I am often asked, “What exactly is presence?” and I always find myself falling short of an answer that satisfies me. The reason for this is that presence isn’t something that can be theoretically described or understood. It can only be experienced. As we all know, to explain an experience is to shortchange it. It’s like trying to explain the colors of a sunset to someone who has never seen one, the thrill of riding a Ferris wheel for the first time, or the sensation of floating on a calm ocean. There are some elements of life—maybe all—that can be understood only through the experience.
To me presence connotes the ability to be fully aware of one’s present. It requires that we suspend thought, ideas, opinions, and beliefs. We simply are. In this “being” state, we are unaware of who, where, or what we are and instead are fully engaged with the process of being alive. As mentioned earlier, if you observe very young children who have been allowed to live unencumbered lives, they will most likely reflect a state of presence, where every moment is treated as a new one, without the imposition of thought.
When we feel fully alert to the present moment, our attachment to our ideas and agendas falls away. Instead we are attuned to whatever arises. We witness, engage, act, let go. In other words, we flow with the tide of life, while also standing vigilant guard on its shores. A part of us is active in the world, while internally we are at rest. We engage life full-on, while never losing touch with the abundance within.
Becoming present allows us to connect with whatever arises around us, all the while maintaining a state of balance and calm. As we aren’t operating out of our head and therefore attached to our mental movies, we are able to respond to life’s ebb and flow from a state of groundedness and openness. Uninterested in getting anyone to follow our ways, we learn to flow with others instead of attacking them. We seek to join with their energy when appropriate, or we move away quite naturally should the moment demand. Either way, we remain agenda-free, eager to enjoy the newness of each unknown moment. The ability to be present helps us create deep and abiding connections with all we encounter, especially our children.
The only way to create change in our relationship with our children is by learning to enter the present moment. As I discussed earlier, the clash of time zones—the fact that we live much of the time in the past or the future, whereas our children live in the present—is the cause of most of the dysfunction we experience with them.
Entering the present moment means joining with the “as is” of a situation without resistance. Once we move into the present without the “attack” energy of “Why isn’t my agenda being met?” we can act without the emotional reactivity that accompanies so many of our interactions with our children.
Recently I noticed how hard it was for me to enter the present moment with my daughter. She was talking to me about fashion, beauty, and how fun it would be “to be a fashion model” (understandably a match to my triggers). She was in a joyful space, rattling off all the wonderful clothes she had seen in a magazine. My instant thought was, “How superficial. How terrible. I am doing a bad job as a mother by allowing her to have these values.” Thoughts like these inevitably create a sense of guilt and pressure within us, which in turn causes us to find ways to control these uncomfortable feelings.
I said to her, “Maia, how superficial you are! These are such trivial things in life. I don’t want you to grow up to think being a fashion model is the be-all and end-all. I need you to think about more important things, like what your purpose in life is and how you are going to serve others.”
Maia’s face immediately fell and she became quiet. I took this to mean I could further unleash my agenda on her, and said even more hurtful things. “You are not going to grow up to be a brainless twit, interested in rubbish like beauty and fashion. You are going to grow up to be a citizen of the world, concerned with helping end poverty and doing good things with your life.”
At this point, Maia, who isn’t one to allow her character to be assassinated by anyone, barked back, “Mom, I was just talking about some clothes. I wasn’t talking about my future. I am just twelve, and all twelve-year-old girls talk about this stuff. Why are you acting like I’ve done something bad?”
Of course, she was right. She hadn’t done anything bad at all. The only thing she had done was violate my own sacred image of myself as a conscious parent. My ego’s agenda of raising a child who is obsessed with ending poverty or finding the cure for cancer had interfered with connecting to what she was actually experiencing in the moment.
Maia then delivered the sword into the heart of my huge ego, as only very wise children know how to do: “And from now on, I just won’t share what’s on my mind!” I knew I had messed up big-time. I had made the bed of disconnection that I would later lie in. I had helped teach my daughter that it was unsafe to be twelve, and especially unsafe to share things with her parent without risking criticism and a reprimand.
How on earth was I going to reconnect and realign myself with the present moment? I said, “You are absolutely right and I am out of line. You have every right not to trust me. I was operating out of my fear for the future and forgot you are just twelve and having very age-appropriate thoughts and feelings. I just get scared you will forget what really matters in life.”
