Do You Have The Mind of A Child?
Picture this:
Your daughter’s back is turned.
Your son’s arms are crossed, refusing to do what you’ve just asked of him.
You can feel your blood pressure rising. Face getting flushed. Hands beginning to take their shape in the form of fists.
As this question, this one burning , rises and races wildly through your mind.
One question.
‘Why won’t my child just listen to me?!
Followed by the next question….
‘What’s wrong with him?!’
He’s now playing with some toy, back fully turned away from you.
She’s now crying and starting to kick her legs on the ground.
You find your mind continuing to race, trying to make sense out of this whole scene.
After all, you’re the PARENT. They’ve got to listen to YOU.
The next question emerges and makes itself fully known in the space between your ears.
‘My child needs to show me some RESPECT…..my child needs to LISTEN!’
Time for action.
Your thought leads you into some situation with your child where you are just trying to get him/her to LISTEN to you. Life suddenly turns into a struggle and you’re just trying to regain some sense of control, of order.
So, what’s really going on here?
Why won’t your child just listen to you?
In order to answer this, we must travel into the mind of a child.
And I don’t mean, ‘travel into your child’s mind.’ I’m not only talking about empathy here. (one of my fav topics for those of you who know me)
I mean that we need to understand what it’s like to approach life with the mind of a child.
Listening to life with the mind of a child.
Beyond just ‘getting into your child’s world,’ I’m inviting you to embrace the mind of a child for a moment. This is the place inside of you that is distinctly alive and vibrant, the place inside of you that intuitively knows, that intuitively feels and expresses all the time.
Approaching life with the mind of a child means that you are in the moment without any preconceived notions or expectations, releasing all forms of judgment.
It means that you are freely expressing a feeling that you’re having. It means that you’re open and curious. It means that you are listening within first to your own feelings and needs. It’s a place of honesty. Of authenticity. Of trust. Trusting yourself enough to feel.
It’s a place of exploration and discovery. A place where anything is possible. And, it’s often a place where time stops (at least, the clicking-kind of clock time as we know it) and you’re completely wrapped up in the moment. It’s a place of wonder and surprise, not having a distinct plan but open to every new discovery, every new sensation. When you enter into the mind of a child, you become an explorer, you are in direct relationship with every moment as being a completely unique experience….a distant land that you have never before visited.
Now, back to your child.
Every feeling, every cry, every moment when your child is apparently ‘not listening’ to you, your child is living with the mind of a child. He’s wrapped up in a moment, trying to fulfill whatever need he’s experiencing in that moment. Maybe it’s a need to play. Maybe it’s a need for freedom. Maybe it’s a need for space.
Now, imagine how you feel when you have a need like that. What’s that like for you?
Imagine for a moment just stopping in those ‘why won’t he just LISTEN to me’ moments with your child and entering into a place where you’re open and curious about what’s happening for your child.
Imagine approaching with the mind of a child.
Connection isn’t some magical thing that just falls out of the sky. True connection is developed over time. True connection is gift that comes through deep listening and compassion.
When you can release any expectation of how you’re supposed to act to just BE with what is, then the moment of connection is born…
And will live on through the mind of a child.
What Do You and Brad Pitt Have in Common?
Curious, aren’t you?
The power of your instincts, as Brad Pitt shared this past week, can play a big part in your parenting.
I know in my heart of hearts that we have the ability to affect a huge amount of growth and understanding in our children. And a lot of that growth and understanding may be the product of your parental instincts at work yet, some of it may not.
So, here’s my hot question of the week :
How are your thoughts affecting your parenting? Are you aware that this is even happening?
For most of us, parenting happens extremely quickly and is somewhat instinctual. You may find yourself working everything out ‘in the moment’ or as Brad Pitt so eloquently put it this week in his latest interview in Parade magazine about parenting six children with Angelina, ‘”I was surprised at how automatic it is, how much of it is instinctual. And now I have a great confidence and trust in those instincts.”
