This truly would change the world..."The Conscious Parent" by Dr. Shefali Tsabary.
In the first few pages...
"Many of us don't consider how the way we parent affects our children, which might cause us to change our approach. Does the method especially include listening to your child's spirit? Would we be willing to change the way we interact with our child if it became clear that what we are doing isn't working?"
"Each of us imagines we are being the best parent we can be, and most of us are indeed good people who feel great love for our children. It certainly isn't our lack of love that we impose our will on our children. Rather, it stems from a lack of consciousness. The reality is that many of us are unaware of the dynamics that exist in the relationship we have with our children."
"None of us likes to think of ourselves as unconscious. On the contrary, its a concept we tend to balk at. So defensive are many of us that, let someone say a word about our parenting style, and we are instantly triggered. However, when we begin to be aware, we redesign the dynamic we share with our children."
"Our children pay a heavy price when we lack consciousness. Overindulged, overmedicated, and over-labeled many of them are unhappy. This is because coming from unconsciousness ourselves, we bequeath to them our own unresolved needs, unmet expectations, and frustrated dreams. Despite our best intentions, we enslave them to the emotional inheritance we received from our parents, binding them to the debilitating legacy of ancestors past. The nature of unconsciouness is that, until it's metabolized, it will seep through generation after generation. Only through awareness can the cycle of pain that swirls in families end."
"To Connect With Your Children, First Connect With Yourself."
"Until we understand exactly how we have been operating in an unconscious mode, we tend to resist opening ourselves to an approach to parenting that rests on entirely different ideals from those we may have relied on until now."
"Traditional parenthood has been exercised in a manner that's hierarchical. The parent governs from the top down. After all, isn't the child our "lesser," to be transformed by us as the more knowledgeable party? Because children are smaller and don't know as much as we do, we pressume we are entitled to control them. Indeed, we are so used to the kind of family in which the parent exercises control, it perhaps doesn't even occur to us that this arrangement might not be good for either our children or ourselves."
"On the parent's side of the equation, the problem with the traditional approach to parenting is that it rigidifies the ego with its delusions of power. Since our children are so innocent and ready to be influenced by us, the tend to offer little reistance when we impose our ego on them - a situation that holds potential for the ego to become stronger."
"If you want to enter into a state of pure connection with your child, you can achieve this by setting aside any sense of superiority. By not hiding behind an egoic image, you will be able to engage your child as a real person like yourself." Dr. Shefali
Just imagine the difference it would make in the lives of children and parents to be aware and conscious and to separate ourselves into real people?
I know, that my parenting changed drastically when I discovered how disconnected I was with myself. How much I needed my children to fulfill my needs and how I had parented so unconscious...as unconscious as I was myself.
I would highly recommend this book, for its goal is to erase the dysfunction unconsciousness breeds. Some may think that sexual abuse was the biggest factor in creating dysfunction in our home, but its overriding system was unconscious parenting.
Just the fact that the FALC awards parents who can create mini selves with their children, when you can have them all conform to your beliefs, shows the model of NOT seeing the child and its spirit.
It would horrify the loving parents of many religions to know they are actually shutting out the spirit of their child when they impose their expectations upon their child.
Instead of many religions igniting the spirit, they are separating the child from who they were born to be.
I can't express adequately the powerful change I experienced when I understood these two drastically different ways of parenting....unconscious to conscious.
When parents change the way they parent...we will see beautiful expressions of spirits being born...instead of the continual seeping of dysfunction from one generation to the next. The sheer volume of pain unconscious parents create would stop...if they first connected to their own pain....their self.
Our generation is the start of this paradigm shift.
Just to be aware we do not have the right to douse the spirit of a real person.
