Parenting Paused

I learned when my daughter was young, I realized I had to be willing to see through her eyes.     When I began to do this, things looked very, very different.  My daughter is more of a present-moment child. She doesn’t focus on the future. Dropping into this practice has given me a life full of inspiration- tune into this episode to learn how you might be able to do the same!   www.purejoyparenting.com

Have you ever considered the intense pressure your child feels to meet your needs? If not, let’s take a little time to explore.  "You need to eat your food, you need to put on your shoes, you need to do your homework, You need to get off the computer, You need to do your chores, You need to hurry up, You need to listen to me…..” And yet, what if you actually owned that these are your needs? Join me in this episode and we can look into what it might be like to own your needs! www.purejoyparenting.com

I never thought of myself as an arrogant person. Honestly, I had quite the judgment about folks I perceived as arrogant. Then I became a parent! YIKES.    Arrogance showed up quickly and furiously when my daughter didn’t behave in ways that supported my idea of being a “good” mother.    Tune into this week's episode to hear more about my journey to discover more about what was under all of that!   www.purejoyparenting.com

Do you ever think your child didn’t come with an instruction manual? Well, what if they did and yet you aren’t interested in reading it? Why would this be?  In my experience, my parenting manual (conscious loving mother) often gave contradictory instructions to her innate knowing and instructions. Determined to follow mine I often felt like I was trying to put a round peg in a square hole. It was painful for both.  Tune into this episode to deepen in how you can start reading your child's instruction manual. www.purejoyparenting.com

When your child doesn’t listen, won’t get in the car seat when you ask nicely, or won’t get ready to leave the house what happens inside you?   Does it feel like an emotional threat? Do you feel anger? Most parents express how frustrated they are especially since their children should KNOW what to do.    Tune into this week's episode and let's dive a little deeper!   www.purejoyparenting.com

I have a saying that goes, “It’s never about what you think it is about”.   What I mean by this is it’s never about the computer use, or the food, or even the homework.   I know, I know. It sure seems like it is about those things, yes?    Tune into this episode to hear more about this saying and how it can support you to be more present with your child.   www.purejoyparenting.com  

Underneath the wall of rage, we walked through last week, are early, early feelings of abandonment, rejection, powerless, and helplessness.   These are the precious feeling jewels you stored away as a young child believing they were somehow dangerous since when expressing them through your behavior you were punished or shamed.    In this week's episode, I'll be sharing with you what it's like to embrace those tender feelings you find beyond your rage.    www.purejoyparenting.com

RAGE is a terrifying emotion to turn towards with kindness.   RAGE, in my family, was explosive and volatile and often expressed in destructive ways.     Having experienced the destructive behavior of a raging mom I organized my life to never feel this powerful emotion out of an imagined fear that I would behave like her.    Tune into this week's episode to hear more about how I learned to walk with rage, and what that supported in my relationship with my daughter.    www.purejoyparenting.com

Do you ever get frustrated with your kids when they refuse to do chores? Most parents I meet have a belief that chores are important skill sets for kids to learn. And yet, they often push, pull, threaten, shame or force their children to do them. Sound familiar?  Tune into this episode to learn a secret I've discovered to turn this around! www.purejoyparenting.com  

In all my years, I’ve struggled with what I’m now calling “finishing the moment”.   Starting something new, I leave a trail of dust behind in my wake for I’m constantly onto the next shiny object in the distance.   Rarely, do I finish the moment I’m actually experiencing.    In my parenting, this shows up when my daughter is sharing a story about her experience. Instead of listening and opening to staying in the moment, with curiosity, I project her into the future and start talking to her as if she is actually there.   Tune into this episode to hear more about Finishing the Moment   www.purejoyparenting.com

After years of therapy and spiritual practice, I was sure I had the skills to be the parent I longed to be. I pictured myself as a BIG open expansive heart energy surrounding my child supporting her to express her heart. My visions filled me with delight and supported traveling halfway around the world to adopt my daughter from China. One of my friends looked at me and said, “what a noble act of humanity” and yet the truth is the noble act was on my daughter’s part. She came back for me.    Little did I know I would be faced with all my attachments lingering deep in the corners of my conditioning.   Tune into this week's episode of Parenting Paused to hear more about how I worked with the beliefs I was attached to.   www.purejoyparenting.com