Yet, what happens when your instincts aren’t kicking in? Or you’re tired? Or you’re not getting the results with your kids that you’ve been expecting? What then?
Yet, to follow the trail of your instincts, I believe we must begin with some yummy neuroscience.
(I have to admit that I’m a bit of a neuroscience and quantum physics geek. I’m just fascinated with the way the mind-body works and what makes us tick…especially when we’re parenting.)
As powerful as our instincts are, our thoughts may just be THAT much stronger when it comes to stressful moments.
We talk a lot in our classes about dealing with the stressful emotions that arise during parenting, yet what about the thoughts that you’re thinking that may be bringing about some of those stressful moments?
Thoughts like, ‘My kid will never go to sleep now,’ or ‘he’ll never finish his dinner….he hasn’t before, so why now?’ or ‘I’ll never get these kids to stop fighting,’ or maybe just….’I can’t do this!’
The pervasiveness of thoughts during a stressful emotional moment can be very telling about what’s actually going on in your mind. And, what’s going on in your mind could actually be left over from the past or, more importantly, be producing a certain emotional response in your body that is sending out certain chemicals throughout your brain and body that are actually causing more stress. The stress cycle has begun.
So, how can we break the cycles?
The answer: Become aware of your thoughts.
The super-duper answer: Become aware of any thoughts that are not truly supportive of you or your child. (or anyone else with whom you’re interacting)
Sounds simple but it takes some practice to be able to stop in the moment when things become emotionally charged for you or your child and recognize what your thoughts actually are.
Yet, it’s in this moment, this precious moment, where new brain patterns can be formed and here’s where it all gets very fascinating.
Watch out…my neuroscience geekiness is about to kick in!
In a recent interview from the movie, ‘What The Bleep Do We Know’, Dr. Joe Dispenza describes what happens in our brains when we think a different thought….when we choose to think a new thought:
‘We also know that nerve cells that don’t fire together no longer wire together. They lose their long-term relationship. Because every time we interrupt a thought process that produces a chemical response in the body…every time we interrupt it, those nerve cells that are connected to each other start breaking a long-term relationship. When we start interrupting and observing , not by stimulus & response and that automatic reaction, but by observing the effects it takes, then we are NO LONGER the body-mind-conscious-emotional person that’s responding to it’s environment as if it’s automatic.’
I was jumping out of my seat when I heard this because this is exactly what we’ve been teaching in our classes! To be able to stop yourself in that precious moment when it all feels like it’s falling apart. When you’re about to explode. When your child is really pushing your buttons. When you’re about to lose your cool.
What if you were to just stop in that moment?
What if you would just stop, ‘interrupt and observe’ your thought(s)?
By becoming the observer, you remove yourself from being at the cause of your thoughts. And when you remove yourself from being at the cause of your thoughts, then you can now experience having choice. The freedom to choose which thoughts you really want to be thinking here. If we can stop or ‘interrupt’ these cycles of automatic responses or thoughts that are no longer supportive of yourself or your relationships (or your parenting for that matter), then you can now choose which thoughts would truly serve each situation.
It’s a mastery… a mastery of the mind.
And when you can master your mind, you may just find that you don’t need to respond to ‘your environment as if it’s automatic.’
In short, you may just be re-wiring your brain towards love and support.
So, Brad Pitt, there’s nothing wrong with intuition as we parent. I believe we need to look a bit deeper here though at whether or not that intuition is truly serving ourselves and our children.
For locked deep within some of your intuitive impulses may lie the source of disconnection, disharmony or separation.
Unlock the door to your thoughts and you have now opened up your mind to what’s truly possible.
Next week: The Power of Your Child’s Thoughts
Have You Been Buzzing Like This Lately?
She started off by telling me everything wrong with her child, as so many of us do. 
Everything that her child wasn’t. Everything that her child wasn’t doing right. Everything that she secretly wished were different. We talked on and on. Her voice on the other end of the phone, growing quieter, as if she was suddenly whispering some ancient mysterious puzzle that I would all of a sudden be able to solve.