She said to me, “You need to trust yourself, Mom. You’ve taught me what matters and what doesn’t. But most of all, I am not you, and if I like fashion, then that’s what I like.”
It’s in these kinds of ways that our children put us right back where we belong, aware of our own floundering sense of worth and trust. Had I truly trusted my own parenting, her comments wouldn’t have worried me in the slightest. The only reason I felt the need to ensure my daughter wasn’t being sucked in by the glamour was that I was unsure of my parenting and at the same time ambivalent about my own relationship with fashion and beauty. My imagined fears had once again hijacked my ability to be attuned to my child in the present moment.
Taking my own advice in the situation with Maia’s conversation around fashion, had I been aware, I would have noticed my trigger. Then, instead of allowing it to overwhelm me, I would have set it aside and said to Maia, “Boy, that triggers someone who’s old and fashion-phobic like me. But I hear what you are saying about your likes and dislikes. My own fear as a parent that my daughter might not recognize the superficial nature of these things kicks in, but I know and trust that you already know these things.” This approach is how we can acknowledge our fear in an authentic way without allowing it to sabotage connection.
You may ask, “Should we never correct our children? Must we always accept them in their present reality? What if they are doing something wrong?” These are valid questions. However, these concerns also emerge from a state of fear associated with lack. They come from a desire to control, fix, and manage.
I say to parents, “Acceptance of the present moment doesn’t mean you are passive or resigned to things. It simply means that the sting of the emotional charge is taken out of the situation. Sure, you can correct your child and even assertively create boundaries if these are needed, but the entire exchange is executed without adding in the emotional charge of fear, panic, shame, or guilt.”
There is a vast difference between accepting our children on the one hand, and because of this acceptance indulging in their demands on the other. When Maia complained the other day that her pizza slice tasted “off,” while I honored her disappointment, I also taught her to, in effect, “deal with it and move on.” Were she to have kept whining or complaining, I would not have been deterred in my approach to her. I would still have said, “The pizza slice has been bought. You either eat it or we find you something else at home. I am not going to buy another slice.” Instead of getting upset at her not appreciating the pizza or, worse still, forcing her to eat it, I would have laid out her choices and asked her to make the right choice for herself. It is very important that parents do not misunderstand acceptance to mean a passive state of allowance or indulgence. In the same vein, were a child to be rude and unsavory at a dinner party or a restaurant, while it is important to not attack or yell at them, it is also important to lay a boundary around their inappropriate behavior. Sometimes this might mean that you leave the circumstance until they calm down and understand what it means to be appropriate, and sometimes it means that you pull them aside and speak to them in clear and direct ways about the effects of their behavior on others. Whatever the action may be, sitting quietly and avoiding an intervention is not a quality of consciousness by any means.
“But what if my child is engaging in something really detrimental?” a parent may ask. “For example, what if they are playing on their phone but need to be studying for a big exam the next day?”
Present-moment awareness demands that we engage with our children as they show themselves to us in the here and now. Instead of stampeding into their room with our mental stories about how disobedient they are, we need to ask for the phone, explaining that their inability to set it aside is affecting their homework. Without engaging in argument or further explanation, we simply talk to them about the agreement around cell phone use and ask them to place the phone outside their field of attention. Even if they make obnoxious comments or throw a tantrum, our task in this moment is to detach from those distractions without added drama. It must be noted that the greater the drama or resistance, the greater the disconnection between parent and child. I often tell parents, “If your child is unable to see your point of view and cannot abide by your boundaries, it means that there is something else at play here—something that is obstructing your relationship.” In these extreme cases, the phone fades as the central issue and the relationship comes into the foreground.
We forget that everything is impermanent. All things have a beginning, undergo an evolution, and are ultimately transformed into something new. It’s happening all the time, both all around us and within us. Nothing stays the same. So much so that even who we were this morning isn’t the same as the person we are right now. Not only have our cells undergone transformation, but so has our consciousness, even if we aren’t aware of it. Consequently, glomming on to a single moment in time with our children ignores their potential to transform and grow. In fact, when we highlight a certain element of their personality by reacting to it, we further embed it. The more we resist it, the larger it looms in their personality. Going back to the fashion example, had I said, “Oh, I can totally see why you think fashion models have a fun life, but I bet they also get exhausted, having to get dressed up and wear makeup all the time,” and let it lie, I would have actually defused my daughter’s interest in them. By panicking the way I did, I gave the models way more power than they were demanding. It’s in these ways that we perpetuate our own misery!