Over and over again, one of the main things I practice in my life, and especially in my parenting, is the counter instinctual move toward my uncomfortable feelings instead of away from them.   Of course, as a child, none of us were able to tolerate the intensity in our little bodies when big feelings with big sensations arose.   Tune into today's episode to explore with me how to begin working with these intensities with your adult body.    www.purejoyparenting.com

When your child comes to you and asks you if they can do something, or when they look to you when they're about to do something, do you ever feel like you're giving them permission? This week inside this episode I want to share with you a different approach to what might actually be happening when you perceive that your child is asking you for permission!   www.purejoyparenting.com

I've had many experiences in my life, some joyful, others painful, and a whole wide range in between.   Mothering, in all its ups and downs, has been the most profound experience and continues to be so.   Little did I know what lay ahead when I traveled to China 21 years ago to adopt my daughter.   I honestly thought- 'I am so ready for this experience. I've done my work and now I can show up as the BEST mom in the world.'   Looking back I see how naive I was about the road ahead of me, and yet my heart led the way.   That BIG Heart was calling me into a deeper, more profound experience in life.   I can imagine you know what I'm talking about. When the Heart calls, you listen.   More about parenting from my Heart inside this episode. www.purejoyparenting.com

Lots of parents ask me, how do I set boundaries with my child?   It is a HUGE topic and one I've chosen to explore from my internal experience. Early on I saw how much easier it was to bind my daughter and her behavior than to take responsibility for setting my healthy boundaries.   The question entered my mind: What if I don't need to bind and limit her?   Join me in this episode to hear more about what that looked like.    www.purejoyparenting.com

Frequently, we hear how important it is to parent from the present moment. This is extremely challenging as our conditioning has trained us to manipulate experience to achieve a particular future outcome.   Our children learn this also. We often call them manipulators because when they have a fantasy of some future goodie they desire, they will, for sure, manipulate the environment, the world, your mind, everything, to get what they want!   How is that for you? Tune into this episode as we look a little closer at being in the present moment.   www.purejoypareinting.com  

I once read about a study measuring and comparing the energies of fear and excitement in the body. The researchers found out fear and excitement measured as exactly the same energetic charge. The difference was the story people were telling themselves about the charge.   When my daughter was younger I constantly felt overly responsible and exhausted.  Being the curious being that I am I checked out if this story was true in my SafeSeat. Releasing the story and simply feeling the energy in my body brought great insight.   More on this inside Episode 74! www.purejoyparenting.com

When the “world” is telling you they are right and you are wrong, the urge to defend and justify yourself is strong. To reverse what is coming at you, desperately you cast others in the wrong and yourself in the right.   If you are feeling this way, try this: going deeply inside ask yourself what is my BIG “Why”? - why do I feel compelled to parent this way? Release the outside voices, tapping into your wisdom to deeply find your "Why".   More on this topic inside the episode.   www.purjeoyparenting.com

In your family, were you taught that "wants" were demanding? Was it safer to appear self-reliant and independent? If so, you grew up trying to quell your wants and learned to take care of others while repressing your own.   Self-reliance and independence are highly valued in our culture. I received a lot of strokes in my family for taking care of myself. It wasn't as if my wants disappeared. They went underground, as the strategy I was trained to value, of always taking care of others, came to the foreground.   Tune in to hear about a different way to be with wants!   www.purejoyparenting.com

It's an emotional skill to be present with your child as they experience their emotional waves without trying to rescue them. The waves are the content of what is happening within the context of discovering who they are in their life, the ocean. The way emotional waves work is they first arise as sensation and feeling, then as story, and then finally behavior.  Likely, you weren't taught the art of riding your emotional waves so it is challenging to ride your child's. Most of us were taught to control them, especially when they manifested in “acting out” behavior. In parenting, we generally concentrate our energy on the “acting out” part.   www.purejoyparenting.com