how to be yourself, give much, let others be themselves, and receive much

“I try my hand at being myself.”

Bob Dylan

I came to homeschooling at a different time than some people I know.

I came to it with different struggles and different preconceptions. I came to adulthood with different experiences. I travelled to different places. I was enrolled in eleven schools before graduating high school and lived in nineteen places before I was twenty.

I’ve learned that everyone around me has different frameworks on life. They saw different music concerts than I did growing up. Their musical devices are filled with music I might never listen to. And we might read different genres of books. They experience family relationships differently than me. They have different educational backgrounds. They chose to have children for different reasons, and a few didn’t have children at all.

So it shouldn’t be any wonder that we approach this homeschool lifestyle differently either.

Some are a little more liberal, some more conservative. Some more regimented, some more carefree. Some prefers textbooks, some prefer historical fiction.

We’re different. Surprise! We already knew we were. So we’ll not expect uniformity in our homeschool approaches.

But when we listen and when we speak from our hearts, we learn from one another. We might hear a gem of help from unexpected places, and have our path move in a more peaceful, freeing, and useful direction.

That’s the beauty of being open to know and be known by others.

There are always gifts to be received in the nuggets of wisdom that others share when we’re open to hearing them. There is a wealth of experience we can tap when it’s not just coming from our story.

So I’ll try my hand at being myself.

Ours is one story in an anthology of many stories. So we need to offer our stories, allow ourselves to be ourselves, so we’ll give much, and receive much.

Teresa Wiedrick

Check out Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer