About The Well-Made Bed
When we live with intention, building our foundation first, we get to make our bed AND lie in it. We (and our families) live richer lives because we are working to “make our bed” every day.
The Well-Made Bed, at its core, is about getting information into parents’ hands that is practicable. Something they can do TODAY to make their life better; create less stress, more joy. Information is shared through writing, training and speaking; going to the places physically and virtually where parents “live.”
The Well-Made Bed embraces the “it takes a village” mindset so it is equally important to get information into the hands of the professionals who work with, touch and have the opportunity to reach and serve families every day through direct service, advocacy and policy.
The Well-Made Bed focuses on helping parents understand how to strengthen their foundation, be intentional about their parenting practice and understand what influences that practice. Namely culture, how we were parented ourselves and the impact of trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs.
You already have what it takes.
The Well-Made Bed uses research-based, best-practice information to identify what has the greatest impact on positive parenting and healthy child development – namely the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework and the emerging science of Positive Experiences – and focuses parents on those simple every day actions that have the potential to make the greatest impact.
The Well-Made Bed is about the journey. Creating a community that shines a light for the journey. We are always going to mess up. No one is 100% all the time. But with grace and forgiveness – of ourselves and each other – we learn, grow and get BETTER. After all, leaving the world a little BETTER than I found it has always been my dream.
About Sandi Cimino
From my very first memory of my very first thought about what I wanted to be when I grow up the only thing I can remember is that I felt like I wanted to change the world, to make a difference. I didn’t know how and or what that would technically “be,” but I knew I wanted to make things BETTER. This propensity toward “betterness” probably had something to do with the relentless, perpetual improvement projects my father always had going around the house and garage….much to my mother’s chagrin.
While I knew “better” was my focus, that was about all I had figured out. My journey to here has been convoluted and messy, like most. Like the back side of a tapestry – all criss-crosses, stops and starts, frayed ends – but also beauty in the chaos. The generous spirits of those closest to me say it’s taken “just the right amount of time.” I feel is has taken way TOO LONG.
It is often hard to see the connections in all of our frayed ends, our mess-ups and wrong turns, our moments of indecision and inaction and those blessed golden moments when everything worked as planned. These connections always bring us where we are meant to be if three things are present: Awareness, Resilience, and Community. When I look at those three words, I am both surprised and also not surprised that I have ended up here, in just the right amount of time.
At a very young age I knew instinctively, but not yet concretely that I loved 3 things: I loved to talk; I loved being around people; and I loved to write. Back in the days of my youth, we took “aptitude” tests. You know the ones. They ask a bunch of questions and then TELL you what you should be when you grow up. My friends and I compared results laughing at how insane it was that a TEST could tell us what to be. My top three? Actor. Social Worker. Author. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.
As adults, we take the Meyers-Briggs; the Color test; the DiSC. Guess what? All those character traits and skills from way back in my youth actually APPLIED. But I still didn’t really see how all of that applied to what my ACTUAL job was. Until I hit a wall.
In 2009, along with many, many others, I found myself out of a job. A very lucrative job that was sucking the life blood out of me. It was divine intervention and I was terrified. I was also blessed. At the recommend of my husband, I took some time off. Ok not so much a “recommendation” as a direct order, albeit lovingly delivered, there was NOT going to be a discussion. I was in a time out.
I needed congruence. I needed my work to be my passion and I needed to be passionate about my work. I took several steps back and I started to think about what I had loved MOST about all the jobs I had held for the past 15 years and guess what? Trainer (actor); Coach (Social Worker); Writer (Author). Hmmmm, they may have been on to something all those years ago.
So I took several more steps back and looked at the back of my tapestry. While there is truly beauty in chaos, I needed to move forward with intention and greater focus. And I STILL had the desire to make a difference. I went back to my community for guidance and what emerged was passion, creativity, energy and FEAR. What also emerged were all the talents I was waiting to employ until the “time was right”. The clock struck midnight. The time WAS now.
Families, parents, children. That is my passion. Those are my roots. Guiding, lifting up, inspiring - those were my talents. And talking. Yes, I definitely have a talent for talking. So my “work” ceased to be just “work” and became woven into the fabric of my life.
I spent a lot of time thinking about what part of “the World” I wanted to make better and what “better” looked like. My own parenting journey had been so far removed from what I thought it would be so I started there. Listening to a speech by Robin Roberts it hit me like a ton of bricks. “Make your mess your message.” That’s what her mother told her. I could DEFINITELY do that because my life felt like a whole lot of MESS!
Like most people, I had an idea of HOW I wanted my life to go. But I had never really thought about WHY I was doing what I was doing. Why I was making the choices I made? I drifted and stumbled into some awesome and not so awesome opportunities but the time for stumbling was over. I needed to be more intentional.
I was very clear about WHY I wanted to be a parent. But like the professional aspect of my life, I had never really thought about the HOW of my parenting. The idea of Foundational Living was born. Foundational living is living fully in your life with intention; taking small but significant steps each day to be our best selves; building community to help others do the same. Foundational living helps us experience less stress and more joy.
We all do something well, at least one thing and, more likely, lots of things. When we start with what is strong rather than what is wrong, we build momentum. There is too much shame in parenting, especially when parents are struggling. When we come from a place of empathy, help people recognize their strengths and support them in their parenting journey, we can create light.
Parents are overwhelmed with the amount of information out there – some of it conflicting. We must respect parents culturally, spiritually and individually. Parenting is an INTENSELY personal journey. One that feels like it is under scrutiny every minute.
Out of this personal and professional journey came The Well-Made Bed.
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
— Maya Angelou