Every moment in time is a new one that will no longer exist in the next moment. Though this moment was created with assistance from the previous moment, it’s also an entirely new moment of its own. It’s for this reason that labeling and categorizing a child’s behavior at a particular moment is misguided. When we hold on to an image of our child as they were in a moment that’s past, we fail to honor who they are in this moment. Preferring to cling to what was, we miss the child’s being in the present moment.
Young children don’t have this difficulty. They don’t cling to what happened yesterday. Unlike the adults in their life, they don’t lug around baggage from days, weeks, or even years ago. They are able to forgive and forget their grievances, which frees them to embark on the next experience with gusto. In other words, children intuitively flow with the impermanent nature of reality.
A child’s genius in flowing from one state to another infuriates parents. The adult mind can’t comprehend how a hug, joke, or kind word can quickly transform a child’s mood. We ponder, wonder, diagnose, and rationalize, then feel frustrated when we can’t come up with an explanation for their behavior. This is why when parents insist on knowing why their child behaved in an irrational way, I shrug and say, “It is what it is. They are creatures of the moment. You and I will never grasp their power to leap from one mood to another the way they do.”
Grounding ourselves in the present means we enter each moment in a state of aliveness and receptivity. In this way we are always ready to see how life constantly offers us fresh experiences with new lessons. When our mind becomes clouded or constricted as a result of emotional reactivity, awareness of the impermanence of everything reminds us to breathe and gives us permission to say, “This is a new moment. I can start afresh.”
Children don’t like it, and we don’t help them, when we catastrophize their mistakes. “Whenever I make a mistake, my parents remind me of all the mistakes I’ve made since I was two years old,” one child complained to me, echoing how a great many children feel. “I don’t even remember half of them,” the child continued, “but they sure do.”
Confided another child, “If I say I’m tired and don’t want to do homework one particular evening, my parents lecture me about how I won’t get into a good college. They’re always talking about the future, whereas I’m only talking about that particular evening.”
The present in its “as is” form contains limitless abundance. It’s only our fear that doesn’t allow us to tap into the abundant nature of each moment that presents itself to us. This is because memories from the past are seared into our consciousness, marring our ability to take a long-arc perspective.
“That was then and this is now” is a chant I often repeat to myself. It reminds me to stop clinging to what I think my reality ought to be like, freeing me to move into the present regardless of what it contains.
For example, if we return from a wonderful outing and my daughter has a meltdown because she’s exhausted or worried about something she needs to do, instead of yelling at her for ruining our beautiful day, I say to myself, “We were in a great mood before, but this is now and the mood has changed. Enter the reality of this mood.”
One of the most effective ways to build a relationship with our children is to meet them in the present moment. This means that when they return home from school, instead of rushing them to discuss their day or pushing them to get their homework done, we simply greet them where they are. We allow them to meet us in any way they wish. Similarly, when they go to sleep at night, we enter their mood exactly as it is. This meeting of hearts makes it a lot easier to hold to any boundaries we have established.
When we say to our children, “That was then and this is now,” we help them shift into the present reality, whether this involves homework or bedtime. Consciously entering a new moment brings clarity to our relationship with them, helping them to detach from the past and enter the new.
A client asked me, “How do I change my approach to a more conscious one? How do I genuinely stay calm in the face of a C grade when I actually want to scream?”
I said to her, “You cannot fake consciousness. It’s better to tell your child that you want to scream instead of pretending you don’t. While we should not dump our feelings onto our children, it is important to allow ourselves the space to express them once in a while when the urge to do so is strong. If this became a pattern, it would be worrisome, as we should be able to metabolize and integrate our feelings on our own most of the time. However, if you changed your philosophy, challenging the very idea that a C grade spells failure, you wouldn’t have to try to fake it or scream in aggravation. When you genuinely see the wisdom of the C grade, everything changes. When the C grade is no longer about the death of potential, but is about the birth of self-awareness in the child, as well as an opportunity for you both to connect even more deeply, then we see its abundance instead of its lack.”
