In Heart Minded, Sarah Blondin writes,

“You were born thin-skinned, as soft as milk.  Still tied to the moon and starlight.  Built into the fibers of your body is an intricate system of sensitivity.  This system is governed by love and kindness.  Therefore, you, as a human being are governed by these same virtues.” 

I could read that quote a million times over.  It feels like poetic truth in my heart.  I believe we were all born this way . . . exquisitely sensitive and wired naturally for love and connection.  Yes, perhaps some more than others, but it seems it must be core on some level to every living being in the beginning. 

It is our experiences, our hurts, our emotional stories, lack of emotional language, as well as handed down generational and societal messages that aren’t ours that begin the disconnection from our natural state of being.  That’s why for most of us, life isn’t about discovering who we are but uncovering the layers back to who we were supposed to be. 

I wish for all of us who lost touch with that essential part of self like I did, to find it again . . . or even better, for children, to never lose it at all.  It’s my enduring hope that Life Lessons by Bobolina Delphina and our little business built on heart-centered living serves in some small way to remind us that it is in the softening where true strength and courage lies.  It’s also where we find the voice of our hearts.  In truth, our thinking minds have led us astray.  I’ve come to believe integrating our thinking mind with our feeling heart is the only way forward. 

Life Lessons is the magic that came out of my big rubble pile of suffering, so many years in the making.  Although I have a teaching background, I never planned in a million years to write a children’s book, but strangely enough my carpenter husband was telling me I should for years.  I just laughed him off.  I think he knew something deep down in his soul that I didn’t yet know. It’s little things like this that have me believing in so much more than the eye can see.  Yes, I call it magic, because it’s fun to believe in magic, and with continued healing, I see more mounting evidence of it in my life. 

In all honesty, this book felt like a magical transmission from our loving cat, BoBo, but it was also the real things my children said and the beautiful way they see the world that formed the words of the story.  It came like a lightning bolt out of my head, and suddenly there was this thing that wasn’t there before.  Even taking in BoBo when all I knew of cats was the show, My Cat from Hell, is something I still marvel at.  Something told me she belonged with us, even if I didn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth.  Thank the heavens I get to now know the magic of cats.

I believe BoBo and the universe conspired to send me down a path I could have never imagined for myself, one of healing and sharing, as I have come to believe so deeply that we teach the lessons we need to learn.  That has become a persistent theme in my life.  And so this was never a “business idea”.  In fact, I suffer greatly with deadlines, organization, and bottom lines.  Something propelled me to breathe life into this project with my children.  This was repair work on my very own heart and has become an attempt to share the lessons I have been learning along the way.

Our mission is to grow hearts, and in doing so, create a more loving world for both people and animals.  This sounds so idealistic, such a tall order, especially in this day and age.  Perhaps it is that which is so difficult to witness that will finally propel us forward into a gentler, kinder world.  When we understand that the chaos in the world begins in a microcosm, maybe, just maybe, we can do the work in our personal lives to gain emotional language to heal our wounds so that we don’t bring our hurts into the world to continue the hand off. 

This was the work I did for myself, in our little family, and it is continuous work to be able to sit with our emotions, to see others for the whole of their stories, to see mistakes as our classrooms, to find ways to respond rather than react, to uncover the layers back to our true selves where dreams, love, connection, and creativity live.  It isn’t easy, and I’m always doing the work led by the voice of my heart, never expecting perfection . . . but to just do better than I was.

BoBo’s lessons are simple lessons of the heart that remind us all what really matters most. Children are already heart-minded unless they unlearn it. Our job is to create space for children to be square pegs that never feel pressured to fit themselves into round holes.  Real life lessons shouldn’t be about the false promises of perfectionism, fitting in only to lose a sense of self, “success” at all costs, or chasing a societal prescription for life. I hope those are ideas that begin to live in the dustbin of the past.

Life Lessons is also a square peg, because in the end, it became so much more than a children’s picture book.  I couldn’t tell you what category that fits into or who the ideal audience is, but I’ve had the instinct to keep saying it is for all ages. In part, it’s a peak into the story of how I found my heart-center.  It’s perhaps a breadcrumb trail if others need help finding theirs.  It’s why I included a Dear Big People of the World letter and emotional learning and other healing resources that have helped me along the way when it seemed there was nothing that wasn’t falling apart.

What I have found is that heart-centered living is what young children and animals do so naturally.  They are our teachers if we pay attention.  It’s also where authenticity and real beauty are found, and this is the stuff of self-love.  When we love ourselves, we have more of it to give. And so, changing the world really does begin within each of us.    

Big Love, Leafe (and BoBo)