Then, finally, she stopped.
And all I could hear was this buzzing in the air. This distinct buzzing of messages passed down. Do this. Be this. Don’t do that. How could you do that? All of the messages that she must have received as a child buzzed around in the whisper of her deepest, darkest secrets that she was now holding about her child.
I suddenly became acutely aware of the power of all that buzz. All of those messages buzzing around, re-circulating themselves, becoming alive once again, pushing her child further and further away from her.
Sure, we all want our children to be kind, well-behaved, smart, affectionate, gentle, loving and…..(……) Yet, what happens when they’re not? What happens when your child doesn’t show up the way you’d like him/her to? What kind of thoughts race through your head?
You may be thinking, ‘He’s rude,’ ‘he’s obnoxious,’ ‘he’s awful,’ ‘obsessive,’ ‘withdrawn,’ ’inappropriate’….some kind of a nuisance.
You are beginning the buzz or maybe you’re continuing the buzz from an earlier generational buzz that was created for you as a child.
‘You’re rude.’ ‘You’re inconsiderate.’ ‘You’re disorganized.’ ‘You’re not a good listener.’ ‘You’re selfish.’ ‘You’re rude,’ ‘obnoxious,’ ‘awful,’ ‘obsessive,’ ‘withdrawn,’’inappropriate’….some kind of a nuisance.’
The buzz that we hear about ourselves is often the buzz that we begin to hear about our children.
So, what IS all of this buzz anyway?
It’s the buzz of judgment. Places where you may have felt judged as a child. Places where you may have felt misunderstood. Places where you felt like you were being placed within a box and labeled, maybe without you even knowing it.
So, now, we are continuing the buzz with our own children.
We relegate our minds, thought by thought, into a place of judgment because we’ve felt judged in some way in the past.
Yet, the buzz doesn’t end there.
We enter into collective agreements based on judgment.
We share the buzz with others. We worry about the buzz. We obsess about the imagined implications that this kind of buzz holds.
If my child is rude, for example, then that means that he will be (fill in the blank.)
Secrets begin to buzz. Opinions are formed. You invite others to buy into the buzz.
You essentially set your mind on a very fixed place with all of this buzz…a place that creates the walls around where your child will now live.
For with every recurring ‘buzzing’ thought that you may hold, you are creating a very distinct listening of your child and you are inviting your child to show up the exact way that you’re thinking about them.
Your child will actually become the buzz, right before your very eyes.
So, you’re child throws something in your face or screams at you or runs out of the house without his clothes on (if you’re in the mighty toddler years).
Now, you may be thinking, ‘He’s rude,’ ‘obnoxious,’ ‘awful,’ ‘obsessive,’ ‘withdrawn,’’inappropriate’….some kind of a nuisance.
And, guess what? He is and will continue to be.
As long as you’re holding and continue to hold this thought about him. As long as you continue to buzz.
Crazy as it may sound but the way that another person shows up in your world, including your child, depends largely upon the listening that you have of that person.
All of our thoughts create this intricate web of listening for another and the other can only live within the listening that you have created.
Your child lives within the listening that you have of her.
Suddenly, she was quiet again on the other end of the phone.
Yet, this time she wasn’t whispering any more buzz about her child for we had named the buzz. We had called it out into the open.
She suddenly realized that all of this buzz had continued to propagate all of these unsupportive feelings and thoughts about her child.
This time she realized that the love that she had for her daughter well surpassed the power of all that buzz.
So, in a moment, one beautiful moment, she dropped all that buzz and was left with one remaining thought.
The thought?
‘There’s my lovely daughter.’
And suddenly, her daughter in that very moment, became lovely.
(Epilogue: Over the next week, her bond deepened with her daughter as she found herself having new thoughts about her daughter no matter what her daughter did. She began to accept all of her daughter as lovely. )
What Happened When I Busted Through
I’ve been talking for a while about limiting belief patterns. I coach about it. I teach classes about it. I meditate on it. I am constantly coming up with new ways to bust through limiting beliefs for my clients and students.
