Parenting--An Invitation to Connect to Something Larger.

A short post...to mark it you know, for myself, something to come back to when I forget because let's face it I forget. And it's good to remember...that when interacting with your kids or really anyone, it is best to have some distance, not be right in the muck, connect to something larger than yourself and them. It brings perspective and keeps you from digging into old familiar patterns. You learn to do this in SourcePoint Therapy, to connect to something larger, that guides and brings in the information of human health. But we can really do this with anything, in any circumstance. It does not mean do not connect intimately with that person, or show a compassionate response. Quite opposite, it means you are able to give a more compassionate, less selfish response to who is before and with you.

This is becoming more of a habit for me, but believe me I forget it. Like last night when I was at the pool waiting for thunderstorms to pass and my boys to be able to swim. I needed them to swim and burn energy. I needed to pass the rest of the evening of my two week stretch of solo parenting. I needed to be out. (Notice the I's--when those appear and appear and appear, it is a clue you are not connecting to something larger than yourself. This does not mean that the I disappears, it means that it is not central, well last night it was central.) Boy #2 kept burping in my face showing me his newfound talent at being able to burp on command while I wallowed between laughing at his annoyance and crying the bottom boy began to screech in my face over and over again. I was hooked. I wanted to push boy 2 away, and finally did and shove cotton in the bottom boy's mouth to keep him from screaming, which I did not, only covered his mouth which he then thought was a fun game. How might have this looked different if I connected to something larger? I may have grown a taller spine, and not slumped in my mesh pool side chair under that canopy hiding from the intermittent rain. I may have realized that boy 2 needed to sit on my lap, and the bottom boy already on my lap may have needed a story or a song while we waited. I may have met them in the waiting instead of checking out and staying single-mindedly focused on what I needed. Instead I was slouched forward closing in on my heart center like I see my boys do when they are feeling bad, and my thought patterns instead of passing through me began to loop down my curved spine.

I felt bad about my response to them in that moment, but I am not beating myself up about it. I am human. I am practicing compassionate awareness when I am less than my stellar shiny brilliant being I am called to be...you too! I realize with compassionate awareness there I went again, down a less so stellar road. And instead of burping on command I burped out of reflex. So I return to connect to something larger. Something that brings in health and awareness and wisdom and love and shifts the context from I to relational awareness. It'll shift your response. For in parenting there is magic all around us; to become aware of it, to bring a vision of gratitude toward it even in the mess, even in the hard times, even in the call for something larger at work is a spiritual practice.