During the planning of our first child, my partner and I spent about eight months developing and deepening our relationship with each other and ourselves, observing our behaviours, patterns and any expectations we had around how things should be or look in our lives, each other, and us as parents. From the conception, throughout the pregnancy and birth we both felt it important to make it all about connection; a willingness to feel what was needed rather than being outcome-driven by any expectations we may have had.
The connection and willingness to listen to and honour my body was not something that happened overnight: it was a forever unfolding and development of myself and how I was in life. This supported me more than anything I could get from Google or books.
With the birth of our child came a whole new download of ideals, beliefs and expectations of how things should be. Observing these as they came up, seeing them for what they were and not something I had felt or was impulsed by, allowed me to let them go and be more in the flow of life. Things still got done but there was a ‘being’ rather than a ‘doing,’ a connection to my body and a feeling, an impulse of what was needed next. With this connection and impulse came a shift in the quality and way I moved and lived in and with that quality the deeper connection to my body and a sense of space unfolded. Time began to stand still: space and flow entered more and more as I let go of the pictures and allowed myself to feel what was truly needed without an imposition on myself or our child.
I had heard of this quality and space spoken of before at Universal Medicine events and presentations, but it all felt so alien and out of reach for me. My body held a quality that was of hardness and tension in this quality I lived, moved and expressed, so I found it impossible to fathom how I could be any different. Moving into a quality that was more a natural state of being took me time. I soon discovered it was achievable, not out of my reach and a lot simpler than I had first thought.
Observing myself in each moment – how I moved, why I made the choices I did, what and how I ate, slept and expressed in – began to bring a quality to my day that no longer felt so out of reach. This new-found body awareness supported me to connect to a quality within that moved me, rather than being moved by pictures and ideals that come from the outside.
With every movement and expression I held a responsibility, a reflection and an opportunity to offer true love and support. If I moved in a way that was to get things done without the awareness of how I was moving, there was no true flow… time always seemed to be against me.
Our child was always more settled when I was living and moving from the awareness and connection to my body. Without the presence and awareness I struggled and so did our child. I was not able to feel what was needed and instead would go into the ‘fix it’ mode, trying to pacify our child with different solutions until I found one that worked. But they were only solutions and never did they truly offer support to our child or me: they offered peace in that moment but not a truth. It was an unsettlement I was already feeling in my own body, so when our child began to cry, it was a further unsettlement I was not prepared or willing to let myself feel. For me to be able to offer our child a truth, I had to be able to feel what was needed, and sometimes that may have been to allow our child to cry and be OK with that.
If I allowed myself to feel all that was being presented and needed from my own connection with myself first, then I could move in a way that supported us both and from those movements there was space and an opportunity for me to offer her what was needed without any attachment or need to fix it. It was from this that I could see there is no struggle, only that which I create through not allowing there to be space.
With being me – connecting to my body, feeling what was next, not having a picture of how that should look or be – came a flow, space and simplicity. I was able to observe life and all that went on around me without reacting. I was beginning to live in and from a quality that was now governed by an alignment to my Soul, letting go of the pictures my wayward spirit that loved to indulge in complication, separation and distraction, held onto. Soul called me to the simplicity, love and connection to myself and all others, which is exactly what children call for – connection and true love.
Our Spirit loves nothing more than to see us in a spin, racing against the clock, living with self-doubt, constant overwhelm and frustration. Let’s face it, for many of us this is how we live, this is how we are in relationships and for the most this is how we parent, this is classified and accepted as ‘normal.’. I made the connection and realised the reflection I was offering was one of two – either true connection or disconnection and discombobulation.
Parenting is not meant to be hard; it is not meant to be overwhelming. Yes, at times, it can be challenging. That challenge comes from our own disconnection and then a call from the child for us to be present, to live and move in and from a quality that is impulsed by our Soul and not run by our Spirit.
We now have three children and with each one, the quality of my movements has deepened, as has my awareness and discernment. From this, how I parent has changed as I am more aware and willing to see the truth of what is going on around me.
Universal Medicine has supported me to deepen my connection with myself, my Soul and God. It is from this that parenting has been a natural unfoldment and development. Without this connection and love for myself, our home, children and relationship would not have the foundation or be what they are today. The level of stillness, harmony, quality and depth in our home is a testimony to how, when we make life about love and connection, true parenting and true living occurs.
By Nicole Serafin, 46, NSW, Australia
Further Reading:
Building true relationships and positive parenting
The Purpose of Parenting
Learning to be in Relationship without Pictures
106 Comments
What supports and nurtures one person in any given moment may be very different to that of another therefore it is paramount to connect to oneself and learn to discover the unfolding of what is needed. The joy of the path of return to oneself is far greater than reading books, listening to the advice from others without discernment or from Google.
