The Power of Presence

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The Power of Presence Page 24

by Joy Thomas Moore


  I will always appreciate my mother for her compassion toward me, knowing exactly what I needed when I didn’t. Obviously, I didn’t have the time or resources to run back to the spa whenever I needed to recharge my battery. My challenge was figuring out how to re-create that space to be contemplative and introspective without having to go three thousand miles away. I came up with my answer after a particularly exhausting three weeks at the Casey Foundation.

  I call it my Triangle Day. And I celebrate it to this day, as a homage to self-care!

  Triangle Day is my day of going from my bed, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, and back to bed. Period. On Triangle Day, I don’t check email, pick up the mail, surf the internet, or catch up with friends. I watch TV, read, sleep, or do my own nails, and the catch is that everything must be accomplished within and between those three rooms. On most days, I don’t even get out of my pajamas. This is my day to do absolutely nothing I don’t want to do, in a setting I alone have access to. I usually get calls from the kids the next morning, wondering how my day went. My Triangle Days are usually limited to two or three times a year, and I understand that not everyone has the kind of job that allows them to go off the grid like this. Still, a variation of this can be accomplished on a weekend by just about everyone as long as you are connected to a pride—neighbors, a group of girlfriends, family members—trusted adults who can provide respite when you are at your wit’s end and on the verge of mental and/or physical exhaustion. It doesn’t have to be a week in the desert, just a few hours to connect with your inner you again.

  LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Make and take time for you!

  We don’t have to kill ourselves to provide a presence to our children that is precious and enduring. It’s critically important to take time to restore your own sanity—you won’t be the parent you want raising your kids if you’re completely strung out. Inspired by author Mariana Lin and others, here are some practical tips for preventing single-mom burnout.

  Know your limits. Remembering you are not a machine is a good place to start. We treat our cars better than we do ourselves, scheduling tune-ups every three thousand miles! Think about that! Pace yourself. Your capacity is not limitless, so if there’s a period when you are overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time to do it, step back and give yourself a Triangle Day.

  Get help. As much as I preach it, I’m still not great at asking for help, but as Lin, a single mom herself says, if you wait around for someone to offer help, “you may be waiting a long time (and get angry in the process).” And if you feel that you are imposing on other people and can afford it, hire help. When you’re clear on your priorities, you will be clearer on what’s feasible for you to do on your own and when you need others to help pick up the slack.

  Forget what everyone else is doing or thinking. Folks will always have something to say about your parenting—you cater to your kid, you don’t do enough; you spend too much time with your kid, you don’t spend enough; the clothes you buy are too expensive, your kids look like street kids. If you spend all your time worrying about what other people are saying about you, you won’t have time to do what is really important, providing presence to your child. Forget what other folks are saying and figure out a plan that allows you space to decompress while also providing for the myriad needs and demands of your children—and go for it.

  Strike a power pose. Psychologist Amy Cuddy popularized the practice of helping your physicality empower your mentality, simply by standing upright and in a powerful position. In documenting the relationship between posture and power, she showed that in standing like a superhero, you can actually unleash hormonal changes in your body chemistry that will cause you to be more confident and in command. Cuddy says, “Before you go into the next stressful evaluative situation, for two minutes try doing this in the elevator, in a bathroom stall, at your desk, and behind closed doors.” Being in control at work is important, yes, but it’s equally important as head of your household—so strike a pose at home now and then too.

  Don’t neglect your health. Single moms encourage their kids to eat healthy, get plenty of sleep, and exercise; they’re quick to bring their kids to the doctor at the first sign of illness. Why aren’t we as diligent about our own health? Why do we feel we have to be Wonder Woman? Or feel that we can wish away a nagging cough, or that if we take a couple of aspirin a low-grade fever will go away? We skip Pap smears, mammograms, blood work, and even neglect our feet (yuck) in the name of busyness. If we go down for the count because we’ve waited too long to go to the doctor, who takes care of our kids? Your health matters (as do your feet!). Take care of it.

  Be as proactive about your joy as you are about your child’s happiness. We love to make our kids happy, to see their huge smiles and hear their genuine sounds of joy. But how often do we share what makes us happy with our kids? Lin makes this suggestion: “Do one thing each day that gives you joy—and tell your kids why you do it, and why it makes you happy. Children pick up on their caretaker’s emotions more than we realize—and your happiness will do double duty for your child.”

  Hold on to your dreams. Without question, our kids are the center of our universe. But that doesn’t mean our personal dreams and aspirations have to disappear. When moms feel fulfilled emotionally, physically, and professionally, we are much more capable of giving our children the presence they need to flourish. We need to dream and to devise a plan to achieve that dream! That’s all part of the puzzle of single parenthood. But while you are figuring out the pieces of the puzzle of meeting your kids’ needs and yours, remember one of my favorite quotes by Eleanor Brownn: “God, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself because I’m working on doing things better, and the wisdom to know that You already love me just the way I am.”

