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I can't do it all!

Do you know the throat-clutching realization that you've dreamed up a dream that is twice the size of your wit plus your will plus your wildest vision? [For the math people, the formula is Dream = 2(wit+will+wildness)}
 
But you've got it kick-started, and now the momentum will carry it and you'll be like a hot air balloon pilot who can decide how high to go and when to set it down, without much control over the rest!
 
That's why the trees. When there is no time to run an advertisement in the local paper for a person with exactly the right paperwork and previous experience to help you out, or to do a candidate sweep on LinkedIn, or to send everyone you know for an aptitude test, a Tall Trees Leadership report will take ONLY 18 minutes, and you can put anyone who may be willing to help out through a fun and fast process to get answers.
 
You only need to page to the Fields of Greatness or Forces within the section in your close friends, family's or coworkers'...
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"My mom and dad just don't get me!"

I know *technically* we're not supposed to read our children's diaries, and some would say we should stop checking their phones at some point too. But let's say, 100% hypothetically, a parent should somehow stumble unsnoopingly upon something like the phrase above, would there be a tinge of guilt? A stab of pain?
 
Even the most distracted or disconnected mom knows deep down, and not nearly far enough into the back of her mind, that she is supposed to be the first parent ever to elicit a coveted claim from her teen's lips: "Nobody understands me better than my mom does." And yet, here most of us moms are - guessing, reading between the sighs and the shrugs, interpreting the Whatever! and the Not now, Mom! like a hostage negotiator. Because it seems like lives could depend on us getting into their heads, doesn't it?
 
I know that mothers of teens often resort to the interrogation of their teen's best friend, their teen's teachers, their teen's coach, the youth pastor,...
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When I'm not okay or you're not okay

Chin up! Suck it up! Just look up! These platitudes go only so far, don't they? Some losses and heartbreaks just can't be patted on the head and be sent to curl up in a corner like a good dog.
 
If I find the right words, the right time, and the right acts of love to encourage you through one of those big life backhands, based on how I would like to be encouraged, I may get a response that's more like a rabid dog's bite than a good dog's tail wag! Or you may leave me standing on the porch with a steaming hot meal cooked from scratch just for you! Oh, the ingratitude! (Especially infuriating if I could see your silhouette through the curtain, scurrying into hiding as you saw me stepping onto the front porch!)
 
That's why the trees. If I understand Boxwood's pain, I know I can't just come storming onto your holy ground uninvited. Help can feel like unwelcome pity. The timing is pretty important, and I know that any word I say needs to convey permission to have whatever...
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Who doesn't judge?

(If this is too long a read and you're more of a podcast person, That Tree Lady Podcast has you covered! https://www.buzzsprout.com/1165694)
 
The truth may be (Iet me not sound too judgy by just coming straight out and saying the truth IS), judging is a daily constant and necessary cognitive skill that uses the same mental faculty to decide whether the coffee is strong enough (I do judge harshly when it isn't, don't I?) as it uses to judge whether Jeffery Deaver's short story is worth the $5 it costs on Kindle. And that was just yesterday's first and last judgment of the day. There were hundreds in between.
 
We weigh, we compare, we assess, we extrapolate based on prior misfires and bulls-eye experiences, and then we decide whether the judgment requires a decision or not. We do this in split seconds and mostly unconsciously. And then we make the call: I don't need to dump the weak coffee; I need to just stop being a snob and take it like medicine for the essential...
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Not all people's faces work the same way

Not all people's faces work the same way. Some leak all their feelings and others have the same face for nausea as they have for nostalgia, and it barely differs from their sleep face and celebration face. Then there are the never-smilers and the permanent-grinners, the "you're not subscribed to this channel" poker faces, the perpetually surprised faces (who may or may not have had work done...), and the rubber faces who can express ecstasy and agony in high definition.
 
All these faces are like the Bible. The truth is in there, but you need the Holy Spirit for accurate interpretation, as well as a humble heart. Add the willingness to ask questions with sincere interest, and you MAY just arrive at an accurate reading!
 