When love is present life feels very harmonious, there is a flow, a stillness, and a feeling of being held. Love lets you just be, no expectations, push or pictures.
Beautiful – so simple – and wonderfully expressed.
I really like what you are sharing here that there is big difference to those expectations, beliefs and ideals that circulate around us and in general society about pretty much any given topic and how we actually feel about it on the inside. Learning to be honest and up front about how we actually feel about something versus what we have been told to feel is a great thing to develop in one’s life.
“With being me – connecting to my body, feeling what was next, not having a picture of how that should look or be – came a flow, space and simplicity”. As many move from away their heads, attention shifts to our bodies and how it speaks to us. I agree, life becomes more simple and in the flow when guided by our bodies. Attached to and trying to make life fit pictures we’ve created, shuts out space and all the possibilities that come with it.
Kehinde I agree wholeheartedly with you “With being me – connecting to my body, feeling what was next, not having a picture of how that should look or be – came a flow, space and simplicity”. to the best of my ability I am using this approach in my new job and when I do my days are nothing short of incredible. I have a list of things that need addressing first but I stay open to what I feel pulled to do and the interesting thing is that quite often it’s something from the list that has a low priority but what I am finding is that if I don’t question it and simply just do it then everything that needed addressing gets addressed and more importantly, I have stayed connected and centred throughout my day.
Having children is another experience of being in relationship just like being in relationship with our partners, our friends or others in the community and most importantly with ourselves. To keep it simple by deepening our relationship with ourselves and building love and awareness will support and have a natural flow-on effect to our child – when we don’t choose this their reflection will let us know.
‘We now have three children and with each one, the quality of my movements has deepened, as has my awareness and discernment. From this, how I parent has changed as I am more aware and willing to see the truth of what is going on around me.’ How many of us as parents can honestly say we do the same thing? What is being presented here is a whole new way to approach life and parenting. An awesome sharing.
Oh my what an amazing blog.
so many golden nuggets on here that are truly supportive to read.
“not having a picture of how that should look or be – came a flow, space and simplicity.” Pictures of how we ‘think’ it ‘should’ be set us up to feel inadequate.
Children are like the biggest mirrors in the world – they reflect in perfect precision everything we do that isn’t true. They pull you naturally to be in your sweetness, but if you resist you end up smashing theirs – a horrific price to pay.
So true Joseph and much wisdom you share here. When both my children came along it was a huge shift and transformational time in my life in so many ways which I had not expected. Simply by their arrival and presence they brought so much love and asked me to rediscover who I was. I said yes to this and it has been a beautiful unfolding for the last 10 years since.
What’s so devastating is that so many of us as parents are so hardened and disconnected that we are unable to truly feel or see the reflection that our babies and children bring. To make matters worse because so many of us go into parenting already exhausted, we become even more exhausted and being in an exhausted state makes it almost impossible to feel the truth of a situation. So what happens then is that we, as the parents hold out with our original hardened approach to life and as you say Joseph the child then calibrates themselves to us. Hence the world we live it, hard and disconnected.
I craved connection when I was a child. I remember I always wanted to have a game such as a board game for Christmas because I wanted to feel the connection with others. As grown ups we can come up with many excuses to not connect with others but this is simply a reflection of the lack of connection to ourselves.
Caroline, I also remember the craving of connection as a child. The thing is, connection is very simple to do and takes only a moment. In that moment we realise the profundity of that choice and so can build a commitment to keep sustaining those moments. How much do we want this however? It feels like we would prefer to be in the misery of the disconnect and therefore avoid the responsibility we have to reflect this to others than feel the joy, normality and steadiness of it.
Is it possible that not being connected to as children by parents and other adults, begins the process of disconnecting from ourselves? Where do we go to when another does not meet us? Being able to feel and appreciate ourselves once more, ripples out to those we meet and work with, never is it soley for ourselves.
Ideas and pictures about how things should be, play havoc with whatever it is that we have expectations about. We have this immoveable image that we hold up and then invariably get disappointed when the reality of the situation doesn’t match the picture. To make matters worse, when we have these pictures in relationships then quite often the two people have different pictures and so instantly there’s a clash. We need to shred our pictures and be open to whatever is in front of us and then deal with what’s there with honesty and responsibility. If we were to do this then so much would shift on both a micro and a macro level.
Chaos or an unsettlement within the home no doubt occurs when I am disconnected to myself; bring myself back to me and as I observe a miracle can unfold instantaneously where harmony is restored within my family. Each and every choice (from soul or from spirit) has on those around us cannot ever be ignored for it is clocked within my body whether I like it or not.
This totally confirms our responsibility for remaining connected. Our choices have the capacity to impact on others in ways many of us are not ready to admit to.
Humbling to acknowledge our part in creating whatever is happening around us. We have enormous responsibility to bring stability and harmony to family or work situations. Everything comes back to how we are and when aligned to and move with soul, miracles become everyday and normal.
