In Live Love Now, New York Times bestselling author Rachel Macy Stafford tackles the biggest challenges facing kids today and equips adults to engage them with humanness and heart, compassion and honesty to discover the deep, life-giving connection everyone is longing for. What do young people need now more than ever? Adults who are Truth-tellers not taskmasters. Encouragers not enforcers. … enforcers. Guides not half-listeners. The good news is, it’s not too late! No matter what’s happened in the past, you can help the kids you love face the top stressors of today, including academic pressure, parental expectations, technoference, lack of purpose, isolation, and loneliness.
With illuminating, straightforward strategies, this guide reveals the importance of practicing acceptance, pursuing peace, and exploring wellness and purpose for yourself so you can be the kind of real, relevant, and lifelong role model young people are searching for. Engaging and thoughtful, each chapter includes moving stories from Rachel’s personal journey as a mom of a teen and pre-teen along with illustrative narratives and prompts to help you reflect and take steps toward becoming the kind of adult young people trust.
Whether you’re a parent, educator, older sibling, coach, or anyone in a role of leading young people, this book will help you meet the goal of raising and guiding young people to become resilient, compassionate, and capable adults.
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In Live Love Now, Rachel Macy Stafford weaves tools of her trade, as a special education teacher, with the daily rhythms of life and brings them to your living room. The lessons include how to be truth-tellers, encouragers and guides as we learn to listen and collaborate with our people to develop daily plans and life plans that speak to their heart. For me, I am learning how to listen to my daughters, to my spouse and to my own heart. I am catching myself when I go to critique and instead purposely try to see understand their angle or intention. I am taking more pauses. Taking time to really see them.
Right now, we have the opportunities to really notice each other. My call to arms is to help launch this book into this world. I want this book to arrive on your doorstep. It will help you find your own truths, to notice your own people, and to begin to live your purpose, together. They are reminders of the importance of connection. How we are “still within reach.” -RMS
As a parent, I have often thought about how I can do things differently than my parents did or do it just like they did, so I can provide my child(ren) with the parenting I wish I had. Rachel Macy Stafford’s inspiring book, Live Love Now draws out the truths and wisdom we have within us and encourages us ‘to first be aligned with our true essence (be who you are with your actions and words) so we can establish that safe, spacious, nurturing environment that allows our child(ren) to develop their own internal compass of who they are (not who we expect) even when they are surrounded by a perfection demanding, externally focused culture’.
The book is divided into three sections and is a comfortable read mixed between real stories and evidence based research that ties directly with the chapters topic. Additionally, at the end of each chapter there are a few questions that she suggests we ask ourselves. Initially, I wanted to skip the questions, but as I have found through Rachel’s writing- her questions always tie back to self discovery. A beautiful thread that is woven through the book is affirmations and poems- and a truly heartfelt appeal closing the book, One Window, that drives it all home.
Upon finishing the book, there were many insights I had gained, just looking at my notes in the book margin one would wonder if there was a page that didn’t resonate with me, but two that truly resonated deeply and I found myself practicing immediately were to become a repeat inviter in activities and experiences with my child(ren) from inviting them everyday if they would join me on a walk/run, make a part of a meal, etc. Also, that I can model (and invite) them in installing healthy coping strategies as it is these strategies that become ingrained in the brain’s circuitry. We all have them and know what they are, but are we showing our child(ren) when we use these tools in our own daily challenges so they can see us as we struggle but reach for our strategies to continue on.
I encourage you to read this book, there is a starting point for each of us and many opportunities to reset and ‘Just be’ as we parent our child(ren) each day.
Rachel Macy Stafford’s message in Live Love Now is one of gentle encouragement of a friend who has been there. Through the pages of this book, you get to know Rachel and her heart for children, teens, and young adults. Rachel describes being a place of refuge for the young person in your life. She shared that you need to turn away from distractions to embrace the sacred. Rachel encourages us to stop rushing and give loved ones our presence. I would recommend this book to anyone who longs to truly connect with a young person in their life.
I am a member of Live Love Now launch team. I received an early release copy of this book. All of the opinions expressed here are my own
Live Love Now is like an oasis in the desert, both a relief to read and a delight to devour the content. It is poignant and impactful but more than anything else, it is truthful and brave. This book helps guide HUMANS to deeper connection and promotes these bonds, created through openly sharing mistakes and working together instead of against our loved ones. From the beginning, with the heartwarming dedication to the Wanderers, Noticers and Dreamers, Rachel guides you through the story of her own recognition on the importance of looking inward which forged new bonds where disconnect was growing previously. She will provide real life Waypoints throughout the book to anchor the reader in truth and guide the reader to connectedness. She will inspire you to truly determine what your ‘No Trade’ declarations look like. Rachel will show you why “labels that stereotype are damaging for so many reasons” and she will help each reader find the truth in her statement: “We have to be vulnerable first. That means our humanness stops being a scary secret right now so we can become respected role models for the young people we love.” Be prepared to laugh, to jot down notes, to shed a few tears but most of all to want to share this with everyone you know!!
“Be the place where they are known, seen, heard, and celebrated. Over time, that unconditional acceptance will serve as inner armor, protecting their sense of self when the world tries to negate it.” The New York Times Best selling author, Rachel Macy Stafford, best known as the Hands Free Mama, provides a 21st century road map for raising resilient, compassionate, authentic teenagers in these unprecedented times. Stafford lovingly weaves personal stories to demonstrate how becoming a Truth-teller, Encourager, and Guide will transform your relationship with the young adults in your life. This book, like her three previous books, Hands Free Mama, Hands Free Life, and Only Love Today, gives practical advice while filling your soul with hope.
“Live Love Now” invites us, in the tag line, to “Relieve the pressure and find real connection with our kids”… And I think it delivers many tools to help us do just that.
Rachel shares vulnerable moments from her own life, both as a mother and a former special education teacher, in the spirit of sharing her insights. She shares her experiences, and then offers practical guidance – both her own, and that of subject matter experts – on how we can build stronger connections with our kids.
If you follow her blog, some of these passages will ring familiar. However, the beauty of revisiting her words is that sometimes a message that didn’t hit home the first time hits home the second time, or a message resonates differently when your child is a few years older. Rachel has augmented this book with several series of questions to consider and with input from experts and other authors, as well. Though I’ve been a follower of her blog for several years, I still found myself reading this book with a highlighter in hand.
The tone of the book is grace-filled and encouraging, never defeating; it’s very approachable. For example, from the questions on page 128: “How might you be more of an encourager rather than an Enforcer in respect to your kids’ technology use? What might be some benefits of adopting that role?”
The whole book feels like an invitation to exhale… and to invite our kids to exhale along with us.