Bumper stickers drive me nuts. I don’t need to know WHO you believe in, WHAT you eat,  HOW you voted back in 2008, that your child is an honor student, that you have a baby on board (‘cause if you didn’t, what? I would run into you?) and I certainly will not HONK if I believe in the same thing you do. (Honking is another pet peeve.) Just drive, please don’t distract me with your stickers.

This is how I felt until Tuesday morning when a bumper sticker became the affirmation I needed. There I was stopped behind a Suburu with the sun’s reflection so bright I needed to shield the light from my eyes to read the bumper sticker of wisdom, Oh, Evolve. I had dropped off my kid for a three day camping trip I was originally scheduled to chaperone.

My mind was in gratitude, reflecting on saying good bye to my son. We had taken a new step together. Separately. A back injury was keeping me from attending. A gift in disguise. If I get honest with myself the main reason I was going to chaperone besides wanting to camp at beautiful Mt. Baker was to be there to protect my son. He has been waking up in the night with big deep fears and who would be to help? What adult chaperone in another tent in the middle of the night could ease his worried mind?

My son told me he wished I was going but that he knew he would be okay. He had been pumping himself up with a positive attitude. Using positive affirmations and personal mantras is exactly how our son with loads of anxiety calms his mind and grounds himself when he becomes untethered. His dad and I see the untethering more than most. Night time, before bed it all gets kicked up a notch and he is like an overwound clock that has forgotten the time.

We have been giving him tools and herbs instead of drugs, teaching him to rely on his own strength. It’s working, it’s helping, there has been so much growth.

What my husband and I don’t know is how our son will become unwound or backed down off the ledge when and if “the middle of the night crazies” kick in when we are many miles away. We gave him everything he needs. He knows what to do. He even wakes us in the middle of the night reciting his mantras, I am safe, I have everthing I need. All is well, I will wake up in the morning and you will be here. Often half asleep all we do is offer a mumbled reply of,  Yes, you are safe. Simply giving him the affirmation he needs, supporting his already clear wisdom.

We can only believe. What if in our letting go of needing to be there to protect him, he actually protets himself? What if being in a tent with another boy his age in the middle of the night in the woods with only the strength inside of him is all he needs? What if our not being in the next room or nearby tent is the thing that helps him step out of this and move on from these middle of the night intense fears?

That’s what went through my mind in the 45 seconds I sat behind that bumper sticker. What if all we all need to evolve, to move on, to grow is a little space? This camping trip is giving us all space. Space from my need to help and change our son. Space from his dad’s need to protect him. Space for our son to have somewhere else to go other than to the next room.  Space for him to evolve all on his own.

Isn’t that what evolution is anyways? Taking with you what you need and letting go of what no longer serves you? Letting go so something bigger can take over?

I know my back injury was no accident. It was an invitation for both my son and I to evolve. It gave him the wings to not need to run to me for protection. It gave me the power to close my wings and give him his own.

Evolving from our old familiar patterns that no longer help or support us is a transformative gift. I have already changed the way I view bumper stickers, not a pet peeve, an opportunity. I can’t wait to discover about all the evolutionary experiences that happened for my son this week when I pick him up at school tonight. And I bet he’ll notice some shifts in me as well. When a mama isn’t busy protecting and fixing her kids she is working through her own evolution.

How will you make a step toward your own growth today? What is something you can do to get out of your own way? What is something you can do to get out of someone else’s way?

Cheers, Jenny