Key words there: For my clients and students.
Sure, I know that I have my own limiting beliefs however, my schedule had become so packed with new clients and our classes that my own meditation time had been slowly diminishing over the past few weeks. Life had just gotten very full!
So, on Monday, I was especially delighted when, out of the blue, a young woman had seen my work offered me a two-hour ‘Intuitive Heart Healing’ Session in exchange for a testimonial. A-ha! I thought. Here’s my ‘meditation’ time! I had no idea what to expect but it just sounded so cool. Intuitive heart healing….who could pass that one up?
I entered into our session with a completely open mind and felt so surprised at what emerged.
As we talked and she guided me through her process, I could feel something very significant was happening. We talked about my past, my marriage, my son, and then, the conversation opened up to my ‘ancestral lines’.
Why?
Because our limiting belief patterns are sometimes passed down to us throughout generations. So, we need to talk generationally.
What beliefs have been passed down through your family ? Not good or bad….just beliefs.
I’ve found that parenting styles are passed down through the generations as well.
What parenting style do you believe has been passed down to you? Are you aware of this?
When you are attempting to make a shift in your parenting style (usually from a more dominant ‘control over’ approach to a more peaceful ‘relationship with’ approach), then you are really breaking cycles of parenting behavior that may have been in place over generations.
Same with limiting belief patterns. And most of the time, you may not know what limiting beliefs lurk beneath the surface. If you’re sensing that something is guiding most of your behavior, then it may just be a limiting belief.
Here are FOUR CLUES to help you identify your own limiting belief:
- This is often your first thought in your greatest moment of stress. Ex: As a parent, a common limiting belief is, ‘I’m not doing this right.’
- A limiting belief will produce an emotion that doesn’t feel pleasurable to your body.
- Once you break through a limiting belief, you are open to adopt a NEW supportive belief.
- Once you break through a limiting belief, your whole life shifts.
We continued to move through her ‘Intuitive Heart Healing’ process on Monday when after about an hour, through unpeeling many layers of beliefs and a bunch of tears, we stumbled upon one of my GREATEST LIMITING BELIEFS EVER!
‘I should be married.’
THAT was my limiting belief…..I really didn’t expect this one!!
Sounds quite simple, huh? The facts are that I was married about 3 years ago. Then, I got divorced and now, my son’s dad and I co-parent our son together. Yet, something profound had been lingering in my unconscious mind. This thought…..this belief that ‘I should be married.’
When we came upon this limiting belief, I was able to trace it all the way back to my childhood and what was modeled for me throughout my whole family. I come from a large extended family where I noticed as a child that all of the women got married and stayed married. Here’s where my belief began to take shape.
Here’s where most of our limiting beliefs begin to take shape. In our childhoods.
It has absolutely nothing with how your family was or how they treated you. Your limiting beliefs originate either as passed-down beliefs (ex: All women should be married!) or they begin when you attribute meaning to a situation. Whatever you make something mean, then it becomes so for you.
For example, when I saw all of the women in my extended family were married by a certain age, I quickly created the belief, ‘I should be married…too.’
As this belief was unearthed in a very profound, emotional way through my session on Monday, I could see just how this belief had been causing me tons of unnecessary stress and confusion.
Why the stress and confusion?
I love my life now and I truly love being able to share the work that I’m so passionate about. Yet, when I would think about a new partner in my life, I would immediately begin to feel stress and confusion. And, I could never understand why.
I wouldn’t allow new potential partners to get too close. Now, I understand just how my brain had been grappling with this old belief of ‘I should be married,’ and this belief had come between me and my new potential partner.
Once you uncover a limiting belief pattern, then you are truly free to create anything you’d like to create. That’s really how it works. And, you also start to notice people reacting to you differently.
‘When you shift, then everyone in your world shifts too.’