“How do I translate this approach in words?” this client probed. “Well,” I replied, “you can say something like this: ‘The grade is not important right now. Let’s try to figure out what your strengths are and the areas you need help in. Once we can do this, we will be on our way. Every academic subject is like a muscle that needs to be strengthened. It is more important to have the desire to grow that muscle than to have the complacency that you already know it all.’”
When we focus on self-growth as the only parameter of success, the external trappings of achievement become less important to us. Every moment then serves as an opportunity to become more authentic. Faking it goes out the window. Holding thoughts of abundance, we see the resplendence of every mistake, failure, and risk gone wrong.
This doesn’t mean we act carelessly. In fact, just the opposite: It means we stay grounded in what’s truly important, the growth of the authentic self. When every decision is made in alignment with who we know ourselves to be in the present moment, then how can anything be a “mistake” or “bad”? Thus when we see our children operating in the best way their present awareness allows, why would we judge them for the failures they will inevitably experience? Shifting our focus, we teach them to value the ways in which they have grown from each and every experience.
I hear many people speak of what they call a “law of attraction.” Seduced by its promise of wealth and success, they attempt to make this “law” work for them, only to end up disappointed in most cases. Vision boards that highlight our dreams and desires can be helpful, and I’m all for them. But they aren’t helpful if they are a substitute for being fully present in our day-to-day reality because we are fixated on the future.
It’s certainly true that our thoughts, albeit neutral, have the power to usher in a host of beliefs, which in turn create emotions within us that function like a magnet, causing us to be drawn to situations that reflect them. If we are steeped in thoughts that spark only debilitating beliefs and emotions, we are likely to find ourselves overwhelmed by anxiety and by negative people and situations. We seem to draw negativity to us. As the old adage says, misery loves company.
Take a situation in which your child is putting on too much weight. You might tell yourself, “My child is overweight.” This thought can be neutral, except that it rarely ever is. Instead, it activates your anxiety, sending a signal to your thought bank to release more beliefs of this kind. Your next belief might be, “My child will be unpopular in school.” This belief in turn sends a signal seeking other beliefs like it, such as, “I’m a bad parent for not controlling my child’s eating.” On and on the chain of thought-belief goes. Soon you are so anxious that your child picks up on it, absorbing it. The ramifications can be endless. After all, our thoughts cannot attract reality, but our beliefs can, because they shape who we are from within. The universe responds to the belief systems we harbor within. This is why it is so important to shape the beliefs that can create the greatest freedom within us as opposed to anxiety. In view of how we attract more of the same, it behooves us to respond differently to our children from the negative, fear-driven way we often react.
Instead of panicking when our child puts on weight, we can enter an acceptance of the “as is,” without any mental story or judgment of it. We can still respond to the situation, but rather than being activated, we simply act. We may decide to create a new approach to food for the entire family, eliminating all processed foods. Perhaps we take a yoga or fitness class together. We could also create mindfulness around the foods we ingest. Even more important, we can pay attention to the way we ourselves use food as a way of numbing and coping.
Seeing this situation as a call to ourselves to awaken, we release our child from the burden of “fixing” themself. Holding the vision of good health, we are grateful for its call to alter our course. Instead of resenting the situation, we see it as an opportunity for deeper connection and engagement. From this state of presence-filled energy, we may say to our child, “I can see how you may be upset by your weight and the pressure you feel to look different. Can we talk about this?” Or we might suggest, “Let’s look at our relationship to food. This goes for me too. Let’s talk about ways we can engage with food with greater mindfulness and balance.”
With some issues it’s much easier to enter into the “as is” of the situation. In other cases it can be difficult. Let’s take a common situation that most parents find hard to tolerate and cope with: disrespect.
Maintaining equanimity when our children are disrespectful is hard. Most parents are highly triggered by rudeness and take it very personally. However, instead of setting in motion a chain of angry beliefs about how disrespectful the child is being, all of them based on fear, we could choose not to give the negative behavior extra energy. It then begins to dissipate, since it can grow only if our own negative energy feeds it.
