gayle King.” He paused and then calmly followed up with, “So, is Oprah dead?” As if he had just sent horrible karma into the world, I quickly rattled off everything I could think of to off-set the universe taking his sentence and running with it, “Oh goodness no! She is not dead! Oprah is building schools in Africa and giving people cars and challenging us to be better! She is changing the world and everyone in it!” Without missing a beat, he said, “Oh. So, Oprah is Wide Alive!” I paused, took in what he had just said, and replied with a smile, “Yes love. Oprah is Wide Alive.” Since that day, I have pondered what it meant to be Wide Alive. I knew I loved my family. I knew I loved being a stay-at-home mom, but I knew I was not Living Wide Alive, and I whole heartedly wanted to be. This was when I began my journey to become Wide Alive.
What does it mean to be Wide Alive? Through my lens, I see it as finding the light in me so I can share that light with others. This does not mean I need to change the world like Oprah. It means I get to change the world like me. When I am grateful and joyful, that gratitude and joy seeps out to others. It is a contagious feeling, and I believe it is what our world needs to connect and heal.
In my book, The Parenting Backpack: Strategies & Tools to Help You Parent with Confidence, I talk about the rocks we carry around in our backpacks; our worries, insecurities, and fears. The first step to Living Wide Alive is unzipping our backpacks and becoming aware of the rocks that we have been carrying around in it. Once we are able to do that, everything begins to change! Step-by-step, day-by-day, you will become stronger, and you will begin feeling better, one rock at a time.
When we know our rocks, everything becomes a little bit easier. They go from weighing us down to becoming our strength. When we finally understand that we are human and that in our humanness we can strive for perfection, but not expect it, we slowly become more accepting of ourselves, which is when we can become more accepting of others. This is when we can step into gratefulness and joy. This is when we can begin Living Wide Alive. How do we do this? Together!
Join Susie and her parenting community so that you can begin Living Wide Alive together.