Love is never wasted

Be generous with your compliments

I’m mountain biking up a big hill with my family. It’s been several weeks since we last biked, and that was a short one.

Today, the plan was to do the simple 2-mile loop we used to walk with the kids in the Tula baby carrier, see how everyone’s feeling, and maybe bike it twice.

The first round was so successful, we decide to go up Sky Ridge, which we hadn’t ever even walked, despite this being our go-to close-to-home hike.

We’d turn around whenever the kids felt like it. I was in front after Rowan, and Serkan stayed back with Linden and Daisy.

Up, up, up, we huffed and climbed.

My bike squeaks, but the gears shift better than they have in a while. Yet, instead of thanking my bike for working with me so well, I lament its state of not being smooth or tuned up, and that my bike isn’t as good as Rowan’s. I wonder about Linden and Daisy’s bikes: Are they hard to ride? Did they turn back already?

I remember a version of myself 20 years ago cycling hills with road bikers with my first ever mountain bike. I remember one of the guys saying: No matter how hard it is or how long it takes, you’re always smiling. It’s fun to ride with you.

This meant a lot at the time, as I worried that I was slowing them down, and I really enjoyed those lunchtime rides—back when I was working as an admin at IBM. Skinny road tires are faster on paved roads than mountain bike tires, and I wasn’t a cyclist.

You never know the impact your kind words will have on someone. How they can bring in motivation or ease just when it’s needed most.

We tend to minimize the impact of our words and actions.

That one comment shifted how I perceived myself: From a burden to a boon.

It made me realize I was smiling at all.

The smiling through the difficulty is part of the story I tell about the time in my life where I biked a lot with road bikers on the seemingly wrong kind of bike.

So here I am biking up this hill, philosophizing on the importance of recognition. Compliments. Appreciation.

How important it is and how lazy we can get about it. Either we are lazy about the kind of praise we give and it’s just empty words on autopilot—lacking any vibration of presence, engagement, or gratitude.

Or we get so stuck overthinking the right way to praise that we fail to give it at all.

I’ve been rooting for the kids on hikes and runs and bikes and kayaks for as long as I had kids who no longer fit in a carrier. (As the final child, Daisy got to ride on my back till well into her 4s.) Now they return the favor as I find my legs on skis. Baby girl has even stopped after I’ve fallen to pick up my flown pole and help lift me up. They all tell me how great I’m doing at various times throughout a ski day.

And yet, as I pedal and breathe hard up the steep hill to the sky, I wonder if I’m stingy with my praise.

The conscious parenting culture of which I’ve been a part, frowns so consistently on non-specific feedback, I wonder if I’ve overunderdone it. Have I been so worried about creating praise junkies and messing up that my kids aren’t receiving enough encouragement?

*

I don’t come from a generation or a family that complimented or expressed appreciation for its children. Just the good boy bad girl signals and withholdings—typical of the times.

As a mother, I do my best to bring celebration of each other into our lives. But we can let the pendulum swing too far one way or another. What if sometimes all you have the breath for is Good, huff huff huff, Job?

Truth be told, I still don’t say good job; it’s too much like good dog, good girl, good boy, for my taste. But as I’m considering all of this riding up the hill, I think there are worse things than saying good job.

We all know that words thrown around out of habit in a household or in a life that are not backed by a bloomed open heart just aren’t going to carry much oomph. The oomph comes from the kind of authenticity and sincerity that hails from a state of deep gratitude. The feeling state must be unlocked in the body for the words to carry an uplifting potency. At that point, silent presence is also a high form of appreciation.

I pass a hiker, and he says, Good job! I smile and say thank you to him, my bike, the universe, my family.

*

Rowan and I make it to the top. We did it! It’s a beautiful, warm March day before the temps are predicted to plummet. The fresh, green hills hug a snaking American River on either side of the ridge. The first of this season’s California poppies dance in the wind. Poison oak shines an oily border to the to rocky outcrops amid the long lush grasses.

A few switchbacks down, we meet the fam! They have made it this far too! So Rowan and I turnaround (I won’t say whether a mini fit was thrown) and make it to the mini peak again, so we can all bask in the view together. Tears, grumpiness, maybe a little bit of nausea, joy and accomplishment accompanied this ride. Life in miniature.

It was a good one. I rode with Linden on the way down. Toward the end, he said, I don’t normally feel like this, but I feel proud of myself.

Me too, dear one, me too.

What are you proud of today?

Say it out loud or share here, so we can celebrate you!

Love,
Heather

P.S. Yes, I asked why don’t you normally feel proud. That’s another story.