Parenting Paused

  Parenting is a skill-based job on the practical level. We actually have to change the diapers, feed them food, drive them here or there, and we also show our children certain skill sets that will help them along.   It makes sense that we would need emotional skills also and yet where do we learn these?   Tune into this episode for more about growing up emotionally.   www.purejoyparenting.com  

Have you heard the term emotional intelligence?   When I was growing up I learned to prize the values of mental intelligence- especially as academic, and even physical intelligence or prowess, and yet was taught very little about emotional intelligence.   Becoming a parent, however, revealed to me that emotional intelligence was something I was sorely lacking.   In this episode I offer some support on how it is possible to emotionally grow up!   www.purejoyparenting.com

As a parent, are you ever confused by the advice of the 'experts'?   I know I sure was! Even though I was so clear that focusing on my own internal experience was the path for me, I still had this secret hope that somehow my child’s behavior would change. Ha!   On a deep intuitive level, I knew that going inside was for my well-being, and not to get my child to behave, and in hindsight, I can see how that realization took time to develop.   Honestly looking at my motivation was eye-opening. It wasn’t so much about my daughter, what I found out was that that I didn’t want to be my mom.   Tune in more to learn a new way to understand your own limitations and how to set some healthy boundaries!   http://www.purejoyparenting.com

Picture yourself tired, hungry, or worried, sharing your angst with a spouse or a friend and they start trying to fix or change you with their agenda. How do you behave? Do your words come out kindly. Perhaps you even say things you actually don't mean trying to get them to back-off. You've descended into what Dan Siegel calls the downstairs brain, or the amygdala, as opposed to acting from the more rational “upstairs” brain. Expressing from the primal brain is signally a threatened state. Your words are the weapons used to take out the perceived threat. Tune into this episode for more! www.purejoyparenting.com

Clearly, when facing reality I recognize parenting is often challenging and messy, and yet there is still this little niggly fantasy that at some point I'll transcend the pain and glide through life feeling peaceful and loving. My attachment to pleasure over pain gets me and I find myself circling back around to controlling my daughter.   Do you have these fantasies? Tune into this episode for support in working with them.    Visit Purejoy to sign up for the Free SafeSeat Course!

Conditioning through our upbringing and culture is a given. Unconsciously we take the deep divisions and dislikes we feel inside and about ourselves projecting them outwards, especially onto our children.    Projecting my stuff onto my daughter, she becomes the location of the disliked parts in me. When I perceive something is "wrong" with her I believe I am helping her if I can work to change her behavior.  The truth though is I've been conditioned to believe I am "wrong" when I perceive that behavior inside myself. I've seen myself through the foggy glasses and therefore take out my pain on my daughter.   Visit the Purejoy website for more!

Do you ever find it hard to let go of control? I didn’t fully experience how controlling I am until becoming a parent. Have you noticed this as being true?   Loving the feeling of being in control, naturally, I have a daughter who mirrors the same. Control battles ensued when either of us felt emotionally threatened. Getting into a dogmatic attitude of ‘my way or the highway’ triggered her big time. Of course, there was a benefit to my controlling stance for she got to practice her inner strength fighting and trying to get control back. The drawback was I wasn't living in reality and was projecting my past onto the present. I was believing my early conclusion that I wouldn't be OK if I wasn't in control.   Visit the Purejoy Website to learn the SafeSeat practice!

Do these words sound familiar? “I can’t let my kid….”   As in "I can't let my kid stay on the computer for hours”, “do her homework while listening to podcasts”, “eat only pasta seven days a week”.    Going to that place, which we all do, of looking at the reality of what is and then making a judgment about it happens in an instant. But those moments I think “I can’t let my daughter stay on the computer all day”, she IS on the computer. That is the reality.   Tune into this episode to hear how to meet your child where they are. Visit the Purejoy Parenting website for more support!

When feeling discomfort in relation to your child - they are on the computer too long, you won't get to be on time, or they refuse to eat your well-balanced meal - lean into and underneath the discomfort. Instead of feeding the mental ideal of how things are supposed to go, take a moment to put yourself in your child's position.   How would you behave if you were totally immersed in something - your work or even a movie - and your child walks in, demanding you to stop what you are doing RIGHT NOW, telling you in so many words that you are a disappointment if you don't. What happens inside? Would you feel like cooperating in meeting their needs?   Tune into this episode for more on Trying To Do It Right! www.purejoyparenting.com

