Parenting Paused

After years of therapy and spiritual practice, I was sure I had the skills to be the parent I longed to be. I pictured myself as a BIG open expansive heart energy surrounding my child supporting her to express her heart. My visions filled me with delight and supported traveling halfway around the world to adopt my daughter from China. One of my friends looked at me and said, "what a noble act of h...

Over and over again, one of the main things I practice in my life, and especially in my parenting, is the counter instinctual move toward my uncomfortable feelings instead of away from them.   Of course, as a child, none of us were able to tolerate the intensity in our little bodies when big feelings with big sensations arose.   Tune into today's episode to explore with me how to begin working wit...

When your child comes to you and asks you if they can do something, or when they look to you when they're about to do something, do you ever feel like you're giving them permission? This week inside this episode I want to share with you a different approach to what might actually be happening when you perceive that your child is asking you for permission!   www.purejoyparenting.com

I've had many experiences in my life, some joyful, others painful, and a whole wide range in between.   Mothering, in all its ups and downs, has been the most profound experience and continues to be so.   Little did I know what lay ahead when I traveled to China 21 years ago to adopt my daughter.   I honestly thought- 'I am so ready for this experience. I've done my work and now I can show up as t...

Lots of parents ask me, how do I set boundaries with my child?   It is a HUGE topic and one I've chosen to explore from my internal experience. Early on I saw how much easier it was to bind my daughter and her behavior than to take responsibility for setting my healthy boundaries.   The question entered my mind: What if I don't need to bind and limit her?   Join me in this episode to hear more abo...

Frequently, we hear how important it is to parent from the present moment. This is extremely challenging as our conditioning has trained us to manipulate experience to achieve a particular future outcome.   Our children learn this also. We often call them manipulators because when they have a fantasy of some future goodie they desire, they will, for sure, manipulate the environment, the world, you...

I once read about a study measuring and comparing the energies of fear and excitement in the body. The researchers found out fear and excitement measured as exactly the same energetic charge. The difference was the story people were telling themselves about the charge.   When my daughter was younger I constantly felt overly responsible and exhausted.  Being the curious being that I am I checked ou...

When the "world" is telling you they are right and you are wrong, the urge to defend and justify yourself is strong. To reverse what is coming at you, desperately you cast others in the wrong and yourself in the right.   If you are feeling this way, try this: going deeply inside ask yourself what is my BIG "Why"? - why do I feel compelled to parent this way? Release the outside voices, tapping int...

In your family, were you taught that "wants" were demanding? Was it safer to appear self-reliant and independent? If so, you grew up trying to quell your wants and learned to take care of others while repressing your own.   Self-reliance and independence are highly valued in our culture. I received a lot of strokes in my family for taking care of myself. It wasn't as if my wants disappeared. They...

It's an emotional skill to be present with your child as they experience their emotional waves without trying to rescue them. The waves are the content of what is happening within the context of discovering who they are in their life, the ocean. The way emotional waves work is they first arise as sensation and feeling, then as story, and then finally behavior.  Likely, you weren't taught the art o...

  Parenting is a skill-based job on the practical level. We actually have to change the diapers, feed them food, drive them here or there, and we also show our children certain skill sets that will help them along.   It makes sense that we would need emotional skills also and yet where do we learn these?   Tune into this episode for more about growing up emotionally.   www.purejoyparenting.com  

Have you heard the term emotional intelligence?   When I was growing up I learned to prize the values of mental intelligence- especially as academic, and even physical intelligence or prowess, and yet was taught very little about emotional intelligence.   Becoming a parent, however, revealed to me that emotional intelligence was something I was sorely lacking.   In this episode I offer some suppor...

As a parent, are you ever confused by the advice of the 'experts'?   I know I sure was! Even though I was so clear that focusing on my own internal experience was the path for me, I still had this secret hope that somehow my child's behavior would change. Ha!   On a deep intuitive level, I knew that going inside was for my well-being, and not to get my child to behave, and in hindsight, I can see...

