3 Ingredients for Creating Empowering Spaces for Home Educating Families

My daughter is called Mirabel, she’s 12 which means that she was named long before the lead character in the 2021 Disney film Encanto.

In the film, each of Mirabel’s family members have a unique magical power. I couldn’t remember what Mirabel’s was and the way my daughter explained it to me resonated with me in my role as a mother, women, home-educator, and person. She said,

“she hold’s everything together and when she’s upset everything falls apart”

Now doesn’t that sound like the typical experience of a mother!

Expectations

Running a home-educating family home can be challenging. As a parent feeling the weight of this responsibility, we can often take on the responsibility for practically everything. Working from the baseline of, ‘right this needs doing, no-one else is doing it/capable of doing it, (as well as I do), so I will do it; if you want something done, do it yourself. It’s quicker and easier to do it myself.’ These assumptions lead to our taking more and more tasks on until they are overflowing and so are we!

And to ensure that it all stays together, we ignore the fact that we’re overloaded, pretend we’ve got it all under control, and put out the image of being a supermum! … until the cracks start to appear.

This is portrayed in the film by Mirabel’s sisters who hide their struggles due to the expectations they feel upon them and the image they ‘have’ to keep up. As though they won’t feel fully accepted or feel a sense of belonging if they’re less than.

Struggles

This is how I used experience my role as a mother and home-educator. My old approach was to micromanage our family life, and everything depended on my having the capacity to keep it up, which of course, isn’t possible, as it is unsustainable causing depletion day by day.

It was a similar situation at our home-ed co-op. Us mums gave so much, and it working relied upon us having the capacity to keep it all going. Keep all the plates spinning, as they say.

There are three big downsides to taking so much responsibility:

1. You end up out of steam

2. Those whose life you’re controlling lack enthusiasm, engagement, investment and often end up in resistance

3. It can become a form of disempowerment

Founded in Care, Connection & Collaboration

Another option to taking responsibility for everything, is the idea of holding a space where our sense of empowerment can shine through. A space where each person feels their own sense of value and belonging. Where their ideas and contributions are welcome and they can act with ease and integrity.

This is the approach Mirabel took with her family. She reconnected to each member by listening and being present to each family members unique struggles, saw them in their efforts to manage expectations and meet their purpose, and it empowered them to step forward with authenticity and joy.

Here are 3 magical ingredients to creating a space that empowers:

1. Self-Care

Our capacity to do the things that are important to us are impacted by our health. If we let our health slip, by always pushing it to the sidelines, then we end up depleted, unable to rise to our calling. The way I see it is that we have a responsibility, not only to ourselves to keep in great health, but also to those which we choose to serve who benefit from us being in our best possible health, flowing with energy and enthusiasm.

2. Connection, Compassion & Care for Others

Tending to the relationships of our nearest and dearest means that they feel seen and valued, which in turn means they can trust themselves, their decisions and their place within the family. (If you have seen Encanto, think of Bruno, who is excluded, hides, and is unable to embrace his gifts). From this baseline a person can experience more ease in stepping forward to engage and contribute to life.

3. Community & Collaboration

This is about how we choose to work with our environment. The lifestyle we design for our family. Influences outside of the home, including online communities and in-person communities. The structures, systems and cultures we are exposed to.

When these aspects are highly controlled by one person, the environments they are exposed to lack the vibrant diversity needed to flourish. Coming together as a community to share and collaborate allows for a richness to emerge beyond anything that could be created by a single person.

Glue or Oil?

Mirabel’s grandmother is seen as the glue that holds everything together, and when things start to look less than perfect and cracks start to appear, she also starts cracking.

I remember being likened to the glue in our home-ed co-op, the substance that holds it all together. I liked that. However, that analogy seems too fixed and so now, like Mirabel, I see myself more as the nourishing oil that keeps everything in healthy flow. The one that attends to how we relate to the things that are important to us, including our relationship to ourselves, our family and our environment in which we grow. I like to keep track and notice when people have lost touch with their power or purpose and help them to regain the path of their unique journey.

Creating empowering spaces

I advocate creating empowering spaces. Spaces in which the merging of energies, perspectives, and lived experience can form the creative power for something magical to happen. We can make that shift from controlling everything to holding emergent spaces.

Where our magical passion and purpose can shine through and many can benefit.

It is a form of shared responsibility. Of interdependence.

Are there elements of your home-ed life in which you’ve taken on more than you can chew? How could you let go and allow others to step forward into their power?

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