As we head into these summer weeks, our narrative will set the tone. “We like to be together,” is choosing a mindset of joy and contentment in the people you are around. Only you can claim your mindset, and as you choose it over and over, it will set the culture of your days and become your story.
Claiming your mindset sets the path that your thoughts that will follow throughout the day. If I start out claiming “Child ‘B’ is stubborn,” my experience with that child flows from that belief, when he is actually much more than only stubborn. If I approach him with an attitude of “We like to be together,” then I approach him with a box that isn’t already filled with my premade assumptions of how he is going to act that day. It gives him room to rise up and be his best self, rather than being labeled and then living into the label.
As I headed out on a short trip with my husband, a friend asked me what we would do or talk about. When I said, “We just like to be together,” it didn’t sound elaborate, but it’s true, and it steadies the expectation where together is the goal. I’m not expecting some life-changing conversation or experience to fulfill me, but then when those come, I appreciate them, rather than checking the box of what I expect in order to come home satisfied.
This mindset shift even impacts the time I spend with God. I can choose “I need to do this,” “I have to do this,” or “We like to be together.” When I choose the latter, I choose relationship. I choose “us” life.
My mindset will dramatically change how my experience looks and feels with my kids, my husband, and even God. “We like to be together” keeps your eyes looking for the good, choosing the good, rather than nitpicking at the annoying. Whatever stream of thought you swim in is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you have the power to choose what will be fulfilled.
Give it a try. Say it twenty times today: “We like to be together.” Say it to yourself rather than through gritted teeth to the children who will be looking at you with eyes wide open…but any way you do it, I believe it will change the pattern of your days.
We were not created to do life alone; we can also choose not to do it in strife. Choose better. I believe “We like to be together,” can be a great first step. It can be the headwaters of your attitude and the rhythm of your days. It can get you up when you feel like you have nothing left, giving you the wherewithal to begin again.