Finally, after years of holding this limiting belief pattern, I busted through what feels like generations of a commonly-held belief.
On Monday, I finally understood what so many of you as our students and clients had been experiencing as we bust through YOUR limiting belief patterns.
Freedom is suddenly possible.
The unknown is suddenly possible.
Loving the moment is suddenly possible.
And, you open to a whole new you.
Welcome…….
You’ve now Re-Parented yourself.
What If We Had a Parent’s Manifesto?
I wrote this Manifesto after I got angry about something that my 4-year old son did and consequently, didn’t listen to him. I was frustrated by my actions and felt like I needed some sort of personal manifesto that I could post somewhere….something to say everyday. I’m often asked for one tool, one thing that will help parents in any moment. Sure, we have tools though I think 99% of the time it’s being able to actually remember the tool in the moment.
I find that affirmations trigger a part of the brain that offers a context…a structure from which to live by.
Parenting is not different. I believe that we all need some sort of context, a list of values, a ‘noble cause’ or even, yes, a manifesto.
Short and sweet.
Here’s my offering to you. I invite you to use this and/or make your own.
A Parent’s Manifesto
1. I commit to listen to you, to hear your voice even when it’s saying something I may not like.
2. I commit to respect your feelings and needs.
3. I commit to offer you the space to express who you are and what you’re feeling.
4. I commit to not take anything you do or say personally.
5. I commit to believing in you and your abilities even when you don’t believe.
6. I commit to listening deeply to the calling of your heart.
7. I commit to taking a moment to calm myself down before coming to you with any anger, judgment or criticism.
Were you raised with a ‘manifesto’?
Why Are You Feeling Exactly What You’re Not ‘Supposed’ to be Feeling?
One of the toughest thoughts in the human experience is:
‘It’s not supposed to be like this.’
Why do I say ‘toughest”? Because this one little thought can easily spark currents of pain throughout your body in an instant.
‘It’s not supposed to be like this,’ or ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening.’
Try it on. Ever have one of these thoughts? How does your body feel just thinking this thought?
Much of this line of questioning that our minds will engage in from time to time is strangely hypothetical and not grounded in any kind of ‘reality’.
Who really knows what’s ‘supposed’ to be happening or how you’re ‘supposed’ to be feeling?
The answer: Nobody but you. Truly.
The truth is that whatever feeling you’re having at any given moment is exactly the feeling that you’re supposed to be having.
You are coming into alignment with your essence and these feelings that you’re having are really your doorway into experiencing your true vitality.
So, instead of letting our minds run rampant with that thought, ‘It’s not supposed to be like this,’ a much more appropriate question that will bring about growth is: ‘what am I feeling?’
As you get more in touch with your actual feelings, you get more in touch with your authenticity.
Most of us don’t really feel our feelings throughout the day, until they become big and distract us from what we’re doing.
Why is this?
Because you have a distinct relationship with the feelings in your body based on how you experienced emotional support growing up as a child. This is how you developed your emotional intelligence and the ability to move through challenging situations.
If you didn’t have a ton of emotional support growing up, then you may notice your tendency to place many judgments on your feelings as they arise. These judgments often happen on the unconscious level and they happen in a fraction of a second.
Sometimes, when you judge your feelings, you internalize the judgment and very quickly, you make it mean something about you.
Ex: If you’re feeling sad, you may quickly judge the fact that you’re feeling sad and make your sadness mean that you’re not good enough.
So, when you begin to really FEEL the feeling, you may feel very uncomfortable as your mind may bring up certain judgments about your feeling.
It’s time now to allow ourselves the space to have our feelings and recognize these judgments just for what they are: Judgments.
I say it’s time to just feel your feelings no matter what you’re supposed to be doing or thinking or feeling.
So much of our lives are lost in the ‘should’s’ and ‘supposed to’s’. Let’s let our feelings off the hook.
Your body is a treasure chest unlike any other and it’s just waiting to be opened.
