Conscious Parenting
A person recently said to me "I thought this blog was about conscious parenting. Your articles don't seem to be directed at that."
The thing about conscious parenting is that there isn't a set protocol to follow. Conscious parenting doesn't "fit into a box."
Conscious parenting is a moment to moment relationship wherein it isn't we who actually parent our child. Sounds weird I know. Instead, we agree to enter into a relationship wherein a higher consciousness (the present moment) guides us as to what action, if any, to take with our child in any given moment.
As I stated in a prior blog, the need of each and every child is specific to that child in any given moment. That's why there can't be any protocol to follow. A living relationship doesn't have a protocol because the need in the moment can't be predetermined. It comes from the unknown.
Some say this kind of parenting sounds radical, and it does sound radical to the part of us that doesn't want to relinquish control, even though the control it believes it has is an illusion or else we wouldn't repeatedly have an incessant need to control people and events in our lives, including our children.
If controlling people and events were the answer, then wouldn't the need for control be satisfied through that action? We all know the illusion of control may temporarily have an effect, but we aren't looking for temporary solutions. We want real solutions - real transformation wherein we see the desire for that control arise in us and instead surrender it to a higher power.
Conscious parenting is actually as natural as breathing. It's just that we've given ourselves our own answers for so long, that that action feels natural to us, when turning to ourselves for answers to what ails us in the moment is, in truth, as unnatural as looking in the rear-view mirror in order to drive our car.
A very important question we need to ask ourselves and to be totally honest in answering, is "Where is the information coming from that I am speaking or taking action from in this moment?" All instantaneous action and responses come from an unconscious, past-driven nature. We are always pushed and prodded in the moment to do its bidding, and we have done it for so long that it seems not only natural to us, but it seems like IT IS us.
Higher instruction from a higher consciousness requires waiting. It requires a certain patience so that all of the tornado of old mind debris is allowed to come up, be seen, and let go of. It isn't until then that we are given instruction. Something has to be given up in order to receive that instruction. In a sense you could say that we "sacrifice ourselves" (a false consciousness) in that moment in favor of something higher (a true consciousness).
We don't agree to this sacrifice of self as a "giving to get". We agree to this sacrifice because we see the true need for it, for something new to be made of ourselves and for this world.
It is the greatest of all sacrifices - because it is the most difficult. Can you see from your own experience the following truths?
It is easier to insist on being right than to let another be right instead (which would be the sacrifice).
It is easier to try to control others with words or actions than it is to simply let things be as they are (which would be the sacrifice).
It is easier to rush through everything that we do, than it is to be completely attentive to what we are doing in each and every moment (which would be the sacrifice).
It is easier to blame others for the pain we feel in the moment than it is to look inwardly at ourselves wherein we could see we are exactly the same as we claim them to be (which would be the sacrifice).
Always remember, that taking the path of least resistance (cookbook protocols) is not the answer. We want difficult. We need difficult, we need sacrifice in order to be changed so that our children can be changed as well.
"The unknown is not measurable by the known. Time cannot measure the timeless, the eternal, that immensity which has no beginning and no end. But our minds are bound to the yardstick of yesterday. today and tomorrow, and with that yardstick we try to inquire into the unknown, to measure that which is not measurable." - J. Krishnamurti
Photo courtesy of: Monstorkoi on Pixabay
