with their inner being, they will be at peace within themselves, which is
the key to a life that’s resplendent with meaning.BECOMING A PARENT WHO IS PRESENT
While a parent is called upon to provide their child with emotional
guidance, stability, acceptance, and safety, the child is invited into the
parent’s life to teach something only a child can: how to engage life with
the presence, authenticity, and joyful spontaneity that adults have lost as
a result of their own unconscious upbringing.
Parenting requires moment-by-moment presence with our children,
brought to bear in a zillion incidents of engagement or nonengagement.
This is why we can’t simply master an ingenious strategy here or a
clever technique there. The conscious approach is a living, breathing,
organic, every-moment approach through which our children soak in our
relationship to life and thereby learn to follow their own spirit, thus
impressing their own unique imprint on their life. Hence the manner in
which we are connected to our own inner self and live out our own
purpose ultimately impacts our children more than anything else.
For this reason, it behooves us to monitor how present we truly are by
getting in the habit of asking ourselves the following types of questions:
Am I able to quiet my mind and sit in stillness?
Am I able to stop my thoughts and smell, hear, and taste my every
moment?
Am I able to laugh uncontrollably even when life isn’t working
according to “the plan?”
Am I able to show empathy for another even when I’m hurting?