Mindful Parenting: What It Is and Why It Matters
“It is not what is happening but how we relate to what is happening.”
What is Mindful Parenting?
Mindfulness can be defined as paying attention to present moment experiences with curiosity and a willingness to be with what is. But what happens when what is isn’t exactly what you want? What happens when your child is left out, when you’re “accidentally” left off a birthday invitation or your husband puts your favorite yoga pants in the dryer? Mindfulness can also be thought of in terms of relationship: how are we relating to our moments? How are we relating to ourselves, to others, and how do we relate to our children? Mindfulness has been the foundation on which I’ve discovered serenity and acceptance. Has it been hard? Yes. Has it been worth it? Absolutely.
Often a day or a half a day will fly by and I realize that I have yet to take one conscious breath. I live much of my life in my head lost in the story of my own thoughts and perceptions. Caught in our striving mode, accomplishing our do lists, getting things done but not being awake for any of it. The practice of mindfulness encourages us to slow and connect to our moments, to move from the head and drop down into our body, our hearts in a more kind and gentle way. To actually experience our lives moment by moment takes incredible commitment and bravery. Mindfulness reminds us to slow down, to notice and to relate rather than rushing around in the speed and complexities of our days. Instead of being overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, we learn to trust the power of a pause. To stop and feel our feet on the floor in a moment of reactivity. To recognize the effect of a few cleansing breaths in a moment of being overwhelmed. So, when I find my yoga tights in the dryer, and they’re small enough to fit my six-year-old niece, I can recognize the anger, see it for what it is, feel into this strong motion and notice the subtlety of things starting to shift. The tight grip of a strong emotion doesn’t have such a hold on me anymore. Feelings aren’t facts and will always transform if we give ourselves the gift of leaning into them fully.
How did my mindfulness journey begin? It started in 1979 when my nine year old hands picked up a tennis racquet. By 11, I was traveling the country playing the national junior circuit, missing most major holidays to compete in one of the loneliest sports there is. A typical tennis match could last around 2 hours, sometimes 3+. With this, hours spent by yourself competing against another, no coaches to discuss strategy or even offer a positive word or two, just me alone trying to find a way to win. Keeping score, tracking every single point knowing someone was winning and someone was always losing, It was exhilarating and also exhausting. I began to believe that my happiness was found on a scoreboard and that winning was bringing me worthiness.
From this conditioning, this culture, I grew up believing one my self-worth and my well-being was located outside of me, something to win, something to achieve, something to perfect. I continued to live well into my adult life with this perspective, constantly striving, accomplishing and getting things done which built a very complete resume, but my resume didn’t always much my inner world which was often filled with stress, pressure and uneasiness, not always comfortable in my own skin.
Why Mindful Parenting Matters
When I became a parent, I realized there had to be a different way of living, one that wasn’t always so draining, fatiguing, and in search of something outside of me. Luckily, I found the practice of mindfulness and from this practice, my inner-world started to slowly shift.
Mindfulness helped me remember and connect to what mattered most to me in my life, to clearly see my values and priorities both for myself and my loved ones.
Recently, I came across this image and I think it speaks to the potential of the practice. So many of us externalize our happiness, thinking some other time, some other place, when we do this or accomplish that, then we’ll finally be happy. But why not now? The present moment is all any of us ever have. It takes practice to find it, but it’s worth it.
Can we connect from within, from our very own hearts to remember what matters most? To clearly see our happiness is an inside job. No one can do it for us, but we can model it for our children. Can we slow down enough to remember that the gifts are in the small moments? Can we be fully present to witness the smile on our child’s face or the sparkle in their eye? Can we be present to connect through a meaningful or even a challenging conversation? Can we have the courage to allow our children to be who they are without our projections or our expectations? Can we see clearly that society’s expectation of success and winning does not have to be our own? Can we trust enough to parent through our hearts instead of our heads?
“Presence is the greatest gift we can give to our children.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR
Mindful parenting is about not making things worse. It’s about leaning into resistance and meeting it with compassion and faith. It’s about remembering to trust. Trusting the process of life, the process of presence, the process of parenting from a kind and open heart? If we could bring our presence, our wholehearted awareness to this endeavor, how much would our relationships change? Because the real practice is how do we show up and hug our children at the end of a hard day? Can with show up with presence, can we show up with heart? And when we don’t, when we mess up, like we all do, can we meet ourselves with forgiveness and simply begin again? Mindfulness helps us remember that we are all in this together and we are already whole. Mindfulness is more about remembering than about learning. Mindfulness will lead us home to our hearts.