  Do Your Work and Stay Connected: The Loida Lewis Story

  Values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people.

  —President Barack Obama

  Six weeks wasn’t nearly enough to say goodbye. That was the time span between the diagnosis of brain cancer in 1992 and the death of Reginald F. Lewis, one of the richest men in America. He had gained international fame in 1987 by becoming the first American to secure the largest-ever leveraged buyout of an international company, Beatrice International Foods. He then went on to build it into a billion-dollar company, the first African American to do so. At its peak, TLC Beatrice International was 512th on Fortune magazine’s list of the 1,000 largest companies. But wealth couldn’t stop death’s march, and at age fifty he died, leaving his wife of almost twenty-five years, Loida Nicolas Lewis, and their two daughters: Leslie, nineteen, and Christina, age twelve.

  His death stunned the business world while his loss devastated his family, especially Loida, who in an instant was thrust into single motherhood as well as keeper of the flame of her husband’s legacy. Deeply spiritual, she said she never lost her faith but for four months following his death she couldn’t say the Lord’s Prayer with the words “thy will be done” because she couldn’t accept that God’s will had taken the man who to this day she calls “my beloved.”

  With one daughter in college and the other still attending school in New York City, Loida knew that to fulfill her duty of ensuring the continued growth of TLC Beatrice International, she would have to take the helm herself. A celebrated attorney, infinitely qualified and well situated because of the close partnership she shared with her husband, she wasn’t scared by the work. What presented the greater challenge was that if she was to assume stewardship of TLC Beatrice International, headquartered in Paris, she would have to build her support system—her pride—around her daughters at home.

  She always had a wonderful relationship with Reginald’s mother, Carolyn Fugett, so Loida says that whenever she had to go out of town or had a heavy meetings schedule at home, Ms. Fugett would come up from Baltimore to maintain the core physical presence needed for the girls. But Loida made sur
e she was only a phone call away. Her absolutely inflexible rule for her staff was that if her daughters or Ms. Fugett called, there was no person, no meeting, no event more important than her talking to them.

  When in New York, she exercised the ultimate CEO’s privilege of unconditional control over her time.

  I would adjust my schedule to be home by dinnertime so we could have dinner together. Any activity that Christina had or Leslie had I would go to. On Leslie’s birthday, I’d bring her fried chicken all the way to Harvard. For Christina, any activity she had at school I was there because that’s what my husband and I would have done together. I would always be there because being present is the best way to support your children.

  Loida says being on the inside of the corporate world for her ten years as CEO has led her to better appreciate the flexibility parents, especially single parents, need so they can be present for their children. Her hope is that more and more corporations will embrace and respond to that need.

  From the beginning, Loida was determined not to let her added responsibilities or heightened business focus derail the example she and her husband had tried to set for their children. One of the most important values had always been what Loida described as “Do your work.”

  You can do whatever you want but if you’re a student, do your work, study, finish your homework, and do the best you can. If your room is dirty so be it. If you want to color your head green, so be it. But you must do well in school because that’s your duty. They both embraced these values around education and both graduated from Harvard cum laude. I don’t claim that I am the sole source of instilling that value system. But both my husband and I believed in doing hard work and doing the job before us as our responsibility for the moment. I kept it going after he was gone.

  Loida is well aware that she is not the typical single mother. Living paycheck to paycheck was never an issue for her. What makes her story one to savor is that Loida took her role of raising successful, responsible, and socially conscious daughters as seriously as she took running a multimillion-dollar corporation. She found a way to successfully connect her profession with her passion to do good, and it became a family value.

  “To whom much is given, much is required,” is the family mantra. Before their dad died, their parents established the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, and at ages nineteen and twelve, each daughter was named to the foundation’s board of directors. Now grown women and mothers themselves, they have become two of their generation’s most thoughtful philanthropists. In 2013 Christina founded AllStarCode, an organization that identifies and supports the entry of more men of color into the technology field. You can find more about AllStarCode by visiting www.power-ofpresence.com.

  As for Reginald F. Lewis, Loida flashed a huge smile when she thought what he might say about the lives she and their daughters have built for themselves.

  I know he’d say, “Go on with your bad self, Loida.” My beloved would be very pleased.

  LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Make your presence a rule to everyone around you.

  Your goal is to be present for your children. When it comes to achieving your goals—whatever they are—research has shown that those people who write down their goals, share them with others, and update others on their goals are more likely to succeed. When people only thought about their goals and how to reach them, they succeeded less than 50 percent of the time, while people who wrote goals down, and found the support of a pride through work, relatives, and friends to help them, succeeded closer to 75 percent of the time. Just saying she would stop everything for her children was not enough; Loida Lewis made her priorities a rule and was vocal about it, and she succeeded without fail.

