Parenting from beyond the usual boundaries
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Parenting from beyond the usual boundaries
Working in the perinatal area as a counsellor, I often hear parents talking about their aspirations for themselves as parents and for their child. This picture of what they want from and with their child can start even before pregnancy and then grows from there once the baby is born. The focus on the child’s achievements, such as walking and talking by a certain age, becomes the driving force and is used as a tangible marker for themselves and the world at large by which they can measure their success, or otherwise, as parents.
The pressure on outcomes can be enormous and many of the parents I speak with are extremely anxious about making sure that they are doing everything ‘right’ so that their child can thrive. So great is the fear of getting it ‘wrong’ that parents have lost touch with their own innate ability to parent and instead rely heavily on health and educational professionals, all forms of media, family, friends, support groups and so forth, for information and guidance. The range of feelings and emotions attached can span from a sense of pride and accomplishment at one end, to feelings of failure, guilt and or shame at the other, depending on where the child sits along the continuum compared to other children of a similar age.
It's a pressure cooker environment because even when everything is apparently going well the elation is short-lived because parents are already starting to stress and plan how they can ensure that their child can achieve even more, or at least does not slip below where the bar has been set. Parental insecurity tends to run rife due to a lack of confidence in their own ability to keep up with and meet their child’s needs. Adding to what seemingly makes parenting the most challenging job on the planet is that society keeps changing the goal posts for the gold standard benchmarks used to define great parenting. This parenting mine field is a sure fire recipe for comparison, competition and jealousy to flourish. It is also a set-up whereby parents have become increasingly insecure and unsure about where their authority starts and ends when parenting a child. In the current parenting environment, many now feel they must acquiesce to anything and everything the child demands and or desires or they will be judged as harsh, even abusive parents. Yet, we do not question the model we live under and instead continue attributing our child’s development and level of achievement as being primarily down to the quality of our parenting.
What if we took a step back and looked more closely at where all our parenting ideals, beliefs, practices and expectations came from? We know that accepted ways of parenting have changed hugely over the years, and we can shake our head in disbelief at some of the historical methods used. But how much of our own parenting is based on what has been intergenerationally passed on to us from bygone eras? At times we may use what we have been taught as a type of unquestioned rule book that we want to studiously follow, and in other instances we want to do the exact opposite of how we were raised due to the level of violence and abuse experienced. Then there are the seemingly limitless amounts of advice provided by friends and through social media etc., that send us strong messages around what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to raising a child.
Dare we disagree – or do we feel we need to comply to avoid the reactions of others and appear ‘normal’ ? Then there are the added layers through the medical, legal, educational and political systems that further impact on how we parent. Is it any wonder that under this level of scrutiny, parents feel bombarded by messages that constantly emphasise the ‘good/bad’ and ‘right/wrong’ ways of raising a child, thereby casting doubt on their innate ability to parent with love, wisdom and authority?
Parents undoubtedly want the best for their child and it is certainly appropriate to seek outside support at times, especially if a child is unwell. No one is meant to undertake parenting on their own. However, along the way we have lost the capacity to connect with and apply our own parenting strengths to how we care for our child – a child who is unique and can never be treated as a carbon copy of another. It doesn’t matter if someone is a first or a tenth-time parent; we all have innate wisdom within us that, when tapped into, provides a rich source of natural authority and guidance in terms of understanding what is specifically needed at any particular moment for our child.
What is required may mean going against the beliefs and expectations of family, friends and what can be found on social media, but if we learn to tune into our essence, aka our Soul, we will find a wealth of wisdom that we likely had long ago forgotten even existed. Maybe in the immediate situation, the child may still have a tantrum. But as we lovingly build consistency with accessing whole body wisdom and intelligence, our child will gladly welcome our attunement with and subsequent support of them as they learn to deal with the ups and downs of their days and nights. It is very powerful for a child to receive this level of steady holding for they are being seen and acknowledged for who they too are in their essence. Is this not what everyone is ultimately seeking – to be met and valued for who they innately are on the inside, regardless of their age?
"How ridiculous and utterly absurd is our search for all the answers out-there, when by all natural and Divine Laws they are found within our inner-hearts."
Serge Benhayon Esoteric & Exoteric Philosophy, ed 1, p 261
Yet, we are not taught that we have this amazing ability to energetically feel all that is going on both within ourselves as well as in the environment around us, regardless of whether we are raising children or not. Instead, we get lost in trying to meet all the demands placed on us by the external world. ‘Doing’ and ‘achieving’ are ranked as the most important markers for proving that we are successful, so we are on a constant treadmill, either trying to keep up with those around us, or seeking to better ourselves, or alternatively, we withdraw and shut down. But regardless of which track we go down, it comes at the expense of our connection with our body and our essence. Children, on the other hand, are born very sensitive and are responsive to what they can energetically feel is going on in and around them. However, over time this beautiful quality of sensitivity is pushed further and further into the background. We are so caught up in thinking that we need to teach our children everything they need to know about life that we dismiss the possibility that the child comes with a vast array of strengths and capabilities of their own. Thus, the learning potential goes both ways; the adult can teach the child certain things, but equally important, the child can support the parent to also grow and learn – should the parent be open to the possibility. If we can view our child through this lens then age is not seen as the only defining factor when it comes to wisdom and intelligence.
Connecting back to our essence is something that is still possible even though we may not have done so for years. Our body is the key – just stopping and placing our hand on our heart area, closing our eyes if we feel able to do so, and breathing deeply several times, opens the space for us to connect with and feel what is happening in our body.
We only need to observe and get used to the difference between how our body feels at the start and the end of this simple exercise to know that the pace and manner in which we and many others are living life, creates an imbalance. For most, there is a strong reliance on what their thoughts are telling them and the content of these thoughts is taken as fact. Yet, the more we make space for these types of moments when we check in with our body and make adjustments if required according to the feedback we receive, the greater the level of settlement we feel and the easier it is to sense the communication coming through from our Soul. It may seem to be only on rare occasions initially, but that is because we are out of practice with attuning ourselves to its presence rather than our Soul only being intermittently available.
The more consistent we are with tuning into our body, the stronger the flow becomes energetically between mind, body and Soul and from here a new marker is set for what we regard as ‘normal’. Living on this multidimensional level is a truly joyful and loving way to live, with the added bonus that it increases our sensitivity to what is required in our parenting. We will never be experts, and nor are we expected to be, but we will feel like a weight has been taken off our shoulders when we can more readily sense and respond to the cues our child is sending us. The loving confirmation of who we innately are in our essence can be tangibly felt by both parent and child. A very powerful booster indeed! What if this inner approach was the missing piece of the ‘parenting puzzle’ that is needed to complement what other external fields of genuine parenting support have to offer? Maybe this is the gap filler we have been searching for …
"We TRY and do GOOD for our children, but where does that 'good' come from? Is not that 'good' what has been measured, calibrated and or instructed from an outer-source that is outside one's inner-most heart? We claim to love our children, but do not love ourselves enough to-be-love, and thus truly offer that as a living example that makes them naturally be in their own true inner-love. And yet, whilst this may be a very sensitive issue for those who have children – and in-truth a very sensitive issue for us all, as we too, were all once children – when does it stop, and when do we begin to consider that we are following the same life that has imprisoned us away from our own INNER-MOST?"
Serge Benhayon Esoteric & Exoteric Philosophy, ed 1, p 321
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Children, Connection, Parenting, Raising children, Soul