How often do we try to raise our kids, for them to have it easier than we had it growing up? Are we trying to make childhood better? The child comes unbroken and we attempt to fix it?
When we parent from the perspective you refer to here Steve, what we are trying to fix is actually ourselves and our hurts (not our kids) through our kids, and our kids feel it as an imposition as the ‘better’ is laced with ideals and beliefs.
Or from observation (not judgement as none of us are perfect) how often do we raise our kids without fully connecting to and with them? And not this being once a week or once a day but the whole time and not just with our children but with everyone in our life. Connection with both ourselves and others truly is key 💫
Just reading this feels deeply healing. what true parenting feels like. All too often what I see regarding parenting advice and input is a formula that’s tried to be tacked onto what is going on and no pause to read and feel what’s actually being communicated.
Everyone is diminished when we get caught up in trying to impose formulas rather than feeling what is called for as a child unfolds in its development.
So many people parent from a place of anxiety, what is the ‘right’ thing to do, and are we doing the same as everyone else? I certainly can remember that feeling years ago with a young family. As we learn about our own bodies and the space we have all around us, we can parent from that settled place which has a very different feel to it.
So many of us do not feel confident that we are enough and then when we raise our kids we are looking constantly outside of ourselves for the ‘right’ way of doing things getting anxious when things don’t look or feel as we think they should. If we can accept ourselves for who we are, as we are, connecting to our bodies (as you say Gill), then we know we are more than enough to know our children well and to know what they need.
I agree Gill that “So many people parent from a place of anxiety, what is the ‘right’ thing to do, and are we doing the same as everyone else?” and would add that so many of us live our entire lives from a place of anxiousness, a constant trying to figure out what to do, how to be, who to be etc. There is a collective nervousness in people and it’s very unsettling for us all. But once we re-connect to the eternal aspect of who we all are, to the essence and truth of who we all are, then that nervous tension simply disappears, it’s replaced by a beautiful groundedness, simple, true and accessible to all.
So gorgeous to read this., it feels very settling and nurturing in the body. The quality of what you live can be felt.
Beautiful and deeply confirming of the space a mother holds when connected to her beingness, the love she naturally emanates when living from her Soul. I love how you kept bringing it back to your movements, Nicole and how you felt impulsed by your body. I particularly liked how you shared that when you felt unsettled, it then had the ripple effect of unsettling your child. As a mother of three myself, I can vouch for this….my children were like relationship radars – any unsettling tension in my relationship with my husband or from within myself, was soon played out before my eyes in their behaviours. It was an incredible learning curve.
The commitment you and your partner made to one another has held you in very grand stead and your family life can only be a truly divine reflection for all….thank you for sharing, for the wisdom of a woman’s body is a true beauty to be deeply honoured as you most clearly do.
Children certainly offer us amazing ‘relationship radars’ with ourselves, each other and the reflection of the child’s ease or unsettlement. When we are open to this learning we get to feel how we truly are within our bodies.
Yes, they’re great barometers of what’s going on around them. Recently I heard of somewhere where the adults are having to deal with great change in their lives and the children’s behaviour is reflecting the chaos the adults are feeling to a very obvious extent.
Everyone is a ‘relationship radar’ and being open to this a key part of our learning. Like children, working with elders constantly reflects the quality of our movements and they will tell you verbally or non-verbally when we’re off-key. With awareness, we listen, refine and re-connect.
This feeling that you are expressing
“My body held a quality that was of hardness and tension in this quality I lived, moved and expressed, ”
Is something many if not most of us feel a guard that we put up against the world. And we can feel that hardness in others as they protect themselves. When we meet a baby its a time where if we allow it we can feel the connection that they have with their bodies and feel that connection again in us.
That is why we all melt so much at the sight of babies! The sad thing for me is that this response to a child lessens as they get older as they start to harden in the hardening they feel from us all around them. We have such a responsibility to live in a quality that says to our kids it is ok to stay open and connected so that they feel safe to be themselves.
You bring a totally different feel to what it is like to be a parent in this busy world, and offer a pause for young mums to consider whether they need to be so caught up in the way things ‘should’ be done.
I agree Gill. A read I am sure would be super supportive for many mums both new and old, and a testimony that when we make it about quality and connection it can be clearly felt both for ourselves and others. A great reminder.
Ideals, beliefs and expectations are all forms of interference. They interfere with the flow of life. Life will and does flow quite magically when it’s not interfered with but we love to meddle with it, we really do.
Yes, our spirit loves nothing more than to see us in a spin, a mess, some form of self destruction.
I am learning to see this for what it is so that I can nip the game in the bud.
It makes sense that the relationship we have with ourselves will impact on our children. Looking back I can see how things were unnecessarily chaotic when my first child was born and had I been practising what has been presented in this article things would have been very different for both parents and the child.