The Essence of Your Vitality: The Real You
It’s becoming more and more apparent to me lately that we are definitely creatures of habit. 
Habits just seem to be all-pervasive. What does that mean? If you’ve done something for a while, then you’re going to tend to do that same thing. Until you find a new way, a new habit and you CHOOSE to follow that new habit. Your choice in the matter is key.
So, what happens when you discover that you’ve been driving down the same road of life over and over again, creating results that you’re not completely 100% satisfied with?
Then, you give up the essence of your vitality. You find that parts of your life have become lackluster. You don’t laugh as much. Or cry as much. Or passionately care as much. You fall into a habit of ‘just living’ – going through the motions without the motions passionately going through you, waking you up to what’s REALLY possible in your life.
I say it’s time for our return. Time for all of us to return to the essence of our vitality – to the stuff that made us – to the sense of freedom that has you belly laughing from your core – to the awareness of a child.
We often think that our kids aren’t as smart or don’t know as much as we do. While that may be true on some life practicality levels, our kids embody the essence of life in every moment. Your child is your great reminder to LIVE – your great wake up call if you let him/her be.
But enough about your child (if you have one), and let’s get back to you for a moment.
How do you access your essence of vitality once again?
The quickest and most effective way that I know of is by uncovering and releasing your unconscious limiting belief patterns from the past – all that stuff that you’re thinking about every day but you may not even realize you’re thinking about. Stuff that holds you back, consumes your energy….
Thoughts like, ‘I’m not good enough, or skinny enough, or rich enough’…’I’m all alone,’….’Nobody listens to me’…..’I should be much further along than this’……all of those thoughts that place judgment on you are keeping you now (RIGHT NOW!) from having your vital energy.
I’m working now with a doctor, an MD in Boston who specializes in functional medicine. She refers many of her patients to me.
Why?
Because while she works on restoring their vitality on a physical level, I work with them to unlock the essence of their vitality on a mind/soul level. I help them to bust through those limiting belief patterns that have been taking up so much of their vital energy – occupying unnecessary space in their bodies and minds. And this is what’s happening with you too.
The essence of your vitality is calling out to be released. Your core energy is longing to flow. So that you can smile once again with the heart of a child. Laugh with wild abandon. Love from the depth of your heart. Cry when something hurts without judgment, knowing that all emotions are ok and welcome here….
In the words of Mark Twain,
Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.
This is what happens when you release the old and integrate the new. Your vital essence is alive and calling out to you in this very moment.
Are you ready to listen?
What You May Not Know About Me
I had a quantum mindshift about 2 ½ years ago that completely changed the course of my life and parenting.
I had just ended a six-year marriage that was incredibly challenging, moved into a tiny apartment, had a 2-year old son who was tantruming and not yet sleeping through the night, and took on three jobs as a new single mom to make ends meet, all of which I did not feel passionate about.
I was feeling overwhelmed back then. My son was crying a lot and I just remember being up with him throughout the night when I had this thought: There must be a way to help us both through this deeply emotional time…I really wanted to be contributing and sharing my gifts with others, building a business, but I just found myself in this survival cycle and felt like I was at the bottom of a hole just trying to climb out. I’m sure some of you can relate.
So, during those nights of rocking my son back to sleep, I made a decision that would change the course of my life.
I decided to take my life into my own hands….
I decided to train my mind towards success.
Sure, I had done meditations before but this decision, this commitment, that I made was different. Every day, I made it part of my routine to re-train my brain through meditation. This was my ‘gym’ exercise.
No matter how busy I found myself every day (and believe me, there was a lot to do!), I made it a point to spend at least 30 minutes a day to re-train my brain towards success.
I knew that I had a vision for my life and for my child’s life and the way things looked on the outside certainly did NOT match that vision.
What we do on the inside will always effect what shows up on the outside.
This is what I learned and what ended up happening.
So, after meditating for about 2 weeks, a girlfriend invited me to a parenting class that would completely bring about the shift that I so desired.
It was a course in nonviolent parenting.
