‘pick up’ what is going on with us better than we can detect ourselves. We may feel irritated by them which is showing us an aspect that is in fact within ourselves. When you are anxious and stressed your home and the aspects within the house, objects and people will feel chaotic, like being in the middle of a storm. The aspects we feel others need to change are often an aspect of our own selves that we need to change. If we learn to hold a calm state we can rearrange our external environment. This is how we create change.
Change is a healthy aspect of life, we can go about changing ourselves heartfully and joyfully without beating ourselves or our children up with our negative thoughts. better to focus on the positive aspects of our children. Children are always looking for attention so when we focus on their positive attributes on their essential being we help them to expand this part of themselves. This can be seen in the metaphor of what ever we water will grow. If we don’t water the flowers and the vegetables they will die and the weeds will take over.
I would say that my children have and continue to be my master teachers. You could say we are a match made in heaven for the growth of our lives and their lives if we are open to the learning. The paradigm that many of us have been conditioned with is right or wrong, good and bad and some of us have become so afraid of making ‘mistakes’ that we shut the door way to self discovery and learning. Life is for learning and we are all learning together in a family setting.
It can be fairly tiring if the parent needs to be the leader. Parenting works better when it is a co-creative process full of respect and humbleness, enjoying the journey of learning together. This does not change the fact that we are still the captain of the ship but a captain of the ship cannot sail alone. My children have taught me so much about Non attachment. Some strong willed children are masters in teaching us this. If we too have a strong opinions or will for our children to do something right now or in a fixed way they will resist it moves into a game or a battle.
Opening ones heart and learning from every situation for me is another key to enjoying parenting and life itself. Nothing happens as a random act, we need to take responsibility and step into our empowerment so we can grow from and transform challenging situations. When something happens that gets those buttons pushed , what we call the patterns of the consciousness there is always that moment of opportunity for change, to heal the rifts between my past and I . In the case of parenting my mother and I, myself and I , My daughter and I. The patterns of the “I” isolate us, the healing comes from letting go of the blame, sadness, anger and moving into the we mentality, We feels much better to me now. When we move into the heart, we move into the we and we close that gap between ourselves and others. We take away the blame as we have together co created life.
When we can respond from the heart, we open a doorway between ourselves and others. We emanate respect, trust, love and our children respond to this. Developing and focusing on the heart and its innate qualities and growing them has really made the shift in my life and my relationships with my children. We can keep the calm in everyday life and be in true control of our state, we no longer have the need to control the outside world when we are in a state of joy, calmness.
When we have trust in ourselves, in our children and their natural unfolding in our lives we do not need to control or to act from fear. We understand that life is in a constant state of change and we know that things are going in the best possible direction if we just hold a good state and positive intention, keeping the calm and awareness to direct life in a natural and effective way. Living with intention yet space. No control needed we step into a more natural way of living and parenting.
With life there is always yin and yang, not taking things personally would be the other side of the coin. It can seem the opposite to taking responsibility yet not taking the blame for everything that happens in our children’s lives. If we do this somehow our own children never really take responsibility if we don’t give it back to them. They too are the creators of their lives. They have come to us and are apart of us yet they are separate individuals with their own lives to lead. We are apart of their journey but not the totality.
Natalie is a trained counsellor and life coach and teacher of Yuangong. Qigong distilled from ancient art forms and wisdom for our modern times. Yuangong far from just a set of movements that benefit the health and mind, the forms have been intentionally designed to naturally bring about more self awareness and a as a technique to become the masters of our own lives.
Natalie also runs one on one healing and coaching sessions for parents and has taught children’s qigong classes. Check out the website www.heartwisdom.co.nz
