"No!" delivered with a coy smile is currently my 1.5 year old son's favorite response to most everything these days.
This endless new game--a basic misbehavior millions of parents encounter hourly--once may have had me swimming in the parenting deep end, but not anymore. Along with my graduate studies in family counseling and the seven years of living in the parenting trenches with two blind brothers (who often made Hellen Keller's early defiance look like a cake walk), I now have added new depth and breadth by parenting consciously from "beingness" with much thanks to Eckert Tolle's and Oprah's New Earth work.
The formula for life and for parenting is simple: breathe.
Writing this last sentence makes me laugh. You see, I have delivered hundreds of parenting strategies that, for the record, do work and have worked on millions, but never have I suggested to a parent struggling with the latest misbehavior challenge to simply "breathe"--that is until now!
Along with millions of others, I have been touched, inspired and transformed by the work of Eckhart Tolle in his latest book, A New Earth and his online course with Oprah. His work has confirmed what I have always known--the best parents are those who are the most present for their children.
It is indeed our presence as parents that makes the best present for our children.
Easy to do. Nope, especially in the midst of award winning temper tantrums or your child's deviant look that says, 'GO AHEAD! MAKE MY DAY.' Yet, making the shift from the mind to the breath has provided me with more peace, more joy and more gratitude. It is as if the mommy worries, doubts, frustrations, stresses and pure exhaustion (from believing I had to do it all, and be all things to all people) have simply dissolved into nothingness.
These days, I am taking the art of parenting present to a new level and choosing to consciously "be" in the moment with full acceptance, rather than resistance, to my child's behavior.
So tonight when my son refused to brush his teeth, I sit on the toilet holding his brush in hand with eyes closed and just focus on my breath. In that moment I accept he is not going to brush his teeth--at least right now. And then I just wait. I breath. I inhale, I exhale. I focus on my hands, my feet, and my breath. After a while he approaches me, curious, then runs away. I breath. I breath. I breath. I BREATHE. He approaches again, but this time he sits and we brush. No yelling, no coercing--pure power from surrendering to the moment and simply breathing.
Sounds rather ridiculous (at least to the mind), yet pure genious and it works! So the latest parenting strategy I uphold is to simply breathe.
This endless new game--a basic misbehavior millions of parents encounter hourly--once may have had me swimming in the parenting deep end, but not anymore. Along with my graduate studies in family counseling and the seven years of living in the parenting trenches with two blind brothers (who often made Hellen Keller's early defiance look like a cake walk), I now have added new depth and breadth by parenting consciously from "beingness" with much thanks to Eckert Tolle's and Oprah's New Earth work.
The formula for life and for parenting is simple: breathe.
Writing this last sentence makes me laugh. You see, I have delivered hundreds of parenting strategies that, for the record, do work and have worked on millions, but never have I suggested to a parent struggling with the latest misbehavior challenge to simply "breathe"--that is until now!
Along with millions of others, I have been touched, inspired and transformed by the work of Eckhart Tolle in his latest book, A New Earth and his online course with Oprah. His work has confirmed what I have always known--the best parents are those who are the most present for their children.
It is indeed our presence as parents that makes the best present for our children.
Easy to do. Nope, especially in the midst of award winning temper tantrums or your child's deviant look that says, 'GO AHEAD! MAKE MY DAY.' Yet, making the shift from the mind to the breath has provided me with more peace, more joy and more gratitude. It is as if the mommy worries, doubts, frustrations, stresses and pure exhaustion (from believing I had to do it all, and be all things to all people) have simply dissolved into nothingness.
These days, I am taking the art of parenting present to a new level and choosing to consciously "be" in the moment with full acceptance, rather than resistance, to my child's behavior.
So tonight when my son refused to brush his teeth, I sit on the toilet holding his brush in hand with eyes closed and just focus on my breath. In that moment I accept he is not going to brush his teeth--at least right now. And then I just wait. I breath. I inhale, I exhale. I focus on my hands, my feet, and my breath. After a while he approaches me, curious, then runs away. I breath. I breath. I breath. I BREATHE. He approaches again, but this time he sits and we brush. No yelling, no coercing--pure power from surrendering to the moment and simply breathing.
Sounds rather ridiculous (at least to the mind), yet pure genious and it works! So the latest parenting strategy I uphold is to simply breathe.
