As I sing my song of “Love yourself and listen to your Truth”, parents have been coming to me and saying, “HELP! How can I love myself when I have to give so much to my children!” So I ran some ‘How To Love Yourself While Parenting’ workshops and I was amazed at what happened for people in just three hours. The parents in one group shouted at me, “Where WERE you years ago? Why has it taken this long for someone to tell us this?!”
I don’t know. I’m also still learning it. I don’t know why something this obvious isn’t taught at kindergarten.
Apparently, it’s in the “How to Be a Human 101” course that we all skipped.
It’s obvious that if our needs are not met we don’t feel ok. And it’s obvious that the only one who can know our real deeper needs is ourselves, therefore it’s up to us to ask ourselves what we need and meet the needs.
So simple. So clear.
As one mom said, “So, to love myself is to meet my own needs?” Yup. That’s it. That’s ALL.
You see, every time we blame something or someone for how we feel, we are distracting ourselves from our Truth which is; Something doesn’t feel OK because I have an unmet need. When we try to make ourselves feel better by using something external like food or alcohol or changing our child’s behavior, we are turning away from ourselves because that outside thing is not really going to meet the inside need. The need is between us and us.
Working with addictions with this method is so effective. “Let’s help you identify and meet your real needs instead of using a substitute.” I say. And after someone experiences how satisfying this is, they exclaim, “Can it really be this simple?!”
Yes. Yes it can and it is.
I’m not saying it’s easy, mind you. Just saying it’s simple.
In the three hours of the parenting workshops we discussed and practiced
- how to understand what exactly is going on in the melt-down moments,
- why we get triggered,
- how to identify and meet our real needs so that we feel more nourished and satisfied while we parent
- why doing this improves our relationship with our children and ourselves.
I sat there watching the transformations which took place from this one conversation, and felt completely amazed and indescribably honored that I get to help people learn this simple and powerful tool.
It’s strengthened my resolve to teach this to as many people as possible – in person and online.
Here’s some feedback from participants:
“Thank you for the wonderful and powerful workshop last week. It was lovely to meet you and a very enriching experience for me. I shared what I had learnt on the workshop with my husband and it has helped us both so much with understanding what is going on with our teenage son and ourselves. There has been an acceptance and a calmness that is palpable.”
“My biggest take home was a new and different perspective.”
“So effective, I can feel shifts.”
“I loved the small intimate setting & how you made everyone feel at ease.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed it and gained some great insight which has given me much to think about.”
Contact me for dates of the next workshop click here or download the PDF here How To Love Yourself While Parenting
Here’s more info on the 6 Week Love Yourself Course