He grabbed hold of me and sobbed into my chest while I held him. These were tears from a deep place of empathy.
“Mom, I don’t want him to get sick” he sobbed.
I left silence for him to continue to process.
“I want his teeth to be healthy and if he doesn’t brush better than that his teeth will get sick and then his whole body can get sick.”
“I know, baby. You have so much love for your brother and I appreciate how much you are looking out for him.” I responded.
We went on to have a full conversation about how his younger brother was learning independence and that while he was further along in this process than his brother, that it was important for his brother to go through this process with me. That I would allow him to brush poorly and then check his teeth and then send him back for more brushing. I knew that this was a struggle for him. He had consistently jumped in and tried to advise and force his younger brother to brush differently, better.
Later in the day I was sitting in silence and this interaction came back to me. I smiled realizing that I had done my own version of this when I first started spiritual coaching, I would want to push people into places rather than allowing them the freedom to find that space all on their own. There was a time when my desire to help someone get to a specific place in their life (that they voiced that they wanted to go) was so great that I struggled to allow them the space and freedom to follow their own process in getting there. I knew that that lesson was an important one for me to learn and I felt so grateful that my son was learning this at 11 and not in his 30s. Sometimes, people need the opportunity to have dirty teeth and see how that makes them feel before they can make the choice to brush better and that is more than ok.
