What is spiritually aware parenting, and could it be the missing piece of the puzzle we’ve been looking for?
Motherhood and parenting often invite us to a journey of exploration. We want the world for our children. We do our best, learn, and transform. Yet, often, along with the choices we make, many mothers and fathers walk their days with inner dissatisfaction, confusion, and questioning. They try applying various types of advice to various types of challenges, consciously let go of many ‘shoulds’ and ‘how tos’ in raising children, and growing as individuals as well as parents. Still, many often feel something is still missing.
In today’s quickening and demanding world, many parents, both mothers and fathers, walk through these magnificent years of early parenting feeling a piece of them is missing, navigating the countless demands of providing for their family and trying to do their best for their little ones, with more questions and answers.
Questions are good, as they invite exploration and the finding of our own parenting path. Often, the daily questions of what to prepare for dinner and the big questions invite us to the same – becoming conscious of our choices. Our personal, individual choices, and those that we make for our child(ren), and our family as a whole.
Parenting consciously and actively observing our needs and those of our child(ren), is a significant step forward. Spiritually Aware Parenting invites us to take the next step: acknowledging we are more than our physical being and that we are all on a spiritual journey. As we accept our own journey, we are invited to recognize that our child(ren) is also on a journey and embrace our shared journey as a family.
I recall the feeling I had when this notion invited me to explore it. I was gifted with a near-death experience that reminded me that I am more than my physical being and, in retrospect, invited me to weave my spiritual self together with that of my physical self in this lifetime.
While accepting that I am on a journey was inevitable following my experience, grasping that if I am more, so is everyone else, including my three daughters, was more challenging. Being together on a journey, mother and daughters, invites a whole different perspective on our relationships.
- The idea that all of us, parents and children, are on a shared journey, invites recognition that our child(ren) are more than purely dependent little cute babies we are cuddling and nurturing.
- Our child(ren) being more, invites us to observe them, and without clear language, to listen to their non-verbal, soul communication.
- Our child(ren) being more, also invites mutual respect, attentiveness and a more balanced relationship in all daily aspects.
- Often, their communication will challenge our choices. Are they happy in their grandma’s arms? Their aunts? Little ones sense energies, and often, they will try to communicate to us whose energy does not fit theirs. What about food, sleep, and their choice of friends? How can we be attentive to what they communicate?
Opening up to the idea of everyone being on a journey and parenting aware of our shared journey invites attentiveness to the little invitations our children try to communicate. An exploration of who they are, openness to the gifts of growth they invite us to, and the conditions they each need to become who they are while living a fulfilling, whole, and joyful life.
Embracing our shared journey also invites us to expand our ability to be attentive not only to our child(ren)’s truth but also to ours. As we dance together, and in our shared dance, we offer each other, children, and parents an opportunity to remember our essence, recall what makes us happy, and return to our first memories before society’s ‘shoulds’ cut the magnitude of our dreams.
Walking our parenting spiritually aware, and embracing the profound invitations anchored in the unique relationship and Love held between children and parents is first an act of awareness, questioning, and openness. As we become aware, our child(ren) will feel this energetic communication of exploration and the possibility of harmony, alignment, and joy will weave itself into our days.