Instead, we enter a different energy by detaching from the exact words and asking ourselves, “Why is my child feeling the urge to engage with me in this manner? Is there something I’m not paying attention to? Am I being too controlling? Or am I being inconsistent with my boundaries? Why is my child lowering her own light by speaking to me in this way?”
If we can’t remain calm, we might choose to walk away—but not in a huff! If we can do so gently, we might suggest to our child that they ask themselves whether they are operating out of their highest self right now. If we need to walk away first, we can ask this later when we are once again in full control of our emotions.
I say to my daughter, “Your rude tone earlier suggested to me that you were going through something. Is this true? Can you tell me what it is?” By taking my own feelings out of the equation, I can allow her to have the space to introspect.
Inevitably she says something like, “I am just so angry about what’s going on between my friend and me that I got mad at you.” Or she may say, “I am so stressed about something at school,” or “I was tired.”
In therapy, I help parents see how reacting generates a cyclone of negative energy that swallows everyone. I explain that they don’t have to abandon how they feel about something, only to let go of the emotional charge around it. Instead of huffing and puffing, prodding and cajoling, or yelling and screaming—all of which simply magnify the behavior we wish to eliminate—we entertain only those thoughts that amplify the change we wish to see. Of course, it goes without saying that this has to be done in a manner that’s genuine. This doesn’t involve the empty praise of a child’s good qualities, since inauthentic praise at a time like this isn’t at all helpful.
When we enter a state of honoring, understanding, and being empathic, we tap into our children’s innate desire to succeed and engage in respectful relationships with us. We might say something like, “I know you want to succeed. I know you want to do your best. So let’s work on this together.” Then, instead of focusing on what the child isn’t doing, focus on what they are doing and want to do more of. This shifts the energy into the right flow.
When our children see that we are able to engage them in a manner that brings out and capitalizes on their strengths, they learn to take their reactive moments in their stride. Not being shamed, blamed, and made to feel guilty frees them to focus on the changes they wish to bring about. As parents, the more we can move away from negative thoughts and statements, the more we open up space for a child’s positive energy to flow.
In the case of rudeness and disrespect, we need to tap into the feelings that lie beneath the behavior. We can then expose our children to the ways their rudeness directly impacts their life in a negative way. We might say, “I know you feel frustrated when you’re trying to express something, but then I get more frustrated with you. Is there another way you could express yourself so that your needs can be met? Can we take a look at how we set each other off? Let’s identify the pattern and see how we can help each other more.”
The crucial element in all of this is not to make a child’s behavior about us—about how insulted, disappointed, or hurt we are. If we make it about us, the child ends up reacting to our energy rather than focusing on their own.
Acceptance takes away the sting of negativity. Acceptance of the “as is” of a situation brings grace, surrender, and most of all gratitude. All of these elements create a positive charge in our mental bank, which has the power to ripple outward in a huge way.
There is nothing passive about acceptance—it is entirely different from resignation. Acceptance is an active process of understanding exactly how the present situation was co-created by us and what it has to teach us. If anything is to change in our life, we need to have zero negativity about our “as is” reality.
An aspect of acceptance that’s often overlooked is that because all things exist on a continuum, we can create change by focusing on the opposite pole from where our attention has been drawn. We touched on this in an earlier chapter, but I want to emphasize it now because this is a powerful energy to adopt as a parent. For instance, if in your perception your child is exhibiting the energy of disrespect and defiance, instead of focusing on this behavior as you would normally do—an approach that will serve only to reinforce the behavior—focus instead on the opposite pole on the continuum. This way you accept your child without endorsing ugly behavior.
The way to do this is to notice when your child isn’t being disrespectful or defiant. Then you amplify this desirable behavior. For instance, when my daughter is calmly eating lunch, I seize the opportunity and say something like, “I love how peaceful you are right now. I feel so connected to you when we simply enjoy each other’s company like this.” What we mustn’t do at such a moment is compare the child’s peacefulness with when they are arguing and being difficult—a trap parents easily fall into. Then the compliment turns into a backhanded sermon.
Over time, the more we highlight our children’s respect and kindness, the more they will grow to be respectful and kind. By veering away from a focus on their negative behavior, which inevitably increases our own negativity, we simultaneously intensify the respect and kindness we show to our children.
