Hands Free Life

by Rachel Macy Stafford

  Suddenly it all made sense. After that momentous day downtown, Natalie’s giving practices escalated. In fact, suddenly there was nothing my child owned that couldn’t be given away. I would find packed boxes of her most prized possessions in the closet. She would explain the boxes by saying, “Next time we go to the Autism Center . . .” or “Next time there’s a tornado . . .” I also noticed that after the oranges experience, Natalie made a point to carry dollar bills in her purse if we were going into the city. As we walked the busy streets, her eyes searched for a cup or hat in which she could place her hard-earned dollars and make someone smile.

  I remember when Natalie called me to the computer one day to show me a video of a child and his mother who had to walk for hours to get water — water that was contaminated and dirty. As tears dripped down my face, my daughter consoled me. “Don’t cry; there is a way we can help.” Natalie proceeded to tell me all about Water for Life as if she was their smallest (and most convincing) spokesperson.

  Natalie had always gravitated toward the world’s suffering, always yearning to know the world in its truest state. Starting when she was very small, the recurring question at our nightly Talk Time was this: “Mama, tell me something bad that happened in the news today.”

  I remember looking into those somber brown eyes, knowing full well that if I didn’t tell her, this resourceful child would find ways to see what was out there. So with reluctance, I’d explain in words she could understand about the atrocities that many faced, the dangers that lurked, and those who had lost so much. I’d stand by and watch her digest every troubling morsel I offered. Time after time, I worried that it was too much, too overwhelming, too disturbing. After all, the problems of the world are vast and insurmountable. At least that is what I used to think. But thanks to the heart of a child and God’s gentle guidance, now I know differently.

  That day when we drove into the city, my daughter saw with her own two eyes the world I’d spoken of — the one that could be cruel, hungry, desperate, and cold. But she was not scared. Oh no, she had been waiting for this moment, dreaming of this moment when she could do something to help. You see, her eight-year-old eyes did not look at that scene and see daunting global issues like poverty, violence, hardship, and hopelessness. She saw one man whose entire day could be brightened by a mere piece of fruit. A mere piece of fruit. And when you see something as painful and as beautiful as that, everything changes.

  My child walked right up and stared directly into the eyes of suffering. She watched in awe as tears of joy collected in a man’s eyes simply because of her unexpected presence on a dingy city street on a cold day in December. And from that moment forward, this child became a full-fledged giver. Because when you have the most important things in life — like love, faith, and family — there is nothing you own that you can’t give away.

  HANDS FREE LIFE DAILY DECLARATION

  This week our family will plan a visit to a place where our hands can lift others — perhaps a domestic-violence shelter, a nursing home, a soup kitchen, or a poverty-stricken area of our city. I do not want to shield my loved ones from the struggles of humanity or the world’s dark underbelly. I want to be the one my loved ones turn toward to learn about the pain and suffering in the world. Therefore, I will allow difficult truths to come from my lips in language they understand. By revealing the travesties occurring in our community and our world, several positive outcomes could result:

  • my children’s hearts will be led to help

  • they will know they are not alone in their own struggles and pain

  • they will gain appreciation for their life’s abundant blessings

  Many hopeful reactions can happen when I face life’s atrocities side by side with the people I love.

  HANDS FREE LIFE HABIT BUILDER 6

  Give What Matters by Offering a Piece of Yourself

  As my child and I slowly made our way back to dry land, her arms squeezed a bit tighter around my neck. She rested her cheek against my face as if to savor this moment and engrain it to memory. In that intimate gesture, I swear I could read her mind — not her present mind, but her future mind. I could practically hear the words she would say to herself one Sunday afternoon as she drove home from the grocery store or while she walked her child to school or while she stared at the ceiling counting useless sheep. This is what I heard my daughter’s future mind say:

  When I was one week shy of five years old, my mother carried me out to the deep end of the ocean.

  She held me as we talked about life.

  I don’t remember exactly what we talked about that day, but I remember her long, wet hair secured in a ponytail that glistened like a horse’s tail in the summer sun; I remember how it felt silky smooth as I stroked it in my hand.

  I remember how her eyes crinkled up as she laughed and how her smile lingered like the smell of the coconut sunscreen on her skin.

  I remember how I was in charge of when we returned to the shore; she didn’t seem to have anywhere else she needed to go or anywhere else she wanted to be.

  I remember how it felt to be held in her arms as the gentle waves splashed against us and occasionally graced our lips. Even the salt water tasted sweet.

  We were in the deep end of the ocean, but I was not afraid; I was in my mother’s arms.

  The week before I turned five, my mother gave me a moment and through that moment she has held me all along.

  Avery doesn’t remember the Polly Pockets or the stuffed animals she received on her fifth birthday, but she still talks about going into the deep end of the ocean with me that day. I try to remember this on birthdays, holidays, or whenever someone needs a lift. When you offer a moment, you offer a piece of yourself. And although you may not know it at the time, the recipient holds tightly to that piece of you. And when the waves of life come tumbling down, it is that piece of you that gives them the strength to keep standing. I cannot think of a more valuable gift. Can you?