  To ensure the goal of presence is achieved in your absence, try these suggestions for your daily interactions with your kids!

  Be specific. Big ambiguous goals are likely to get us motivated and seem doable, until their lofty nature intimidates us and we give up. Loida’s goal was not simply to be present. Hers was specific: “No matter what, I will take the calls from my daughters.” I completely resonated with this because I did exactly the same thing. Because I had the specific conversation with my bosses, they knew that if I ever left a meeting it was because one of my kids called. That’s specific and leaves no question in the mind of those you enlist to help meet your goal. We like flexibility, but some recent research from consumer psychology suggests that being more specific and less flexible may be more effective in goal achievement. The premise is simple but not easily accepted: Specific directives, done in strict order, seem harder to do at first, but ultimately lead to greater goal achievement than an ambiguous plan.

  Make presence a shared responsibility. Like Loida, I made it clear to my children (and their caretakers when they were young) that I would always take their calls when I was working, but to use good judgment as to when to call. As they grew older, they trusted my promise to take their calls, but they also respected the fact that while I was at work, they should only call in an emergency or in a “something really exciting happened and I couldn’t wait to tell you” moment.

  Be aware of your limits. Wanting to stay present for your children, especially while taking on other lofty responsibilities, will be stressful, and if we don’t manage that overwhelm, setbacks can rear their ugly heads. Psychologists call this train of thought an “action crisis.” This is the critical point at which you experience an internal conflict about whether you should keep going or give up. Research has shown that experiencing an action crisis increases production of the stress hormone cortisol, which is your brain’s way of sending out smoke signals at the sight of an internal conflict. Awareness is a key tool to diverting this train. When it becomes difficult to see a way through your circumstances, take a step back. Go back to your core values, your specific goal plan, and your positive self-talk.

  Presence of Values:

  The ability to pass down traditions, character traits, expectations, standards, life lessons, and aspirations that empower children to hold themselves accountable when no one else is around.

  VII

  Presence of Values

  Introduction

  Your beliefs become your thoughts,

  Your thoughts become your words,

  Your words become your actions,

  Your actions become your habits,

  Your habits become your values,

  Your values become your destiny.

  —Mahatma Gandhi

  What do you believe in? What helps you thrive as a human being? What do you honor in others, and how do you want to live? Your values are determined by the experiences, beliefs, and worldview that you carry with you, in both what you say and what you do. Passing down values isn’t as easy as telling our children what’s good and what’s bad, because they are constantly watching us to see what behavior we actually model. Do we practice what we preach? Do the people in our children’s lives uphold the values we tell them they should have as members of our family, community, and society? This can be even more difficult to communicate when we aren’t able to clearly articulate the values that we want to pass on.

  It took me a long time to get myself out from under dirty diapers, financial issues, and a bad marriage to be able to articulate what it is I wanted to stand for and commit to. It was a process. I read somewhere that values are not what we decide we want to embrace; they are what is already inside of us that we are compelled to push out into the world. Isn’t that our main job as parents? To nurture what is inside of our children and let those qualities shine in a collected glow of good people?

  Executive coach Scott Jeffrey says he sees people from all walks of life struggle with finding a value system. He explains that there are some ways to begin the thought process around discovering what you value most.

  Consider a meaningful moment, what he calls a “peak” experience, that stands out. What was happening to you? What was going on? What values were you honoring then?

  Then let your mind go i
n the opposite direction; consider a time when you got angry, frustrated, or upset. He then says to ask yourself, What was going on? What were you feeling? Now flip those feelings around. What value was being suppressed?

  Third, reflect on what’s most important in your life. “Beyond your basic human needs,” Jeffrey says, “what must you have in your life to experience fulfillment? Creative self-expression? A strong level of health and vitality? A sense of excitement and adventure? Surrounded by beauty? Always learning?”

  Dr. Dan Peters of the Summit Center coined the term Parent Footprint, which describes the legacy of values we learned from our parents and the values we want to pass on to our children and, by extension, our future grandchildren. He says, “Whether you are parenting with intention and purpose and whether you are acting in a way that is consistent with what you want for your child… the real question is—what footprint do you want to leave?”

  I was lucky. My values footprint mirrored the one my parents created for my brothers and me. Even with their busy schedules in church or at school, I don’t ever remember an important event where one or both weren’t there to cheer us on. There wasn’t a topic we couldn’t talk to one or both about. There wasn’t a crisis or challenge we couldn’t share with one or the other. Nor was there a triumph that we didn’t run home to tell one or both about. And herein lies the difference between a single-and a two-parent home: If one parent wasn’t available, we could always find the other. As a single mom, my children never had that choice. The values and beliefs they saw and learned were primarily mine or those of people I allowed into their lives.

 

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