Your child is constantly picking up on your tone, energy, and nonverbal signals. You may have a greater understanding of what your triggers are, but are you aware that your child may be triggered by you? Most important, are you aware that your child may be reacting to you in a particular way because of the way you treat them in subtle or not-so-subtle ways?
We push our children much more than they ever push us. For instance, when does a child ever start each day with lists and schedules as we do? They don’t make a zillion plans for us and force us to go places we don’t want to go. They don’t threaten us when we don’t eat the food they like or don’t wear the clothes they choose for us. It’s we who initiate such dynamics, rigidly forcing on them our standards. Naturally, we couch these things in terms such as giving them opportunities, promoting good health, exposing them to life’s possibilities, and showing our support for them. If we were honest with ourselves, we would admit that all of this is just manipulation so we can get our way.
Our energy and ways of being are highly charged with vibes others pick up on. As parents, it’s crucial we realize that our very presence, even if we never say a word, has an impact on our children’s behavior. This should remind us to always ask, “How am I contributing to this situation? In what way is my energy or my actions encouraging my child to respond in this way?” When we understand our role in co-creating each situation, we no longer blame the other.
Once we acknowledge that all things arise out of an interdependence, we see how simplistic it is to punish our children for their behavior.
No behavior occurs in a vacuum. Something triggers our children, just as something triggers us. The source may be external or it may come from the parents. It may come from a place deep within a child that’s beyond their awareness. To hold our children responsible without being both compassionate and curious about the reason for a behavior is both heartless and unproductive.
When we understand that less-than-desirable behavior is a signal of something else, we are reminded to connect with our children in a more meaningful manner. When we view their behavior through the lens of cause and effect, instead of rushing to judgment about their character, we become curious about their feelings and experiences. This approach does wonders in terms of building trust and thereby drawing our children closer to us.
A fifty-seven-year-old father, Conrad, came to see me because he had been suffering from PTSD-like symptoms following a heart attack. The shock of his heart giving out on him was so profound that he was emotionally crippled, to the point of barely being able to leave the house for fear he would have another heart attack and find himself in a situation where he couldn’t get help. The only way he knew to manage his anxiety was to stay in his home. Soon he was spending much of his day in bed. His children, who watched as he failed to recover, now began manifesting their own symptoms.
Conrad’s eight-year-old daughter, Brenda, not only began doing poorly in school, but also started resisting leaving the house herself. In the meantime, his son, six-year-old Daniel, began acting out at school, becoming increasingly aggressive. At first Conrad and his wife didn’t connect their children’s issues and their father’s inability to cope with his affliction. When they came to see me, it was because they felt they needed to learn better strategies to prevent their children’s problems from escalating. It was only when I homed in on Conrad’s stress that they realized how this was directly impacting their children.
Conrad had chosen to close up rather than become proactive in response to his heart condition, plunging into a state of anxiety in which he saw no way forward other than to cower. It was this sense of helplessness that his children were absorbing and manifesting in their own lives. Clearly, unless Conrad addressed his anxiety, his children would grow up believing that they too couldn’t cope with life.
Conrad’s problem was that he couldn’t see how benevolent life had been by offering him a wake-up call to change his lifestyle. Because he viewed his heart attack as an extremely negative event, he regarded the entire episode as not only catastrophic but malevolent. I explained that unless he could accept the fact that life had presented him with an opportunity for growth, he would destroy his children’s lives. His fear that he was incapable of ever enjoying a full life again now that he’d had a heart attack was the result of his lack of belief in his own resilience. Because he imagined himself to be fragile, he had seduced himself into believing he was safe only if he sat absolutely still.
When I showed him that he was capable of living with the imperfection of a heart condition—and that it didn’t need to destroy him, but could act as the catalyst for him to become a more humane, compassionate person—he revealed how he had grown up with extremely controlling parents from whom he inherited the belief that the more you control life, the safer it is. In other words, his heart attack had blown his entire world apart, destroying his very foundation and leaving him curled up like a fetus. He needed a fresh worldview. But how do you develop a new worldview?
Few of us change because we know we need to change. Generally, we tend to change only when we hit rock bottom. Perhaps our marriage is dissolving, our job is at risk, our health is on the brink, or our children are in trouble. In many cases, it seems only a crisis has the ability to shift us.