  PART THREE

  Protecting What Matters

  Habit 7:

  ESTABLISH BOUNDARIES

  Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  MY FAVORITE BEACH ACTIVITY when I was a girl was to rescue live starfish that had washed up on shore. I couldn’t bear to see the helpless five-pointed creatures withering in the sun. Regardless of how long it took or how many times I had to bend over, I’d put every washed-up starfish that I could find back into the water so it could breathe again.

  But somewhere along the line I stopped saving starfish.

  Actually, I can pinpoint exactly when it happened: my highly distracted years — when to-do lists took over . . . when the pace of my life was a constant mad dash to a finish line that couldn’t be reached . . . when I gripped my devices tighter than the hands of my loved ones . . . when I said yes to everything requested of me outside the home and said no to the most important activities inside the home. Work, technology, and life bled into each other to the point that there were no longer any protected areas. Daily distraction was invited into the sacred spaces of my life. It didn’t matter if it was a moving vehicle, the bedroom, Saturday mornings, family vacations, or even the middle of the night — these times and places were all open to distraction’s overpowering and damaging presence.

  Needless to say, I walked past a lot of starfish during that time in my life. Who knows how many? But the day I finally did notice a displaced starfish deteriorating in the sand once again, I was encouraged. This particular beach walk occurred on my first family getaway since beginning my Hands Free journey. I was in the early stages of waking up from my distracted state and taking small steps to reduce the excess that consumed my life. I guess you could say What Really Mattered was on my radar that day.

  As I ran along the flat sand, something caught my eye in a tide pool. At first I ran past it, but I just couldn’t keep going — I had to go back. Peering into t
he stagnant water, I saw a small starfish that was missing a limb. It appeared to be dead, but I felt compelled to wade in and be certain. With urgency, I reached into the water and pulled the little critter out. I turned it over expecting to see no movement, but amazingly its tiny tube feet waved at me. I surmised that the poor starfish had been the partial snack of a small predator. Yet despite missing a ray, it was alive — and it was fighting to survive.

  “Breathe,” I whispered to the maimed starfish. “Breathe.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that tears were dripping down my face. I was not just talking to the starfish, I was also talking to myself. I knew full well that living in a tech-saturated, productivity-driven society without healthy work/life boundaries was a surefire way to wither and die. There needed to be places, times, and circumstances when I could breathe life into what mattered most. I was crying because I could no longer bear to watch the sacred areas of my life suffer from lack of attention, love, and space to breathe.

  Stopping to place the fragile creature back in its natural habitat felt like divine confirmation to me. I took it as a sign that I was making progress on my journey toward a more present and fulfilling life. I wanted to continue supplying oxygen to the most important aspects of my life so they could thrive, not suffer. But as I watched the replaced starfish being tossed and turned by the churning sea, I couldn’t help but wonder if my Hands Free aspirations were futile. Like that tumultuous body of water, the distractions of our culture have the power to derail us despite having the best intentions. We are continually tempted by the latest and greatest electronic gadgets and apps. We are inundated with work demands and volunteer requests. Everyday household duties seem to never end. While we may successfully overcome our distractions today, what about tomorrow? There is always another wave of diversions and pressures threatening to pull us under. “How can I protect my Hands Free Life with so much coming at me?” I cried. I stood at the edge of the water praying God would help both me and that starfish thrive despite the forceful waves.

  Upon returning from the beach I wrote my first “viral” post. Within days of its publication, nearly one million people had read “How to Miss a Childhood.” Many small newspapers and radio stations wanted to talk to me about the piece. But when NPR messaged me for an interview, my jaw dropped. Excitement bubbled up inside me as I considered the potential impact of a nationally syndicated show promoting the Hands Free movement. Before responding to the email message, I read it once more. When I got to the last sentence my heart dropped. The host wanted to interview me at five p.m. and that was my designated Hands Free time. At the beginning of my journey, I’d established media-free time from three o’clock until my daughters’ bedtime. Natalie and Avery counted on that time with me. And on this particular Friday, I’d promised to take the girls to the opening of the neighborhood pool.

  I stared at the email message contemplating my choices. For a moment I considered accepting the request “just this once.” The people-pleasing achiever part of me didn’t want to let anyone down or miss this unique opportunity to spread the Hands Free message; I knew full well this opportunity might not happen again.

  “But what about the starfish?” a little voice inside me said. Yes. Oh yes. Thank you, God. I thought. That starfish I’d saved at the beach represented the promise I’d made to my daughters. It also represented the promise I’d made to myself — to authentically live the message that I write. To keep that promise from dying, I had to protect it. Crossing the boundary line I’d established between work and life would open up the temptation to keep crossing that line until it no longer existed. I would quickly find myself back where I was before — overwhelmed, desperate, and unable to nurture what was sacred in my life.