Picture yourself tired, hungry, or worried, sharing your angst with a spouse or a friend and they start trying to fix or change you with their agenda. How do you behave? Do your words come out kindly. Perhaps you even say things you actually don't mean trying to get them to back-off. You've descended into what Dan Siegel calls the downstairs brain, or the amygdala, as opposed to acting from the mo...

Clearly, when facing reality I recognize parenting is often challenging and messy, and yet there is still this little niggly fantasy that at some point I'll transcend the pain and glide through life feeling peaceful and loving. My attachment to pleasure over pain gets me and I find myself circling back around to controlling my daughter.   Do you have these fantasies? Tune into this episode for sup...

Conditioning through our upbringing and culture is a given. Unconsciously we take the deep divisions and dislikes we feel inside and about ourselves projecting them outwards, especially onto our children.    Projecting my stuff onto my daughter, she becomes the location of the disliked parts in me. When I perceive something is "wrong" with her I believe I am helping her if I can work to change her...

Do you ever find it hard to let go of control? I didn't fully experience how controlling I am until becoming a parent. Have you noticed this as being true?   Loving the feeling of being in control, naturally, I have a daughter who mirrors the same. Control battles ensued when either of us felt emotionally threatened. Getting into a dogmatic attitude of 'my way or the highway' triggered her big tim...

Do these words sound familiar? "I can't let my kid…."   As in "I can't let my kid stay on the computer for hours", "do her homework while listening to podcasts", "eat only pasta seven days a week".    Going to that place, which we all do, of looking at the reality of what is and then making a judgment about it happens in an instant. But those moments I think "I can't let my daughter stay on the co...

When feeling discomfort in relation to your child - they are on the computer too long, you won't get to be on time, or they refuse to eat your well-balanced meal - lean into and underneath the discomfort. Instead of feeding the mental ideal of how things are supposed to go, take a moment to put yourself in your child's position.   How would you behave if you were totally immersed in something - yo...

Creating a gratitude practice is BIG in the conscious parenting world, yet in reflecting on my early training in when to express gratitude, it felt more like an obligation. Someone gave me a gift, or did something for me and whether I liked it or not I was expected to say "thank you".   It became a learned habit rather than a wellspring of true feeling. I was also trained to only value and be grat...

Hearing the word innocence in adulthood, what comes up?   I imagine a curiosity, experiencing everything for the first time, innocent from conclusions or the meaning of anything.   Looking through my conditioned adult lens I imagine acting childish and relinquishing responsibility for being a good parent. Negating the innocent seeing that is still available from my true self, I see through the len...

In my experience, it takes some courage to change old strategies. It is counter instinctual to go back into those very intense feelings that as a child I had worked so hard to get away from. But also I recognize I must have stability in myself if I want to offer it to my child. That's why I created the Safe Seat process. If you don't know what that is, go to my website, purejoyparenting.com  

Next time you hear a judgy thought, especially about your child's behavior, see what happens if you stop fueling the storyline. Take the judgment inside and be with it. Offer it kindness. Inquire. My question to myself is, "do you need to feel right in this moment? What might happen if you open your curiosity to why she acted that way instead of going to your judgment that you are right and she is...

My concept of time tends to be very linear. One step leads to the next, to the next. When I need to be somewhere I start marking out my steps so I can get to where I am going on time. However it was clear from a very young age, my daughter didn't live in a linear time as I did. She had her own sense of time and space, based more in the present moment. It drove me crazy! Tune into this episode to e...

Am I willing to see when my child is defiant and resistant, that there's something in their interior landscape that's distressing, and it may have to do with me and how I'm choosing to be with them?    When my daughter expresses intense resistance, I PAUSE and check inside asking: where am I parenting from? Nine times out of ten, I'm parenting from my thoughts, from an agenda. I am refusing to be...