Sometimes we are so rigid that even a crisis can’t pry us free. This was the case with Conrad. It took a long time for him to let go of his belief that he was incapacitated, when in fact he was far from it. It was only when he got in touch with his anxiety, allowing himself to feel his feelings without letting them overwhelm and run him, that he could at last acknowledge that who he was in his essential self had never suffered a heart attack.
Those who truly succeed in life are those who know how to be anxious without letting their anxiety run them. The sacred responsibility we have as parents is to deconstruct the entire idiotic notion that as humans we shouldn’t feel anxious. It’s akin to saying the sun should shine every day and it should never rain or thunder. Or as Conrad expressed with such righteous indignation, “How dare I be so young and have a heart attack.”
We are talking about how change occurs. When our energy shifts internally, the change within us is reflected externally. At first the change may not be noticeable. Just as the Grand Canyon was carved out layer by layer, each change we make builds upon the ones before. As we tap into the abundant energy available to us in the universe, we increasingly empower ourselves to create the change we seek. The more we feel abundant instead of focusing on scarcity, the more our life reflects this.
Instead of attempting to get our children to change, the challenge is to transform our energy from a state of neediness to one of empowerment based on an awareness of the abundance at our disposal. By asking, “Can I become what I need my children to be?” we start to embody the qualities we wish them to absorb.
This doesn’t apply only to parenting. It’s a principle that has the power to transform every aspect of our life. We can indeed become the change we wish to see in the world. The main ingredient is self-empowerment. The energy lies within us, and we can challenge ourselves to tap into it. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I believe in myself enough to do so?”
When we move away from resisting life’s offerings to us, we surrender not only to what arises but also to how we feel about it. As I said to Conrad, “Of course you feel disappointed, and even downright terrified. This is natural. However, because you are so afraid of feeling your feelings, your desire to feel differently is stopping you from living in the now. Instead, if you just accept that you have moments of collapse, and that this is par for the course, you can teach your children that it’s okay for them to feel bad at times without imagining it means they are crumbling from within.”
To shift from believing that life happens to us, to understanding that life happens for us and with our participation, enables us to find the jewel in every experience. We begin to engage life as a true co-creator, fully ready to own our part, and always quick to grow and adapt as the moment requires. Shedding feelings of entitlement to a certain outcome, we realize that part of the reason this outcome didn’t manifest comes down to us—and consequently the desired goal can come into fruition only with our willingness to undergo a metamorphosis. Each moment offers us endless paths we could potentially follow, requiring us to become aware of our conscious and unconscious choices so that we can tailor our energy to match the desire we want to see blossom. Once we understand the power we have to choose, we take greater ownership of our life. It’s in this way that grit, resilience, courage, and the creativity to live differently are born.
Many of us feel as if we have no option other than to react when our children’s behaviors enflame us. Our instinct is to lash out. If someone irritates us, we don’t think twice but simply react. “Hey, what’s wrong with you? Can you stop what you are doing?” It doesn’t occur to us to say, “Why am I getting so agitated right now? Can I communicate my needs in a respectful manner knowing that the other is not coming from a place of evil intention? Can I remove myself from this situation if it feels unbearable?”
The state of our external world is in many ways a reflection of that of our inner world. Most of us were brought up by parents who had muddled interior lives. As a result, we mirrored this in our own development and are likely to pass on the same confusion to our children. These fogged-up mirrors of the soul and legacies of unconsciousness get passed down from one generation to the next. Unaware of how this operates, many of us prefer to blame someone for what we encounter in our external world instead of picking up on what’s being mirrored back to us about ourselves.
Our children are particularly effective mirrors, because although we can divorce our spouse and abandon our friends, our children are here to stay. It’s in our relationship with them more than any other that we are challenged to examine those aspects of ourselves we would ordinarily deny or avoid. When we are able to look into the mirror they provide us with and address our issues, we not only clear the fog from our own vision, but also begin to see our children for who they truly are. In this way, we become a reflection of their authentic self.
Parents are often scared that if they aren’t “allowed” to react, they will feel suffocated, inauthentic, or resentful. There are ways to respond that are very different from reactivity. Many of us are simply unaware of how to communicate to each other without getting emotionally charged. We aren’t used to being present with our feelings without allowing them to take charge, and neither do we know how to assertively stand up for ourselves without becoming aggressive. Few of us learned how to speak our truth in plain language.