Creating a gratitude practice is BIG in the conscious parenting world, yet in reflecting on my early training in when to express gratitude, it felt more like an obligation. Someone gave me a gift, or did something for me and whether I liked it or not I was expected to say "thank you".   It became a learned habit rather than a wellspring of true feeling. I was also trained to only value and be grateful for what was deemed “positive” and reject and demean what was perceived as “negative” by others.    In recent years I've experienced another kind of gratitude. As I seek equilibration in my being, including both sides of every experience, the positive and negative. I experience acceptance and appreciation for the totality of what is.    Visit the purejoy website to download a free copy of the Safeseat

Hearing the word innocence in adulthood, what comes up?   I imagine a curiosity, experiencing everything for the first time, innocent from conclusions or the meaning of anything.   Looking through my conditioned adult lens I imagine acting childish and relinquishing responsibility for being a good parent. Negating the innocent seeing that is still available from my true self, I see through the lens of "right" or "wrong".   My early history, my parenting template, and the hordes of books I read led to judgments and ideas about how, who, where, and when my daughter should be or not be. Instead of innocence, I saw manipulative and threatening behavior.   Tune in to this episode to hear more!   www.purejoyparenting.com

In my experience, it takes some courage to change old strategies. It is counter instinctual to go back into those very intense feelings that as a child I had worked so hard to get away from. But also I recognize I must have stability in myself if I want to offer it to my child. That's why I created the Safe Seat process. If you don't know what that is, go to my website, purejoyparenting.com 

Next time you hear a judgy thought, especially about your child's behavior, see what happens if you stop fueling the storyline. Take the judgment inside and be with it. Offer it kindness. Inquire. My question to myself is, "do you need to feel right in this moment? What might happen if you open your curiosity to why she acted that way instead of going to your judgment that you are right and she is wrong?   Opening my heart supports questioning my judgments that are creating a barrier between my heart and my child.   Tune into this episode to hear more about my deep inquiry journey with judgment!   Visit Purejoy on the web!

My concept of time tends to be very linear. One step leads to the next, to the next. When I need to be somewhere I start marking out my steps so I can get to where I am going on time. However it was clear from a very young age, my daughter didn’t live in a linear time as I did. She had her own sense of time and space, based more in the present moment. It drove me crazy! Tune into this episode to explore Stepping Out of Time! www.purejoyparenting.com

Am I willing to see when my child is defiant and resistant, that there's something in their interior landscape that's distressing, and it may have to do with me and how I'm choosing to be with them?    When my daughter expresses intense resistance, I PAUSE and check inside asking: where am I parenting from? Nine times out of ten, I'm parenting from my thoughts, from an agenda. I am refusing to be intimate with the moment. I forget to listen to the amazing, intuitive wisdom that tells me first and foremost, to meet my daughter in her heart’s vulnerability.   Tune into this episode to support tuning into your heart! Visit Purejoy to download the free Safeseat email course!

Stories are a big part of our parenting journey. So many stories, ideas, beliefs, fantasies, nightmares, so much of our parenting journey is made up of stories.   And most of the time, those stories are about the past.   Or they're about the future. I don't know about you, but, oh, my gosh, when my child was young and had behaviors that were scary, I projected way out into the future of how she wasn't functioning or she was living at home forever or worst of all wasn't working and was dependent on ME!   Tune into this week's podcast to hear more!   www.purejoyparenting.com

Do you ever feel like you want to give up? Runaway, disappear, just give it all up in your parenting.   Well, if you do, it's OK. It's important to see this desire as a messenger, not a destroyer. If you hear yourself saying, "I can't do this anymore" take heart. It's an opportunity to ask yourself what ways am I being that aren't working any longer? Am I giving too much and refusing to receive? Am I positioning as a victim? Am I using control instead of connection to get my needs met?   http://www.purejoyparenting.com  

Truly Listening to our children can be a challenge!   Often when they are sharing their hearts - we jump ahead to what our response will be and stop listening to what is being said.   What would it be like to suspend your judgment and say "tell me more?" Opening your heart to seeing, hearing, and understanding the feelings without coming to a conclusion about the story is an empowered movement.   In this episode, I'll encourage you to try something a little different!   www.purejoyparenting.com

As strange as it sounds, I almost forgot to become a mama this lifetime!   It was a deep inexplicable calling that finally led me to take the courageous step of adopting my daughter as a single mom.   I still remember the exact moment they placed my precious daughter in my arms.   What a GIFT!   Tune in to hear more of this story and explore the power of the gift our children bring.   http://www.purejoyparenting.com

I don't know about you- but when I became a parent I was SURE I was going to be easy-going, relaxed, and fun!   What actually happened was I tried to control all sorts of things! Food, screens, taking a walk. Not very much fun for my daughter.   As I turned inward I met a rigidity and fear which led to my controlling behavior. No wonder I needed to control.   Tune in and explore this topic while learning an exercise that will support you along the way.   http://www.purejoyparenting.com