The Power of Our Parenting Presence

Place your hand on your heart and slow down for a moment. How are you doing today? Have you checked in with yourself today? How are you feeling? I want you to pause your reading for just 30 seconds and check in with yourself. Maybe even give yourself a hug and a deep breath.

Modern-day parents are confronted with a constant buzz of ideas for how we can get this parenting thing “right.” The experience of parenting is stressful enough, and now we have added layers of stress as we try to break generational cycles. For many of us, looking at all these ideas can trigger feelings of failure and not being “good enough.”

What if I told you that half of the work of breaking cycles in parenting is clearing the clutter from our mindsets and perspectives? 

The anxiety we feel as we pressure ourselves to get it right…

The thoughts of comparison as we scroll through Instagram believing that other parents have it easier than we do based on curated posts…

The constant state of learning that can create an illusion that we are not enough… 

Research shows that the most important thing we can do as parents is actually quite simple: show up with presence and connection. 

The truth is we can’t show up in this way if we are in a constant state of anxiety and fear and feeling like we aren’t good enough.

Let’s sink into this reality together for a moment:  We don’t have to say the right things or do the right things all the time. We just have to show up. We can relax into the power of our presence and our natural connection with our children. 

We can learn to let go of the racing thoughts and stories of the mind and relax into our bodies, hearts, and presence. Through this process, we can welcome more security, connection, and playfulness into our relationships with our kids. 

You are enough. You have what you need to be exactly what your child needs. 

Not convinced? Let’s answer a few questions together:

• When your kids are sad, do you open your heart & arms most of the time?
• When the kids are in joy, do you let their light shine most of the time?
• Do you work to take accountability when you aren’t doing your best most of the time?
• Do you do everything in your power to show up for them when you can?

If these are yes, they are getting what they need from you. You are showing up. If there are any no’s or “I am not sure,” that is okay, too. Are you being hard on yourself? What would allow you to access more of these?

You got this.

Using Our Presence for Reflection & Seeing the Positives in Our Parenting

Here’s an invitation: Take a moment to reflect on your week. Scan through all the days and moments that happened in your personal and family life. What is one thing that you can celebrate right now?

As modern-day cycle-breaking parents, we are doing the best that we can with the resources we have available to us.

Many of us experience these tricky moments in our parenting… you know, the ones where you act in a way you don’t want to?

You have the best intentions, but you just start reacting with yelling or from immaturity, and it’s just coming out of you. You can see it in the moment.

You can hear that voice in your head that says, “Stop! You don’t want to act this way!” but the words keep falling out of your mouth.

We all have been there, and it can feel heavy (and sometimes even comical) how hard parenting can feel as we embrace new parenting ways that are so different from those we were raised with.

I shared in an Instagram video this week about the three big things that my cycle-breaking mom did that really helped me.

In case you missed it, the three things are:

• She acknowledged that she was struggling and that she needed support.
• She became a voracious learner of parenting and childhood development. She did that through therapy, making sense of her own story, and educating herself.
• She listened with an open heart about the struggles and impact I experienced from not receiving what she couldn’t give me.

I want you to remember:

All this work we are doing counts. Even if you cannot give all the secure experiences you want to give your child, the fact that you are trying and hopefully willing to acknowledge where you might not be giving your kids what they need is enough.

Here’s an idea to try this week: When you make a mistake and act in a way that is misaligned with your intentions, try a REWIND.

When everyone is calm and ready (including you) outside of the heated moment, say, “Can we get a rewind?” Go through the entire scene again, pausing for reflection and playing out the reactions you all wish you had done. Give your family a chance to live through the moment again and practice showing up differently. Celebrate your team efforts and the power of mistakes to help us learn.

And remember: you are enough. Every moment you choose to learn or try something new is a gift to your kids.