They were talking about empathy and having respect for a child’s feelings and needs….all things that I deeply believed in.
The class resonated so deeply with me that I followed my heart and immediately signed up to become a parent educator. Little did I know just what a shift my life was taking.
I went through an intensive training that year with a group of about 30 social workers and together, we witnessed some pretty tough stuff in families.
I was trained in the practice of empathy. Deeply trained over that year. And what I REALLY got was an incredibly nurturing and loving space to be able to shift my own mindset from a place of feeling beaten down by a marriage that wasn’t fulfilling, by a career in film that wasn’t going anywhere, and a shocking new life situation as a single mom – two words that I never knew I would utter from my mouth.
That year changed me. We were opening up to the experience of empathy that Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi embodied.
And I knew that something great was at hand, because I had never in my life before experienced such a drastic shift in my mindset from feeling discouraged and alone to feeling accepted, loved and nurtured. I saw just how a deep shift in mindset is possible in anyone. Even you.
I realized that this is truly at the CORE of all parenting. No matter what you’re doing with your child, no matter how difficult ANY situation gets, it’s really your mindset that will get you through and allow you to be successful in deeply connecting with your child and modeling the kind of qualities that you so want your child to have.
You can read more about my story here and what my life is like now after having my quantum mindshift: (www.Jolettejai.com/journey)
So, why am I sharing all of this with you now?
Because I want you to know that wherever you’re at in your life and parenting (if you’re a parent) is OK and that if you’d like, it’s ALWAYS possible to make a huge shift in how you’re living your life from the inside out.
We talk so much about parenting yet how you are feeling in your life, career, partnership, relationships and health really affects ALL of your parenting. Nothing is fragmented. You are a whole person parenting a very perceptible child.
Has Duty Replaced Delicious for You?
When we become parents, so much of our lives becomes about doing and not just being. The responsibilities pile up and we often find ourselves busy throughout the day, just trying desperately to fit it all in, get everything done, and hopefully prepare for the next day
and the next.
I’ve become acutely aware of this world of doing this week and how it may just be robbing us of those delicious, precious moments with ourselves and our children. Doing has somehow replaced delicious.
For, this world of doing seems to be based largely in the world of obligations. And, it’s not that obligations or responsibilities are a bad thing at all! It’s just that when we operate fully out of obligation as parents , which is a very easy thing to do, we forget a whole other part of ourselves….a part that is yearning to be expressed . For your own health and the emotional health of your child.
So, what’s this other part, you may ask?
The other part of you that gets ignored when you’re consumed in the obligations of the day is the fun part. Remember that? The part of you that is motivated by what truly inspires you. That feels delicious and intuitive and moved to laugh at the silliest things. The part that relaxes and opens….that relishes in the simple expression of a word or a phrase that just touches you deeply or causes you to smile.
Maybe you experienced these moments when your child was very young and you found yourself making silly baby faces for hours on end. Or maybe it was the first time that you rode a bicycle, belly laughed with a friend, swam in the ocean, or fell in love. It’s that wide, expansive space that you have within you to feel deeply the experience of life. It’s the opposite of obligation. Nobody is forcing you to feel in these ways that are so deeply moving. And yet, when you’re in these spaces of pure inspiration, pure relaxation, pure love, time just melts away and obligation becomes a non-issue.
You do things because you’re moved to do things. You spend time with the people you love spending time with. You embrace your child no matter what he/she is doing in the moment.
You touch the essence of life – that stuff that holds this great big, crazy place together.
So, what happens with your child when you touch the essence of life?
Well, your child feels it too. Because your child is much more in touch with this place than you are and longs, I believe, to experience it fully in every moment.
I have so many parents coming to me describing how difficult bedtime rituals are because their kids just really want to play and it’s just so hard to get them to go to bed. And, I get it. Truly, if you’ve been with me over this past year, you know that I really do get it!
Yet, looking through the eyes of a child for just a moment, I would want to play too, all the time. Like my son so lovingly explained to me last week, ‘Mom, we’re kids. We just want to play all the time!’
