As a mom, I am hyper-aware of how I parent my daughter. Many of those philosophies are based on my heart and my instinct, and the rest are based on how I know I DON’T want to parent. As parents we all make mistakes, learn as we go, and our kids always grow up and tell us how we were imperfect as parents. It’s part of the gig. For me, it’s a very strong driver of how I choose to parent. I know I’ll make different parenting “mistakes” than my parents did, but we all do the best with what we have been given. And they did for me when I was growing up. Nonetheless, my wounds are still there. And feeling really close to the surface now as I strive to become a better me. To move to the next level of “human beingness,” I need to address these things.
Yikes….I’m almost 40, a grown woman, still crying about things from my childhood. What’s wrong with me? Haven’t I moved on from there? I guess that some people feel things more, and others move through life somewhat numb and just maintaining the status quo. My closest girlfriends, who are all really incredible, conscious, spiritual women, all talk about the same thing. We’ve concluded that some of us, who work to grow, improve, become better people on this journey we have here, just have to deal with way more crap than those who don’t. End of story. I know sometimes I just wish I was one of those numb people – they seem happier to me sometimes. Or do they? I’m sure they aren’t but I have to admit sometimes it seems easier to just go through life, living day to day and just not caring too much about growth and change. Because looking at your “issues” or weaknesses is just too hard sometimes.
And let me be clear at this moment – in NO way am I blaming my challenges or shortcomings on anyone or anything other than myself. Yes there were events that happened in my life that shaped me, yes my mom and dad parented me, yes I was affected by circumstances around me. But I am fully responsible for who I am, how I behave, and how I think about things.
Which is exactly why I am writing this blog.
I believe that a critical piece of being a conscious mom is really understanding your own emotional patterns, and legacies you’ve carried forth along your journey – both the good and the not so good. I always say that the moment that a woman gives birth, all of her “junk” comes up. We are reminded of when we were young, the times we were let down, the times that we wish our parents had been different, just to name a few. And we desperately don’t want OUR baby to be thinking those things about us when they are grown up. (We know they will, but we want to minimize the intensity of whatever they will eventually attribute to how we parented them).
The last piece of conscious parenting to mention here, and certainly not the least, is the fundamental principle of deliberateness, and intention, behind how you parent your child. So many parents just go along with the “shoulds” that we all hear, with mainstream and they don’t really think beyond those ideas. But a conscious parent follows their heart, their intuition, and seeks to understand something fully before acting. Whether it’s about whether to breast feed, or sleep train, or to vaccinate, a conscious parent will make it a priority to really understand the options, rather than just do it because their friend or sister did it with their kids, or because “that’s just what people do.”
Throughout this blog and web site, we will be sharing ideas, thoughts, and resources along all of these topics.
Our goal for this site is to shift the paradigm of the norm – one baby step at a time. The other day, I had a conversation with a friend about one of my conscious parenting ideas related to birthday parties, and this mother said afterwards, “Wow, when I first heard what you were talking about, I thought I would just do it the old way because I wanted to, but until this conversation, I never really thought about that aspect of it before, and now I realize I would do it differently.”
The more “hmmmmm, I never thought of it that way before’s” we can impact, then this site will be worth it.
Leave a Reply