Why this now? Because my heart breaks when those with the unreadable faces get labeled by the feeling leakers or smile fakers (did I forget to mention those?) as unapproachable, standoffish, hateful, blunt, or passive-aggressive.
I hear the...
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Appreciating the peace loving teacher

Uncategorized Aug 06, 2020

– by Hettie Brittz | www.evergreenparenting.co.za

There she sits on a chair near the playground. Kids are climbing over her. They have peanut butter sandwiches. Soon, she is wearing them – both the kids and the peanut butter sandwiches. It is astonishing. Next, the kids want her to join their game and she isn’t fast enough for them. They scream and stomp their feet. She leans over and says kindly, “Sweety, Teacher is not going in the sandpit today, okay?”

The only way for me to make sense of such a scene is to understand that we truly are uniquely made. There is not a cell in that teacher’s body (especially nerve cells) that have anything in common with mine.  She is guaranteed to be labeled by moms and fellow teachers alike as too lenient, lazy, unstructured. So let me give her a positive label: She is a Pine Tree teacher. I picked the Pine Tree metaphor for the teacher with the cool and calm of a pine tree forest inside of her. Anyone who...

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Breathing through the pinkness

Uncategorized Aug 06, 2020

Some have to overcome cancer; others the loss of a child, divorce, or financial hardship. I had to overcome the aversion to what I thought was an equally regrettable affliction: being born pink.

I always knew I was a girl, never thought I was actually a boy in a girl’s body but nevertheless mourned getting the short end of the stick. Boys had more fun. My three brothers proved it. They could get dirtier, tease danger more aggressively, and wear pants all the time – even on Sundays, when I was tamed into skirts that made my knobby knees and calfless legs look all the more gangly and interfered grievously with Jacaranda tree climbing on the street where I grew up.

I have more proof of the pink disadvantage: Boys somehow look fine without make-up, and there are certain afflictions they don’t need to deal with twelve times a year. Say no more. On my first day in high school, I was awarded a cardboard lawnmower as a trophy for having the hairiest legs among the girls....

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Finding your way in the jungle of parenting and professional clashes

Uncategorized Aug 06, 2020

My in-laws recently moved into our garden flat, but months before the removal truck arrived, a huge trailer loaded with what seemed like their entire garden came crawling up the driveway. It was loaded with potted plants. Not just any kind, though.  The kind that I don’t like.  Strange, cactus-like plants. They were huge and there were so many of them. I wanted to cry. I had a meeting booked, so could leave before I could explode or complain. I returned a few hours later to find the plants dotted around not just their flat, but also all around my house. What shocked me was how great it looked. It suited the character of my house! Upon close inspection, the plants are downright ugly. Zooming out, though, they add to a pretty picture.

Our kids can be like that. The closer we look, the more upset we become about this bad habit that won’t subside despite our strictest discipline and that good habit that is not yet learned in spite of huge incentives. However, when...

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How to talk to our meltdown-prone lollipop tree children

Uncategorized Aug 06, 2020

By Hettie Brittz. Adapted from Growing Kids with Character 2.0. Copyrighted.

(N.B. – In the USA lollipop trees are known as boxwood trees)

Lollipop trees are the children we need to talk to as though our words were stones and these precious kids were made of glass. It can be exhausting, BUT when we care enough to adapt to their preferred communication style, these sometimes timid little ones bloom into productive and emotionally intelligent delights.

If we really want our lollipops to understand what we say, we will do them and ourselves a favour to follow these guidelines:

  • A lollipop listens to the way we speak (emotions), and not only to what we say. We should, therefore, communicate very calmly and in a friendly way. They can “catch on” to our negativity very quickly if we talk in a whiny tone, and then we can expect a nasty reaction.
  • Lollipops sometimes have trouble listening and want as many written instructions as possible. Make sketches of rules and put...
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A short guide to a better work ethic in teens

Uncategorized Aug 06, 2020

by Hettie Brittz and talltreestraining.com


Last week around 9 pm, after a parenting talk, I walked out of a church in the USA with a lady who was visibly hobbling along on sore feet. She works in the church kitchen and had just finished cleaning after having cooked three different meal options for around 80 people. She had started her duty early that morning. I sympathized with her about her aching legs. Her response was, “Wednesday is my favorite day. I just love to see people enjoying the food I prepare!” Her face was beaming with sincere gratitude for the privilege of serving others.

Yesterday, in the home we’re hosted in at present, a septic tank became an issue. A leader in the church came to the house, crawled under and overbuilding rubble and spars to reach the septic tank. He dug away through the filth for two hours, to make sure what the problem was. This man’s actions said, “Nothing that can help others is below me.”

Today, I left a...

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