Chances are if you are reading this, it means you have a desire within you to be the best parent (and person, wife, husband, lover, friend) you can be. Most humans are good and kind. And we want to be the best we can be - despite the massive pressures on parents in today's world.
But here's the thing: we are always doing our best. Always.
Read that again: you are always doing your best.
Because we have that wholesome desire to be kind and good and do our best, we're always doing our best in each moment. It may not be the best we've ever been, but it's the best we can be given the circumstances in the present moment.
Now, just a few sentences sentences in, I hope you're starting to feel into the intention of this blog post. It's about giving yourself a break first of all. And then from that place, you can move forward to becoming more of the parent you want to be.
Do you want to parent with more wisdom, a wisdom that arises with ease from within you? If you want to know you are parenting from your soul and not from your ego; then what do you do? You may have been asking yourself this very question.
If you have been pondering this then it means you are about to start a new journey in your life as a parent. You can start this journey from so many starting points. Keep in mind, don't fall into the trap of looking for the starting point to be told to you by someone else. Because no one can claim to know which is the right starting point for you....at this time in your life....at this moment. Where you are, who you are, now. No parenting expert, or god forbid your child's grandparent. But you know. You do. It just takes a pause. To look within and ask yourself.
You know how you've grown and changed since becoming a parent. You know you are not the same person you were before becoming a parent, right? Take a risk and seek the wisdom within you, rather than looking to someone else for the answers. A wise advisor can lead you in the right direction, yes; however, parenting from the soul means doing what is right for us and following our own instincts. This applies to not only how we parent our children, but how "we grow ourselves" as parents.
There is a different approach to answering the question of "how do I parent from my soul and not my ego?" and just tell me what I should be doing! So, open your mind and stay with me here: one way to ask a question is to not seek the exact answer.
What?!? Stay with me haha ... So:
Most answers in life are not black and white, don't apply to all people, and are not absolute. So a different way to ask a question is to ask a "Living Question". That's a bit of a strange name. What does it even mean?! Well, if you think about how most questions - when they're spoken out of someone's mouth - well, they immediately die off. The question fades into the background and the answer is immediately said. So instead of a dead question that gets left behind so quickly, you're going to keep your question alive. You're going to keep it alive for a day, days, maybe a week or more. Keeping it alive until the true deeper answer comes to you.
The answer to a Living Question cannot be found in a book, online, or out of the mouth of an "expert". The wisdom that comes, when you continually (and repeatedly) ask this question, comes from within you. Some say it comes from the divine, from God, from Source, from Creator. Some call it a “download”.
An example of a living question that relates to this idea of parenting from the soul, rather than from ego, would be: "How am I mothering today from my soul?"
Let that sink in. Say it a few times. Even say it out loud, in the room that you are in now as you read this. It may feel odd, uncomfortable at first, silly. Yeah, you'll feel like you're talking to yourself. But it has more power when it is spoken out loud. Sound has power.
"How am I mothering today from my soul?"
If you feel into it, this question has a much different energy to it than "How do I mother from my soul?" or "What do I do to be mothering from my soul?". ahhhh someone please tell me!
Sometimes when we feel frustrated and really really want the answer there's that sense of urgency of 'can someone just tell me for crying out loud!' It's got a bit of a sense of desperation. Urgency. Whereas a living question exists in a place of quiet patient stillness.
Those urgent just-tell-me-the-answer questions do not honor us. These questions do not honor that we are always doing our best, in every moment (it may not be our absolute best, ever, but it's our best in that moment, on that day). These types of questions also do not provide self-appreciation, and instead might imply that we are not good-enough; that we are not doing a good-enough job as a mother or a father.
So, take this as a suggestion:
don't do that to yourself.
Instead, try to be more gentle, and be loving and appreciative of yourself. And one way to do this is with this living question practice; each time you ask it, you will receive the "answer" which will show you how you are already doing this. How you are already doing this.
With this self awareness will come gratitude for what is already happening. Not a focus on what is not happening. And from this place of gratitude you can move forward to expand on what is already happening.
Another suggestion: add in more self-loving thoughts and practices. Daily practices if you can commit to that in your life right now. And if you cannot, then commit to a self-love practice to be a part of your life whenever you can intentionally make it be. That might be once a week. Simply say "yes" to the suggestion. That in itself is an act of self-love.
As parents we will not always parent from the soul; we know we will often parent from the ego.
I did. Parenting my two sons I am quite sure I parented from my ego for much of their lives. Because I became a mother at 26. a very young woman and I hadn’t “grown myself” yet.
Eventually I was able to "be" with these Living Questions:
How am I parenting soulfully when we are in the chaos of everyday life?
How do I walk this path in the wilderness that is all the unknowns of parenting?
I once heard my 5Rhythms© teacher say "We're really only doing one movement in a day, and that's looking for the space."
Chaos is either chasing what you want, or resisting what's coming your way. Within the chaos is a rhythm, it is the left/right, left/right, the swinging, the back and forth, back and forth. From one pole -to the other pole
The rhythm is there.
If you look for it.
The space is there.
If you look for it.
The space is that infinite pause between the in-breath and the out-breath.
The space is that infinite pause between where it swings one way, and begins to swing the other way.
And how do we feel/notice/become aware of this space? We Slow Down. Breathe consciously. Ask our living question.
It’s a simple practice: ask this living question several times a day. Put it on a sticky note on the kitchen cabinet, on your desk, dash of youur car —anywhere, to remind you. And each time you see the note ask the living question. In your mind, or speak it out loud. And you will be rewarded with a shift towards parenting from your soul more often.
Because you are a better parent than you know.
You already are a soulful parent.
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