Hello, dear conscious parent!
Love is not enough. Yes, you’ve heard me: love is not enough in parenting. How do I dare say this, you may ask…? Well, if love were enough:
- Why do you yell at your child?
- Why do you get upset with your child?
- Why are you impatient with your child?
- Why do you feel guilty, even ashamed of your reactions?
- Why aren’t you more playful and light-hearted?
- Why aren’t you fully present in the moment?
- Why do you withhold your affection, even temporarily?
- Why do you punish?
- Why do you care about grades and other cultural/ social rankings?
Don’t get me wrong: I fully understand. The stresses of modern life and modern parenting are unprecedented, while the support system for the Family and the Developing Child has been diminished with cruelty in Western societies. Parents had never before in the history of humanity been burdened with so many demands and so little support.
With that said, we must accept that, ultimately, it is our personal responsibility to take charge of our mental and emotional health, so we can be the parents we want to be. (Spoiler alert: The knight on a white horse is not coming to save us!)
If we are honest with ourselves, we accept that love is not enough to keep us being patient, empathetic, unconditional, accepting, playful and creative parents. So, what else do we need, besides love? Here’s my short list:
- commitment
- intentionality
- continuous learning
- self- awareness work
- personal healing work
- self-care practices
- a support system that we must build ourselves
- skills to be present in the moment
- humbleness
The work of parenting is hard; conscious parenting is even harder for all the reasons mentioned above. However, it is the only work that matters because your child’s future quality of life depends on who you are as a parent today. His/her brain is wiring for success or failure depending on what’s happening in the family environment today.
The knight on a white horse is not coming, but YOU CAN BE THE UNICORN of your child’s life 🦄🦄🦄. Don’t wait!
On that note, here is what a parent in my CONSCIOUS PARENT ACCELERATOR PROGRAM wrote to me:
🍎🍎🍎“I want to share with you how grateful I am for having the opportunity to work with Mihaela in her Conscious Parent Accelerator Program. In these first two weeks not only I have dealt with a lot of emotions and have felt very vulnerable but also I have been able to use the tools she has shared with us and that has given me hope that I can have a deep and honest connection with my daughter that will last forever. I feel like I am going to be the mother I would like to be and above all, that my daughter will have someone she can trust and she will feel loved and accepted no matter what. Thank you, Mihaela, for the hope! “
Email me at parentingmadeconscious@gmail.com if you want to enrol in my next cohort.
If you are not in my Conscious Parent Accelerator Program yet, it will be very hard to change your default reactivity on your own: Here’s what one parent said about the program:
Hi Mihaela,
I just wanted to say I’m very happy I’m taking this course now. I’m learning a lot of things I didn’t know. Although I was expecting to go straight into our children, I find that the introspection you prompted at the beginning was absolutely necessary. I’m actually surprised that after years of therapy and self improvement I still find all these emotions and unresolved conflicts in me. Somehow, the fact that it’s a course and not therapy makes me wonder if now I’ll finally be able to close those chapters in my life that are still clearly open. I can see that the tools you are giving me are for life. I also like the small group discussions; I find there’s a lot to gain when others put into words things I may be struggling to describe, or that I thought I had overcome but someone expresses it more clearly now and I can see it under new light.
I can’t wait for the rest of the course!