Conscious Parenting

Photo by Juan Galafa

“I’m a parent? A journal to ponder the unfathomable circumstance that I somehow have offspring even though I have no idea what I’m doing…” This is the title of an inner truth journal I was given as a gift. Like many who start the journey wanting to be parents, I was full of hope and grand ideas, then with each step we take we realise how little we knew...

When I finally got, and stayed, pregnant (attempt number five) I remember a trusted friend saying “how wonderful, you can help your baby to be fully conscious”. Now, although I’d been on a bit of a spiritual journey, I really didn’t know what she meant – and obviously wasn’t ready to investigate as I didn’t ask – but I did know it wasn’t about keeping my baby out of a coma.

Nowadays I write a lot about being who you are, who you were born to be – your fully conscious, completely authentic self. The main premise is that we come into this life with talents, traits, purpose even, then the process of ‘culturisation’ begins. We are taught what is socially acceptable in our various domains and the sense of self worth we are born with slowly starts to fade amidst the layers we adopt in order to fit in.

‘Conscious leadership’ has been talked about a lot lately, and ‘authenticity’. Recently I heard K.D. Lang say “authenticity is the new black”, that is great news because, without it, there can be no conscious leadership. The same applies to conscious parenting. Conscious parenting is, first and foremost, you being true to yourself.

To raise a conscious child is to do your best to ensure they remain true to their own nature, to ensure you’re not adding to their ‘layers’. What intention have you set in your relationship with your children? How do you want them to feel around you?

Today I heard Brendon Burchard give an example of sitting down with your child to do their homework with an intention to teach them the joy of learning, what a contrast to the way most of us have experienced this!

Consider this. What if your life is simply the tip of the iceberg? What if the person that you see in the mirror each day is simply a physical expression of a much larger part of you that exists unseen, let’s call it your essence, or your soul, your inner knowing?
Imagine you live many lives, each with its own purpose, but all about growth.  As you grow, the universe grows, life evolves. You don’t retain the details of your many experiences - there is already too much crowding your brain, vying for your attention – instead you have an intuition, an inner knowing, that will guide you.

Did you ever play a game to find an object where someone says “you’re warm” when you get close, or “you’re cold” when you’re off track. Like this, your intuition lets you know if you’re aligned to your true self, your true intention for this life, by how you feel; good or bad.

So when you are feeling great, you’re in your slip stream, the life you chose for yourself. When you feel bad, you’re off track, it’s just not you.

Learn to tune in again to your own intuition, we all have it and, importantly, affirm with your child their intuition. I recently heard Abraham-Hicks say “teach your children, if something feels ‘off’ to you, it is”. Simple yet powerful.

Parenting for me has been an amazing journey so far, really a rebirth of myself too. When my first daughter was born I had no idea how I would parent her. I had my own experience to go by, that of friends and family, and had spent much of my thirties watching Super Nanny on the TV. I also knew enough from all the exposure and work I’ve done around personal development to know each person is as unique as a snowflake, so I figured I’d wait and see who this wee person was (that was about to arrive) and I’d wing it.

When she started to emerge as a walking, talking human being, there were of course the splendid tantrums. Automatically we turned to ‘time out’… once… instinctively we dropped it. I saw something in my daughter’s eyes that stopped me, a light that faded. I realised that much of the parenting techniques I’d learned were about controlling behaviour, in effect that is the antithesis of what I wanted.
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Growing up I heard an expression that resonated so strongly I’ve never forgotten it: “what you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say”. I trust that my child knows right from wrong, there is much evidence to support that. Trying to teach our children what they already know seems fruitless to me. But to live a life of example, being who you were born to be, you will teach the same to your child. What an amazing gift to your children and to the world.

​This article was originally published on LinkedIn.