Had we been allowed to speak our truth in its “as is” fashion as children, we would be able to connect to our authentic voice via a direct channel, instead of needing to resort to manipulation, control, and all sorts of emotional turmoil. Speaking one’s truth should be the easiest thing in the world, but because it was so threatening to our caregivers, we now find it the hardest thing to do. Returning to authentic expression with our children is one of the most beautiful gifts we can bestow on them, since it opens the gateway for them to be straightforward.
Transforming our reactions into expressions of authentic communication can create a powerful shift in our relationship with our children. Let’s see at how this looks with some real-life examples of how to move from triggered reactions to authentic expression:
Reaction:
Stop playing with your phone when I am talking to you! I can’t believe you haven’t studied for your test. Put your phone away, or I’m going to take it away for good.
Authentic expression:
I know you don’t notice that you are being distracted right now. I can see that you are unconsciously avoiding your test. Can I help you make a plan so you can best prepare for it?
Or:
I’m afraid you don’t see the consequences of your choices at this moment, and as your parent it concerns me. I need your help to remind me that you know how your choices are going to affect you. Can we talk about your decision to not study, and how we can shift this energy in you?
Or:
I see that you are unable to keep yourself from your gadgets. I will give you another five minutes to settle into your responsibilities on your own. However, if after that time you are still allowing yourself to shirk your duties, I am going to need to take away your phone until your work is done. I don’t want to be put in this position of taking things away, but I need to see that you are able to regulate yourself.
Reaction:
You are being disobedient and disrespectful. You are not going to speak to me in that tone. You are grounded this weekend.
Authentic expression:
I can see that you feel the need to resort to this negative tone of voice toward me. You are obviously feeling upset, otherwise you wouldn’t speak this way. I’m going to take a five-minute break from this situation. I suggest you take a few minutes to think about how you want to get your needs met.
Or:
I can see that you are overwhelmed by your emotions right now. I want to hear how you feel, but when you speak to me like that, it’s really hard to hear your heart. When you want to share your feelings without tossing insults at me, I am here for you.
Or:
It’s really hard for me to listen to you hurling mean words at me. I have feelings too, and it hurts when you speak like that to me. I’m going to leave the room right now and allow myself some space from you. When you feel ready to discuss this in a calm manner, we can try again.
When we express ourselves authentically, we introduce grace, mindfulness, and ownership into the mix. We allow our children to know that they are wise and fully capable, that we are aware of how we are feeling charged at the moment, and that we are willing to make the changes we need to make in order to shift the dynamic between us. When our children see that we are coming from this heart-centered place, and that we aren’t invested in making them the bad guy, we enable them to drop their defenses and join us in finding solutions that work for both of us.
It’s our sacred responsibility as parents to remember that within every child is a deep desire to be seen, heard, and understood. Indeed, a child’s deepest yearning, as I talked about earlier, is to know the answer to the question, “Am I good, am I okay, am I worthy?” They long to be understood for their worldview, their perspective, and their feelings, so that they feel significant in their own right. They want their voice to matter, their opinion to count, and their contributions to be considered valuable.
Our children are highly attuned to their feelings, so that they feel what they feel and aren’t afraid to say so. But what do we so often do when we encounter their feelings, especially those that are painful? Instead of tuning in to them, we tune them out. We tell them to “shush.” Or we make them feel embarrassed and perhaps even crazy for having such feelings. Consequently they are left believing that something is wrong with them. Of course, this is a direct reflection of our own inability to feel and own our real feelings. When we embrace our light and our shadow, we give our children permission to do so as well. We remind them that true courage lies in being transparent and authentic.
~ A New Commitment to Shedding the Past ~
Even though I want to cling to what ought to be
And all the ways life should have been,
I know that my resistance to what is
Comes from fear,
Which blinds me to the jewels of the present moment.
If I can let go of my need to control
I can enter the unknown with vigor.
Flowing with grit, resilience, and power,
I can become the agent
Of the transformation I wish to witness.
Resisting nothing,
I greet the present moment with awareness and joy.