Are you experiencing a season of conflict with your child? You are not alone. This gentle practice can help reconnect you with consistency so you can avoid parenting love.
In our concern for our children, we sometimes respond from a place Fear and anxiety. From time to time, we can lose touch with the love behind that interest.
Reconnecting with the grounding of our love and desire for our children to be happy and healthy, especially in moments of difficulty, can be incredibly helpful.
This practice from Wendy O’Leary provides a pause of support and encouragement that can bring you back to the core of compassionate wisdom—and you can return to it anytime you need help parenting out of love.
Meditate on working with our fear and cultivating love
Read and practice the guided meditation text below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to audio exercises.
- Take a comfortable sitting position. You can close your eyes or gently look down and lower your gaze, whatever works for you.
- As we settle here, bring your attention to your breath or feel the sensations of your body as it connects to the earth. Feet on the floor, backs of legs on a chair or pillow. Bring your attention to stability a little. You can access this moment by descending into the body by breathing and feeling the contact points of the body. It settles gently.
- Now, I invite you to turn your attention to thinking about your child, You may picture them in your mind, recalling a time when you felt warm, loving feelings toward them. Notice what they were doing and remember how you felt in that moment. Maybe you imagine that someone has asked you, What do you like in your child? What words, phrases, images or descriptions come to mind?
- Gently check in and notice what you feel in your body, mind, and heart when you remember what you love about your child. You can even invite this feeling of love and connection to grow and expand in your body, gently resting here in this feeling of love for your child. Let yourself soak in this feeling of love, warmth and care.
- Now, think about a time when your child was struggling. You don’t need to think about which conflict is the hardest, instead, choose something that is a three or four on a scale of one to ten.
- When you allow the situation to fully enter your awareness, check back in with your body. Often, when we focus on a difficulty, especially when it comes to our child, there can be a habitual tendency to shrink back and lean forward. Check it out and see if this is true for you. To counter this trend, lean back slightly. This can be a physical lean back or even active relaxation. Relax and now allow the body to soften, even expand, creating space to accommodate all that is. We’re not forcing anything here, it’s just a very gentle invitation to relax and unwind. Gently loosening up around the edges of any feelings we’re experiencing.
- Now intentionally invite that feeling of love back, and take on the challenge in a wide field of loving care and awareness. To help you do this, you can remind yourself again of all the things you love about your child. You can even give them some well-being and happiness wishes as you imagine them in your mind. We hope you are happy. I wish you success. May you stay safe. Or any desires that feel real to you at this moment.
- If the situation that comes to mind requires some response from you in some way, you might ask yourself, How will this love react? You can also give yourself a little TLC, because if your child is suffering, you are suffering too. So maybe place a gentle hand on the heart, or take a moment to remind yourself of our shared humanity. You might say something to yourself like, Every parent struggles with their children sometimes. Every parent worries about their child sometimes. Or another phrase that may suit your situation. You can even say to yourself, This is hard and I’m here for you, baby.
- When you are ready, you can open your eyes to close our formal practice. This practice can be a powerful way to reconnect with feelings of love and release the anxiety and fears we often face as parents. It may be helpful to do the first part, remembering love and care as a short daily practice for a while, so that you can summon feelings of love and connection more easily in the midst of a difficult moment when you need the most help in parenting out of love. We want to acknowledge the difficult things and not lose sight of the goodness and love behind our fears and sometimes the difficulties we face with our children. With my best wishes to you, I hope you are happy, calm and moving through life with ease and equanimity. Thank you for practicing with me.