And if I were a kid again (which I hope that sometimes, I still am!), I would be moved to touch the essence of life in every moment that I could. It would probably feel very foreign to me to consider the word ‘obligation’ for the first time. Think about it.
You are born from a place where everything is free and open and expansive. Where the essence of life is coursing through your veins, causing you to intuitively move from one moment to the next, exploring your world. Play is your mode of exploration. Your entry into the deliciousness of every moment.
And, now, all of a sudden, one of your parents whom you love dearly, is acting strange and telling you not to play and she/he seems totally out of touch with the moment you thought you were both in together. Your parent is totally checked out of that delicious moment you had together and checked into some idea of how this moment is SUPPOSED to go and what you MUST do. Really, think about it for a moment.
Think about just how crazy and odd that must seem to our children. This new world of obligations simply for obligation’s sake.
Yet, what if we were to meet our obligations with a sense of deliciousness?
What if you were to feel motivated instead of obliged?
What if we were to just BE before we consider DOING anything because we HAVE to.
Really, what would it mean for our lives and our children’s lives?
In the wildest part of your soul, somewhere out beyond the duties of the day, lies this sacred essence of life calling you forth. Waiting to emerge. To re-emerge and invite you into that delicious space of learning to just BE before you DO, BREATHE before you ACT, and LET GO before you HAVE TO.
Getting Honest With Your Child
Yesterday, my adorable, can-do-no-‘wrong’ 4-year old son decided that he was going to take every blanket, toy, pillow, and clothing from around our house (including all clean laundry waiting to be folded from the laundry basket ) and throw it all wildly around the 
house.
You know…as a gift for mom!
I just watched in amazement as my son turned wild with excitement and felt part of me laughing inside at his wild flight of fancy while the other part of me brewed with some sort of anxiety mixed with frustration. Heart beating faster….jaw clenching. What should I do next?
What I chose to do was something I had never tried before. It was something that I somehow just reached for intuitively.
I somehow met him on the bed, amidst his wild rampage, and managed to stop for just a moment to connect and look into his eyes. Because of all the connecting and peaceful parenting tools that we play with daily, this kind of connection is possible in a very short time yet, I was feeling the need for more communication….to let him in on some kind of a bigger picture.
Here is what I said and what ensued, which, by the way, completely took my breath away. …
Me: You know, there are parents that do all sorts of things to their kids when their kids are doing what you’re doing now. Some people hit their kids, some people scream, some people tell their kids to go into a corner…but, I’m not going to do any of those things with you right now. Ok?
Dead silence. Immediately. His big eyes watching me, waiting for what’s next.
He nods yes, as if understanding something from deep within. Some kind of ancient wisdom, breathing itself through this moment.
Me: Here’s what I’m going to do….
Eyes waiting.
Me: I’m going to ask you….ok?
He nods ‘Yes.’
Me: Ready?
Him: Yes.
Me: Would you please put all of these things away so we can get going to school?
From somewhere deep inside, he understands the nature of my request and from where it comes from. This place of respect is immediately established between us. He suddenly became aware that his Mommy had choices about how to parent…about what to do in each situation.
We became aware together of the choices available to us in the moment.
And, with choice, the world opens up.
All of a sudden, we were two people with choices, instead of ‘me – Mommy’ and ‘you- Son!’
My choice in that defining moment would continue to shape our relationship.
‘Sure, mommy,’ he replies. His gentle voice resting in the still air of the morning.
Then, without any further prompting, he began picking up the mess that was strewn all over.
You may not agree with what your child is doing. And, to be honest, your child may not agree in his heart with everything that you do.
Yet, somehow, we can all be aware that we have a choice.
Choice becomes liberating.
Choice allows you to have your own voice.
Choice is for everyone.
Choice is something that is learned.
It’s within the awareness that you DO have a choice and your ultimate choice to communicate this awareness with another that honesty truly lies.
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