Positive Parenting when it gets tough!

I’ll be honest, when I first started on the road of “positive parenting", I had no idea there was a term for it.
I’d never heard of “attachment” parenting or “RIE”… all I knew was that when I got mad or frustrated with my children it felt horrible… and my instincts told me that it felt horrible because I was just mad my kids weren’t doing what I wanted them to do, and that made me feel like a bad parent. .
 At the root of it all, I was needing them to change to make me happy.
Which meant I was telling them that other people were the cause of our happiness or unhappiness. I would raise people who couldn't find their own inner joy. 

(Check out this amazing Positive Parenting Course Bundle available NOW... but only until Wednesday Nov. 29th! (over $1000 worth of positive parenting courses for $97!)

So, I had to find a different path which would build: 
1) A positive parenting relationship between myself and my kids.
2) A perspective of parenting which offered the positive message for my children that they were perfect just as they are.
​ And
 3) A positive perspective of myself. I had to learn that I was allowed to be Me… with all my foibles and isms, that make me ME.
When a child sees their parent being authentic, they know they are allowed to be themselves.
And for me, that’s what positive parenting really is… actually that’s what positive Living really is.

But then, we have the actual parenting part. It can be so easy to research positive parenting, but the application can be so much more complicated

. Life gets messy. Life can get Really Messy. How do we navigate through that? What are the steps we can take to be Positive Parents, especially at busy times and holiday times when the pressure is on?

If you noticed my number 3 above, you’ll see I had to find a positive perspective of myself. I had to be Me. When I could connect to being me and not some superficial concept of “mom” I had the foundation to fall back on. The lens to put on. The connection to call upon when life gets tough. 
And it does get tough. Life is fast. Sometimes things chug along in all blissfulness, but a child will have an off day. They will get stressed and so will we, but that's often where the learning takes place.
 That is actually a huge part of positive parenting: understanding that even the tough moments have purpose.

In each off, tempery, fiery, crazy and chaotic moment with our kids, we know that we can stop in our tracks. Its ok to have an off moment and to feel anxious, worried, or sad. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow together. Negative emotion is nothing more than an indicator that we aren’t seeing through our spiritual perspective. If we try to push the indicator away, we can’t listen to it.

OK… but some real tips… How can we positively parent in the rush of it all?

1) First, know that energy matches energy, so when a child is frantic, we can practice finding our inner calm, breathing deep and bringing in a different feeling space of love. We don’t have to go into the situation with panic and trailblazing.
Our children might be scared of their own feelings. With us remaining grounded will support them and light the path back to stability.

2) Listen. Listening to our children’s experiences, emotions and thoughts gives them a space to express and explore what they really are going through.

3) And then offer. We can offer tools to feel better, we can offer a hug… we can even offer solutions like quiet spaces or car rides to leave the situation entirely. But also, when our children are in disagreement with us we can offer them our WHY. Because often the very reason they say no to us is because they don't understand what we are suggesting, or they are trapped in their own thought processes. 
Give opportunity to shift to a better feeling space, without forcing them to feel better. Shine a light in the emotional darkness.

Positive parenting means that our children don’t have to navigate who they are alone. They can explore themselves and the world of emotions and life supported and held.

Also… always remember that children live in the moment. 
The future and past are abstract concepts and often feel overwhelming. This is why holidays and celebrations often don’t work for young children, because the moment of seeing beautiful snowflakes can be just as exciting and wondrous for a small child as any Christmas morning… so… we can remind ourselves to see the wonder in every moment as well. We can train ourselves to see through the eyes of a child and enjoy the world for its everyday… not just on a special day.

I think the most beautiful part about positive parenting vs conventional parenting is the knowledge that it isn’t about getting results from our children, rather acknowledging the journey we are all on.
When we want our children to give results (such as good behavior and manners)for our own comfort we skip all the important steps that the challenging moments can offer us. But when we remember the journey of life and look for the tools of love and support we can offer them, our parenting becomes a foundation building experience, which leads to the confident, loving and positive focused adults our children can become.

(Positive parenting is such a wide, exciting topic and appears in so many ways. It’s a wonderful experience to explore and consistently learn about it. This Monday (27th) to Wednesday (29th) you have an amazing opportunity to expand your positive parenting toolbox.
You can get over $1000 worth of positive parenting courses and all their material for only $97 with this Premium Positive Parenting E-course Bundle.. This is really a once in a lifetime sort of chance, with courses by Dr. Laura Markham and other amazing experts. and I can’t encourage you enough to check it out.)

The 3 Sources of Guilt

So over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at guilt and how to listen to your own inner guidance webinar, but in truth I know how a scheduled event can cause stress and a replay can sit there for awhile, always as a “I should watch that.”

system. I presented the three sources of guilt to you in the

(ugh, and then that leads to feeling guilty for not watching something about feeling guilty! That really takes the cake.)

So, I wanted to share with you the basic points discussed on Saturday, just for quick reference.

Because that’s what guilt is about. It’s about reference. It’s about knowing the sources of the guilty feelings and then weighing it up to see if it resonates with your authentic self.

So, here are the three types of guilt we discussed the other day:

Socially Implied- the feeling of the raised eyebrow when your house is messy. The feeling of your mother’s eyes on you when let your child down from the table without finishing dinner, or the feeling of ickiness when your child is having a tantrum in public. Socially implied guilt comes from all sorts of directions and comes from when others, (friends, family or strangers) suggests we are doing it all wrong and we absorb it as truth. We feel guilty and are suddenly sneaking around breastfeeding or shuttering when our children don’t say excuse me that ONE TIME. We also find it when we assume others are thinking things about us, even if we know its true or not. When we feel people are thinking we are losing it or not doing a good job, when we allow those reflections to undermine ourselves.

