Parenting From The Heart: Using Intuition and Instinct
This is a piece on 'intuitive parenting' I wrote recently for www.wildparenting.com, a Toronto-based blog dedicated to "inspiring and supporting parents who practice a holistic, community-based, freedom-filled lifestyle with their kids."
Intuitive parenting is a new term, one of many that indicates our
desire to relate to our children with more heart. Many of us want to
move away from traditional authoritarian models of the past and towards
a new parenting paradigm that promotes wholeness for both parent and
child. Attachment parenting, natural parenting, and consensual living
are a few other new terms that come to mind, along with activities that
emphasize the connection between parent and child: extended
breastfeeding, baby-wearing, gentle discipline, co-sleeping and
elimination communication.
Intuitive parenting can be seen as an
expansion and continuation of attachment parenting behaviors that are
the focus of the child's early years. Attachment parenting allows you
the room to honor your child's feelings and your own, as guides to what
needs to happen so your child can be healthy and happy. Intuitive
parenting takes that a step further and not only says, "Yes, you are
allowed to follow your feelings; they aren't wrong", but says "Yes,
please, follow those feelings! Listen to them more than any information
you get from outside yourself; they give you invaluable information and
show you the way to go!".
As an intuitive, I've had to learn to
resolve our society's fraught relationship with emotion. My ability to
feel has been clarified, enhanced and extended in such a way that I can
use it as a powerful tool to investigate almost any phenomenon. I have
gotten in touch with myself at a deep enough level that it has allowed
me to feel into the collective consciousness and therefore find out
about things 'outside' myself, from the inside.
We all come
hardwired to do this, to come into connection with ourselves and then
find that we are more connected to others. The journey of being a
parent takes us there anyway, but if we intentionally cultivate this
process, what a resource we have to make the journey easier and more
enjoyable! Learning to 'get' your baby's cues for feeding or using your
instincts when practicing elimination communication are both examples
of things that require emotional connection and intuition but also
improve your connection and ability to be intuitive.
I use my
intuition constantly with my daughter, from tuning in about which
homeopathic remedy to give her, to getting a sense of what she might
need developmentally at each stage of her growth. I tune in on what
type of food her body might need or how to approach her with something
that needs to happen but she might resist. All caregivers do this sort
of thing to some degree but may not be totally conscious of it. Linking
this ability to your conscious mind means you can use it more
powerfully, more effectively, and more creatively.
For me,
listening to my subtle feelings and being true to them is an important
part of staying safe, finding optimal ways of completing tasks, and
creating a fulfilling life. I want to be able to model that for my
daughter. Her strong connection to her own intuition will guide her
properly when she's out in the world. It will help her to find the
right people to be with and have nourishing bonds with them. It will
help her find the activities that are right for her, at the right
times, and guide her toward career satisfaction, among other things.
Most
of all, using my emotional openness and intuitive listening
communicates to her that I really care who she is and what her inner
experience is like. This lets her know she is valued and loved.
So
how might one go about becoming more of an intuitive parent? Clearing
out the places where we haven't let ourselves feel, is key to allowing
the subtler hints that we usually associate with intuition. Often we
block feeling when we don't think we'll be able to do anything to
affect change, or if we think feeling will make us dis-empowered or
vulnerable. Sometimes we are afraid of what our feelings will tell us
to do. ("If I let myself feel how much I hate my job, I'd have to leave
it tomorrow, but I can't because we need the income.")
I've
discovered that not only do I feel better when I let my feelings run
their course, but then I can see the whole picture, not just the
intellectual aspects or “logical” answers. The decisions I come to are
often surprising, and not ones I could have anticipated before allowing
the emotional process to complete itself. My emotions don't compel me
to do anything; I can make decisions from a place of integration
between heart and mind.
Once we are in the habit of allowing
ourselves to be aware of our feelings in the moment we are feeling
them, that's when we are open to ideas that come out of the ether or
become able to pick up what's happening with others just by being in
their presence. Essentially, we attend to our own internal environment
in such a way that we then have room to be truly present with the world
and with the people we love.
Here is a list of a few things that can help cultivate intuition:
* Give yourself overt permission to feel and value your emotions and follow your intuition
* Cultivate relationships with others who allow and respect feelings and who use intuition themselves
* Practice just being with your feelings without trying to change them; sit with them until they disperse or change
* Use practices like journaling or art therapy exercises to explore what your feelings are telling you
* Let your children know that feelings are valuable information, even if (or especially if) they are intense
*
Show your children that emotions can be expressed in a variety of ways,
and that we can consider the impact of their expression on others while
still protecting our right to have them
* Ask your “insides” questions about issues concerning yourself and your children
*
Use open-ended questions to help determine if your intuitions about
your child's inner life are correct; feed back to her what you hear to
find out if you've understood
* Take what resonates from expert
advice and ignore the rest; use your gut to tell you when and in what
context to use what you've found helpful
* Practice using your intuition with small things and graduate to bigger things as your trust level increases
