Meditative Parenting With Molly Knight Forde

Molly’s journey… 

Kids are now 25, 21, 16 year old, some time as a single parent…  Survived psychological abuse and then self sabotage during child/teen years.

Moved to Paris to study classical piano.

Found a Zen Meditation Dojo which opened up new possibilities…

“Having the kids put a demand on me to take care of myself.”

“Meditation around noticing myself…  self observation…  Separate off so you can see you…  Aiming for moments of presence in anything I did – washing the dishes, reading to my kids, playing piano…  Those little moments became more frequent.” 

I teach meditation…

Trying to have moments of presence where you develop an observer…  One method is to ask, “Am I in my body?” Can I talk to my kids and have awareness in my legs?  You start to develop an attention…  To remind ourselves to be present in the moment…

Our bodies go to what is familiar – our patterns become our instinctual reaction.

“The way we parent is a mirror of how we treat ourselves on the inside…”

Integrating with moments of presence will allow us to be much better parents.

WE DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!

There is wisdom and information in your body – BEGIN TO NOTICE IT!

Use an external cue – a red car, for example – that you are going to set that reminds you “I need to be here now” the cue can come and remember “I am right here and I am aware of my awareness.”

This practice makes awareness show up more often when you are in the moment of difficulty.

E Squared – book

Step back and have some choice with our children…  and model that for them.

How to live consciously and know that things aren’t perfect – but that doesn’t mean I have to take it personally – I have empathy into their learning so I don’t have to be mad at them because they haven’t done something.

We all need to make mistakes to learn.

How do we teach this to our kids?

Is your child a thinker?  A mover?  A feeler?  Figure out where they are at and help them to develop/integrate the others in – we need them all to be balanced.

Questions for instagating this awareness in our kids:

–       How are you feeling?
–       How is your body experiencing this emotion?
–       If you could write down what you are saying to yourself, what would you write?

Bring light to their inner considerer – stuck in story about the future or the past…  get them to notice those kinds of thoughts.

Noticing more about themselves…  The more I do the work, then I don’t have to teach them anything because they are learning energetically…  They learn by example. 

Being able to feel as opposed to thinking without feeling…

COMMON LANGUAGE!!

Breath is a body thing…  When our kids are worked up, asking them “Are you breathing?” is an invitation to awareness…

Walk the walk and talk the talk and they will pick it up…