“Parenthood is neither the having of children, nor something we do to children. Parenthood is a time when we are pushed to discover the nature of the whole and our oneness with it. It is a time when both our mistaken ideas about who we are and truer ones are brought to light. There is so much that is beautiful and good to wake up to. Our children drive us toward this awakening.” (Berends, 10-11)
Upon the heels of the utter elation I felt when I found out I was pregnant was a deep fear that rattled me to my core. My sense of self was dissipating with every new internal physical change that was taking place, seemingly by the hour. The rapidly increasing foreignness of my own body and the sudden onset of an inability to carry out my normal daily routine left me feeling helpless, like all the tools in my toolbox of life were disappearing one at a time. The guise of control, to which I had previously clung so tightly, was stripped in an instant, and I was floundering to cope.
I see this same experience unfold in so many pregnant women and new parents. I hear it in tearful phone calls from friends and in conversations carried on the wind at the neighborhood playgrounds. Fear. In an already particularly vulnerable transition, so much fear-mongering pervades parenthood, even before conception. Will I have trouble conceiving? Am I eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones while I’m pregnant? Is my newborn drinking enough milk? I guess we’re not supposed to hold him so much…ya know, independence, self-reliance, something like that. How often are we meant to do tummy time again? Someone told me that they allowed their son suck his thumb, and now it’s costing them thousands in orthodontics. Is she getting enough stimulation? Are vaccines harmful or what? Isn’t he supposed to be crawling already? What?! Yours is already talking? If we let him sleep in our bed now, is he going to stay there forever? They say it gets harder and harder the longer we wait. Apparently there’s some critical window for potty learning that if you miss your kid will still be wearing diapers in high school, which will obviously ruin their self-esteem forever. Should we put her in more extra-curricular activities? We better get him on the waitlist for toddler Mandarin lessons now! Do you think it’s already too late? Although I’m only a couple of years in with my own son, I have a feeling this never stops.
We parents are performing thousands of google searches a week to find out what’s “normal,” and conducting informal surveys in our communities to compare well just about everything, hoping for validation or definitive answers. In short, we’re seeking high and low for truth, but skipping over the very place in which it lies: within. Within ourselves, within our children, within the connection and oneness we share with one another and the universal truth and light.
Seeking wisdom from those whom you respect can be valuable, as can drawing on the experiences of those who have come before you. But these should be complimentary to the irreplaceable and steadfast inner truth that whispers constantly from the depths of your soul. In their book, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn write: “The ‘how-to’ advice that we can draw upon from books to help us with the outer work has to be complimented by an inner authority that we can only cultivate within ourselves through our own experience… In the process we find our own ways to be in this world, drawing on what is deepest and best and most creative in us.” (14)
Somewhere along the way, we bought into the belief that we are not whole, we are not complete, we are not fully capable, and so we stopped trusting and sometimes altogether hearing our inner authority. In our futile outward search for wholeness and completion, we’ve begun to value, trust, and re-assign our power and authority to sources that exist somewhere out there. But the truth is we are born whole. We have always been and always will be complete. All the answers are within. Instead of mindlessly burying our truth with supposed must-haves, should-nevers, statistics, opinions, perhaps we would find more fulfillment, peace, and clarity by stripping away instead of adding more.
The process of uncovering the ever-present answers begins first with a desire to hear, and then the practice of listening. We listen to the present moment, honing in on the voice within ourself and the voice within our child. “Our authenticity and our wisdom grow when we purposely bring awareness to our own experience as it unfolds. Over time, we can begin to see more deeply into who our children are and what they need, and take the initiative in finding appropriate ways to nourish them and further their growth and development.” (Kabat-Zinn, 14) Magda Gerber, who has authored several books on respectful parenting, writes this about encouraging the spirit of authenticity: “I say simply, let your child be. Spend time sitting back and observing her. See who she is and what her needs are.” (Gerber, 4)
In other words, do less, and be more. Talk less, and listen more. Teach less, and observe more. Fear less, and trust more. This applies both to your relationship with your child, as well as yourself. As parents, we must simultaneously cultivate trust in ourselves, our intuition, and our abilities, as well as those of our children. This takes courage. This takes strength. And yet, it is our most natural state of being.
In her book, Whole Child/ Whole Parent, Polly Berrien Berends writes: “Can an island exist apart from the land, or the beam from the sun, or the leaf from the tree? No more do we exist or love or know apart from whatever it is that we belong to. Does one island get its life from another? Does one sunbeam manage another? No more do we cause or control each other. Our efforts backfire not because we are bad or inept, but because they are contrary to the truth.” (11) Our natural state and true essence is one with the Universe, Source, Light, Divine, Supreme Being, Pure Consciousness, Universal Truth, Love — whatever you may call it. The same is true of our children. It is not our job to make or manage or define them, but rather hold space that allows them to be, to see them and support them in fulfilling their truth which is with them before they are even born. “To grow from babyhood to maturity is not a matter of changing from baby to adult, but a revelation, a coming to light of what is already so. It is not a matter of the baby becoming what she wasn’t or isn’t, but rather of becoming what she is: a conscious consciousness, a Seeing Being.” (Berends, 18-19)
Isn’t this a relief?! Our job as parents becomes much simpler, as it is only to see and respond truthfully. That’s not to say this is always easy, but the more we slow down, quiet our mind, turn inward, and honor our own truth, the more practiced we’ll become. Parenting, then is perhaps one of the greatest gifts of all in that, among the multitude of blessings it brings, it also serves as the impetus to acknowledge our wholeness and unearth our truth with greater motivation. “Parenting itself is a calling. It calls us to recreate our world every day, to meet it freshly in every moment. Such a calling is in actuality nothing less than a rigorous spiritual discipline — a quest to realize our truest, deepest nature as a human being.” (Kabat-Zinn, 15)
Our children are our partners, our teachers. We were paired with them so perfectly, and everything, absolutely everything is happening exactly as it is meant to and in the time it is meant to. Come into your light, and encourage your children to continue to shine brightly in theirs. This is the ultimate goal as parents, as human beings. I believe there is no other.
The word “yoga” means “union.” Therefore, practicing/living yoga is being in our natural state of connection, in union with all that was before, all that is now, and all that will ever be. The dissolution of the myth of separateness allows for a peace with what is, trust in ourselves and the world around us, and clarity in our relationship with our children and our role as a parent. With this trust in and surrender to ultimate truth comes a deep, authentic, unwavering power that permeates every aspect of our being, not least of all, our parenting. Every one of us already knows at the core of our being all about Empowered Parenting; we just forgot or got distracted somewhere along the way. Practicing yoga helps us to remember. It’s what helped me pull myself out of what felt like a vortex of insecurity and fear early in my pregnancy, rediscover my confidence, and reclaim my power and sense of self. It’s what continues to guide me in parenting, in life.
I’ll conclude with one last passage from Polly Berrien Berends book, Whole Child/ Whole Parent: “Parenthood is just the world’s most intensive course in love. We are not parents merely to give or get love, but to discover love as the fundamental fact of life and the truth of our being and thus bring it into expression. As so, parents and children — children all — we embark on this journey together.” (20)
Big love,
Krystal
Sources Cited:
Berends, Polly Berrien. Whole Child/whole Parent. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1997. Print.
Gerber, Magda, and Allison Johnson. Your Self-confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child’s Natural Abilities – from the Very Start. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Print.
Kabat-Zinn, Myla, and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. New York: Hachette, 2014. Print.
Krystal Barschig 