Monday is Parent Affirmation Day at Help 4 Your Family! 5/21/2012
an animated clock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
Get ready to laugh and tell me I’m wrong! I have heard many versions of this affirmation but the person I got it from is the mother of affirmations herself, Louise Hay. This week’s affirmation is:
Everything is happening at just the right time.
I know you do not believe me but give me a minute to talk you through it. I know it feels like things happen too slow, too fast, or at just the wrong time! This affirmation requires a little faith that there is a plan for us. Even if you are not a believer in a higher power, doesn’t it just make life simpler to believe that everything is happening at just the right time? I use this affirmation when I am running late and, I’m happy to tell you that when I use it, and believe it, everything does happen at just the right time. One time I used it recently was when I was running late to meet my daughter at school because I had promised I would eat lunch with her. I hate running late. I decided that I was going to obey traffic laws, and I just repeated to myself over and over that things happen at just the right time. I was still five minutes late, but guess what? The lunch before my daughter’s ran over by five minutes and I actually ended up entering the cafeteria at the same time she did. I also had not stressed myself out on the way there, which would require me to calm myself down before I could be present for my daughter.
You can use this affirmation for big things too. Birth, death, illness, and entering a romantic relationship, are all things that come to mind. Before you think I am trivializing any of those transitions I just mentioned, I want you to know I have experienced all of them, just like you. Carrying with me the belief that everything is happening at just the right time even if I don’t understand it, gets me through a lot and I will share a personal story to demonstrate how this affirmation has come true in my own life.
When I was a child, just about to turn nine, my older brother, who was just about to turn 12, died suddenly from an undiagnosed illness the summer before he would be entering middle school. I would never wish this on anyone, and no- there is never a good time for this to happen, but there might be a right time. Move forward in time to the night I met my husband for the first time. I was at a party and one of my brother’s friends, who I had not seen since he died, walked into the party with another friend. He actually was pretty shocked to see me and had a pretty strong reaction when he realized who I was. We started talking and he introduced me to his friend- my future husband. Had my brother lived and gone on to middle school, he and his friend would have probably drifted apart, since they were going to go to different schools. His friend might not have had the same memories of me that caused him to come right too me to talk and introduce me to his friend. My husband and I might not have had a strong immediate connection and who knows what might have happened? I can’t imagine my life without the husband and children that I have. I wouldn’t change a thing about them or about my life right now. This is one way that I make sense of the death of my brother. Everything happens at just the right time.
Even if it is hard to believe right now, try this affirmation out. Say it many, many times to yourself. Remind yourself that you don’t have to know the “why” of things happening, but that they are happening at just the right time.
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About me
Kate Oliver, LCSW-C (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) has been a clinician working with traumatized and attachment-disturbed children for almost two decades. She is co-owner of A Healing Place, a private practice in Columbia, Maryland, since 2007.
At the beginning of her career, Kate found that while some children responded to traditional child therapy practices, there were a significant number of children who showed little or no improvement in their overall emotional well-being. This led her to seek out specialized training to learn more about attachment, the bond between parents and children, and found that by using attachment-based strategies in addition to treating trauma, even the most challenging children and their parents, saw major, life-changing shifts, not only for the children she was working with, but the parents as well.
Early in her career, Kate was privileged to work as the clinical director for Tamar’s Children, a program that took pregnant, incarcerated women from prison to a treatment facility that worked on teaching the women to bond with and attach to their babies, while also helping the women to heal their own broken attachments, and history of trauma and addiction. This program was internationally recognized for having a successful, evidence-based practice using an attachment-based model. From working with some of the most severely disenfranchised parents, Kate received important information about how to help all parents maintain a happy, healthy relationship with their children.
In 2007, Kate co-founded A Healing Place, a mental health private group practice in Columbia, Maryland, where she focuses on working with families with children who have a history of trauma and/or attachment disturbances. A board certified supervisor, Kate has been an invited presenter to teach continuing education courses for other social workers and psychologists. In her courses, Kate teaches attachment-building techniques and presents about her sub-specialty, working with families headed by gay and lesbian parents. Kate has also worked as a trainer for Building Families for Children, a therapeutic foster care agency.
Kate is a former board member for the organization COLAGE, a non-profit group that works toward community building for people with gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender parents. She is currently a member of Attachment Disorders Maryland, a group that works to educate parents and professionals about working with children with attachment related issues. She is a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner and Educator.
Kate lives in Columbia, Maryland is the mother of two amazing daughters, the partner to a fantastic husband, and the daughter of one mother and two gay dads. She loves to read any book that crosses her path, write (of course), and she recently started dancing again, a passion she has had since her youth.
Kate can be reached by email: helpforyourfamily@gmail.com for questions or you can find her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/Help4yourfamily.
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I am going to try this. It is the “even if I don’t understand it” part that’s going to be tough for me!
Yes, that is the part that gives people the most trouble! We want to understand why all the time- but wouldn’t life be boring if we always knew? Let’s just trust that it will all make sense in time. Look at that kid in the Bullly movie. I’m sure it did not make sense to him why he was being picked on so mercilessly, but look who’s laughing now. He has made an amazing example to other children who are being bullied and brought a national spotlight to the situation of bullying. I could go on and on with examples of how things eventually come around to make sense. I’m lucky that in my job, I get to see it all the time as a reminder to myself.
Reblogged this on Licensed Mental Health Counselor and commented:
Excellent post!
Thank you!
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