do I let you find yourself when I myself am lost?” Such times are bound
to descend upon us occasionally. Raising an infant often demands we put
our throbbing headache, aching heart, or injured spirit on the back burner
for the time being and focus on our child’s needs. At such times, the way
out of our pain is through it. We simply allow our pain to be what it is
and just be with it to the best of our ability.
Parenting consciously isn’t about “getting it right” all the time, but
about evolving together. Children are immensely forgiving, and neither
are they irreparably damaged by those times when we come up short. On
the contrary, they learn to accept their own limitations through seeing us
accept ours.
When we serve our children in a reasonably consistent manner,
respectful of their dignity as our spiritual partners and friends, we enter a
state of humility and gratitude. We give back because we have received
so much. In so doing, we create a circle of lasting kinship and spiritual
regeneration.A CHANCE TO RECOVER YOUR RHYTHM
With a baby, we need to be there when it’s thirsty, hungry, cries, needs
changing, wishes to play, and wants to go to sleep. This can be
challenging, especially for those of us who are attached to the traditional
ways of living and relating, which are centered on verbalizing,
intellectualizing, and performing. Infancy is anything but these.
Because infants operate not in the realm of the verbal and intellectual,
but in a dreamlike existence suspended between sleep and wakefulness,
neither here nor there, we are unable to communicate with them through