  I remained true to commitment and politely declined the NPR interview and asked if there was any other time that would work. There wasn’t, but surprisingly, I did not feel as if I’d missed out. I felt triumphant that I hadn’t missed what mattered most. Through the sweet smiles on my daughters’ faces that day at the pool, I felt God’s divine assurance. He gave me confidence that establishing and maintaining boundaries to protect the sacred parts of life would enable me to experience eternal rewards that far surpassed any worldly successes or accolades.

  Establishing Boundaries, the seventh habit of a Hands Free Life, enables you to nurture the relationships, passions, values, and core beliefs that matter most to you. Healthy parameters provide the structure, motivation, and insight to say no to the things that can harm what is most precious to you. But be warned. Establishing Boundaries is not always easy. It means having to reject mainstream trends and expectations to be true to what you believe is in your best interest. It means having to stand up for yourself and make difficult decisions that may not please those who want your time, energy, and attention. Yet by creating limits on the excess that can flow into your life at any given time, there is space to laugh, live, love, pray, play, and breathe. Establishing Boundaries allows you to go to sleep at night knowing you did your best to protect your one precious life from the corrosive elements associated with worldly distraction and pressures.

  In this chapter, we’ll consider how to establish healthy boundaries and make difficult choices in order to grasp what really matters. May your eyes be opened to the ways you can instill protective parameters in your life regarding online activity, availability to the outside world, and word choice that fosters relational growth. May you be reminded that you have the power to save a life, a dream, a marriage, a childhood, or a friendship by establishing watchful barriers that reflect your values and personal life goals. What we breathe life and energy into will thrive; what we neglect and abuse will suffer. Let us draw a line in the sand, on the calendar, and in our own heart regarding what we are not willing to risk losing forever.

  ESTABLISH BOUNDARIES TO PROTECT INNOCENCE

  Like most kids today, Natalie was born with an inherent ability to navigate technology. While it took me many months and hours of tech support to learn how to manage an online blog, Natalie created a website in one afternoon. And after spending a year in Technology Club, Natalie’s knowledge far surpassed mine and now seems to be more advanced than ever. This makes me proud . . . and also scared.

  As I watch Natalie delve deeper and deeper into a digital world so foreign from the one I grew up in, a little voice within me urges me to keep up. Although it takes great patience to listen to Natalie describe everything she knows about iMovie, computer programming, online games, and QR codes, I eagerly accept her invitations. I am grateful each time Natalie says, “Check this out, Mom,” because I know the number of invitations will decrease as she grows. I accept her cyber invites knowing that while I sit beside her, I can gently dole out warnings of online dangers that don’t come inherently but instead from experience and awareness. While Natalie expertly clicks and navigates, I educate her about online predators and warn her about giving out personal information. Natalie knows about the children whose innocent online “chat” with someone they thought was a kid turned into a grave and life-changing mistake.

  Despite my best efforts to be an active participant in my children’s online activities, there was still something missing. For months, an unsettling feeling nagged me each time either of my daughters was online. Unexpectedly, a unique opportunity came to my attention. A friend of mine was organizing a program to educate the parents in my community about ways to protect their children in the electronic world. The two-hour program was appropriately called “Innocence Lost.” Using a forum-style setting, several experts in the field of technology safety would be providing specific ways to guard children from the dangers of technology. My first inclination was to think that Avery and Natalie (age six and nine at the time) were too young to be exposed to such risks. Thank goodness I listened to that little voice urging me to attend the program anyway. As soon as the first panelist began describing the dark and dangerous descent his life took after an accidental discovery on the Internet, I felt gratefu
l I was there. I looked around the room knowing the parents sitting beside me had children ranging from toddlers to teens. Despite the differing life stages, I realized we are all here at the right time. Anytime a person opens his or her eyes to the dangers of the online world is the right time, I concluded.

  Two well-spoken, highly educated young men described how they stumbled into the world of pornography and quickly lost everything that mattered most to them. Although their life situations and addictions were vastly different, I heard the following similarities in their stories: They’d wanted their parents to ask questions. They’d wanted their parents to be involved in their lives — including their online lives. They’d wanted to know they could come to their parents openly with any mistakes and wrongdoings and not be shamed or dismissed. I willed myself to remember what I heard: Ask . . . Involve . . . Be Open. As additional technology experts described an array of filtering and accountability software programs for all types of devices, I willed myself to remember two more invaluable actions: Protect . . . Educate (both my children and myself).

  Needless to say, I left the program disturbed and shaken but also aware, empowered, informed, and motivated. I would not put my head in the sand and allow the cyber world to corrupt my children’s innocence. As if sensing I had something weighing heavily on my mind, Natalie wanted to know what the “Lost Innocence” program was about. She and I had opened up discussions about other heavy adult issues six months earlier, but this was my chance to tell her about pornography. This was my opportunity to tell her how these particular websites are designed so people immediately see disturbing images when they click on the site — even if they go there by accident. As an example, I told Natalie about a child who googled the name of a sporting goods store with the word “ball” and wound up seeing a sexually explicit photo. “The images of this nature are the kind that once you see them, you can’t get them out of your head,” I warned.