Remedy- Reminding ourselves that everyone else has their own journey and that this is our own, frees ourselves to make our own mistakes and try out our own approaches. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Times have changed and our parents approaches, or our grandparents’, were based on adifferent understanding of what a parent is. Therefore, why should they understand why we are trying something different. Children being seen and not heard still has a ghost like presence in the minds of so many and when children are taught to be the people they really are, it can scare others that they did it wrong. Trust in your own processes and know yourself. Trust in other people to have their own processes, life journeys and mistakes... even if they don’t get it from their perspective.

Personally Inflicted- Probably more deepseeded than Socially implied, personally inflicted guilt is generated within ourselves. We can have a concept of a “Parent’s” job and, because its thought through and not based on an authentic version of ourselves, it becomes full of “should’s” I should be able to work, play, discipline, cook, clean, mend, drive, schedule, sew, afford and love... and practice mindfulness, self care, meditation and yoga. When we miss a step on our imagined “should”, we feel guilt, which can then lead to a feeling of failure, unworthiness, and insecurity. It’s a spiral of guilt, which leads to us trying to do everything and doing nothing, and watering ourselves down in the process. We miss out on our authentic parenting experience, because we are too busy trying to be something impossible to be.

Remedy- Drop deep within yourself and allow yourself to be the person you came to be. Take a moment to release yourself from the prison you’ve created in your mind, observe your life experience rather than trying to control it. Who Are You and what’s authentic to you? When you allow yourself to show up as yourself you can feel your way to the best choices and decisions. Don’t like cooking... your child really won’t suffer if you can’t bake a cake, they just don’t like hunger. Don’t sew... then don’t. Can’t find time to meditate, realize that even focused play can be mind altering meditation, when you align in you moment and focus on fun. Be you, find you and radiate as You. And forgive yourself for those things that are someone else’s journey.

Spiritually Indicated

Not a guilt at all. Rather, it is the an indicator of our inner guidance system.

We are spiritual beings and our spirits are always there giving a heads up, directions and a general sense of GPS. When we start down a road that won’t lead to the right direction, we have a fellow driver that gives a nudge and says.. “not this way, turn around.”

Its not berating or mean, it will never undermine our intelligence or make us cry. Rather its simply a nudge in the right direction. It feels good when we acknowledge it.

Spiritually indicted “guilt”, is felt not thought. It builds us up, not knock us down. It supports Who we Really Are and doesn’t ask us to blend in.

It shows up when we’ve practiced being spiritually aware and built up our sense of where we’re heading.

In fact, it is the remedy... it doesn’t need one... because it’s not a negative feeling.

It comes from love.

During the webinar we also talked a bit about the law of attraction and how guilt can become an attraction point and about neural passage, with guilt becoming a habitual pattern.

So, now what?

Well, freeing yourself from guilt is truly about setting yourself free... no one can do it for you... but you can have support to start re-programming how you feel about your choices and making sure you are coming from your authentic self.

I’m trying to find the best way to support you on this journey and one way I’m offering is through a 4 week program for 8 participants. We’ll meet each Saturday and have a private FB group too, so we can really dig deep and change some negative chatter which feeds the guilt. It starts June 4^th, just in time for Summer break and right now is only $77 USD for all 4 weeks. That’s less than $20 a session and you’ll be having 1;1 time in the sessions, discussing your specific scenario, within a supportive group of people feeling the same way.

I’m really hoping we can take our community to this next level. It’s going to be so liberating and exciting to work together.

For more information you can visit here. Registration takes place there as well or you can email me at Christina@spirituallyawareparenting.com with any questions.

Hands Are For Holding

My son has never been spanked.

But I can’t say that about my girls. When they were younger... I thought I had to be the one in

control. I thought that was just how it was done.

I just didn’t know there was another way. But my girls soon taught me there was a much better way.

When I realized I was teaching them to hit through my hitting life flooded through the window and lit up my soul. My girls and I started on the most exciting journey of compassion, understanding and love and it paved the way for exciting pre-teen years, where we stand together, not against each other.

But still, so many parents think that spanking is the way to get “results”. Still, today, parents are often taught that they need to control their children rather than understand them. They feel judged as people by how their children behave and punishing them by hitting and spanking is a way to find that control again... and for some reason society seems to think that’s ok, even if an adult did this to another adult the police would be called.

So, this season, I want to help an organization that I’ve wanted to help for a long time, and I’m asking for your help to do it too.

(So, here’s my sudden inspired idea) Until Christmas, I’m changing the price of my audio course to $10.00 and proceeds will be going to this organization to support them this season.

I looked around. I was going to offer the money to support someone over Christmas, but then I thought what better present to children than to offer their parents positive parenting tools! Its food for thought.

www.stopspanking.org offers tools, perspective shifts, and support to stop the spanking cycle as well as education on the long term effects spanking has on our children and helping parents learn there’s another way. For those of you who know the wonderful work of Parenting beyond Punishment, you may of heard of the non-profit organization. However as a Non-profit they need as much help they can get to share their tools and information and help parents who are falling into the cycle of anger and spanking without knowing they can turn it all around.

SO to recap.

The Audio Course Taking the Stress Out of The Holidays is now $10.00 with proceeds going to the www.stopspanking.org also known as Hands Are For Holding. 

You can grab the course here no discount code, no anything. Spread the word and let’s get as much support as possible to this great cause.

And, if by any chance, you still haven’t been able to stop yourself from raising your hand to your child, feel free to contact me or this organization. No questions, no cost, I've been there, I get it. Let’s  bridge the gap between you and your child.

Happy Holidays.