As it does with all we relate to. I’m aware of how our relationship with self impacts on those we care for be it children, adults or elders. When we’re settled within and aligned to soul, our settlement is felt by another and often brings that same quality to their own bodies.
This is a pre-conception way of looking at parenting which few are afforded or choose. It is great to hear how it has worked for you.
I completely agree that what children want most (having observed my own children) is true love and connection and nothing or everything else will not suffice or replace this.
I remember that this is what I craved too as a child. Anything else was a layering over the top that I had no choice but to settle for. This settlement however was unhealthy, as in the acceptance that this was how it was I shut down and become hardened to life. I therefore became hardened to myself too, rejecting my innate sensitivity and fragility that decades later I have reconnected to and have realised were my greatest assets after all. I feel fortunate that I have got to a point where this re-connection has occurred, but for most of us this hardening and settlement lasts a lifetime, which perpetuates through the generations.
Nicole this is so beautiful, so very beautiful indeed.
Beautiful to feel how you surrendered to the flow and space offered by connecting to your Soul and how this was reflected in your parenting.
“Things still got done but there was a ‘being’ rather than a ‘doing,’ a connection to my body and a feeling, an impulse of what was needed next. ” I love this Nicole – a recipe for life.
Thank you Nicole for sharing your honest experience with parenting. I am not a mother but I find it very inspirational especial following sentences: “If I moved in a way that was to get things done without the awareness of how I was moving, there was no true flow… time always seemed to be against me.” I only can relate to it and find it very confirming to read about it in your awesome blog.
‘Parenting is not meant to be hard; it is not meant to be overwhelming. Yes, at times, it can be challenging. That challenge comes from our own disconnection and then a call from the child for us to be present, to live and move in and from a quality that is impulsed by our Soul and not run by our Spirit.’ This is so beautifully summed up. It is interesting to note that so many of us have children out of ideals rather than from a true impulse that knows the purpose in raising them and so it can get hard when our children challenge those beliefs as children are rarely ok with them. To me one of the most awesome things about having kids is that challenge to those set ideals. We can choose to get into conflict and/or denial blaming our kids for their behaviour, or see the opportunities for healing that our children present in the reflection of their reaction.. that is not to say that our kids don’t have their own stuff to deal with that is separate from how their parents are living, as this is always going to be the case, but the key is to work out what the reflections are for me as a parent that are connected to them and what is there that my children have brought through that they need support with. The bottom lines is that family life offers a rich soup for us all to learn and grow!
Wow love the statement you make here that there is no struggle only that which we create by not allowing the space that would otherwise naturally be there – this is a game changer for everyone on the planet if we fully understood this and practised it.
Space is crammed full of the intelligence of God, it’s who we all are and the fact that we don’t consciously know ourselves to be the God that we all are is simply a reflection of the complication, struggle and distortion that we are all dedicated to constantly bring in.
Noticing how your baby settled depending how you were, gives us an awakening awareness to realise how we all affect each other. There is nothing to drive to do, but allow the space to simply be, and observe how things change.
As my daughter is about to give birth I am remembering how much she reflected to me as a baby where I was at and how when I allowed myself to be pulled out she was always more unsettled and parenting became more of a struggle but when I surrendered to the connection between us I was shown what was required in each moment.
Helen, I have definitely noticed the same correlation between my state of being and that of our daughter and now that she is older she does not hesitate to call us out if she feels my wife or I are not being ourselves and are in reaction or overly-emotional about something. I feel this open feedback from our kids is an important thing to foster. Also, another thing I have observed is that as my partner and I have deepened our love and appreciation for each other our daughter has responded by taking greater care for herself and not getting in as much reaction to things, as well as expressing her love for us more openly.
Yes children feel everything that is going on energetically around them and they don’t hold back in expressing how they feel about it!
“This new-found body awareness supported me to connect to a quality within that moved me, rather than being moved by pictures and ideals that come from the outside. Beautifully expressed Nicole.
Yes indeed it is our bodies that can support us to navigate and discern what is true and harmonious and what is not in this world.
“Our child was always more settled when I was living and moving from the awareness and connection to my body. ” This is often little understood: how our movements express a quality that is felt by others. When we’re steady, others around us will feel equally so and same applies when we’re rushed and or full of anxiousness.
Yes and babies and children are sensitive to those movements in a way that adults have forgotten. It is well worth paying attention to what a babies and children are communicating as we can learn so much about ourselves in the process.
With this wonderful blog, what we have accepted for so long as being parenting, is now being exposed and replaced by what true parenting is. I love how the change has all come from within you, Nicole, and not from outside of you. By making the choice to reconnect to your Soul, you were reconnecting to your inner knowing, the wise woman who instinctively knows how to parent, no books and definitely no Dr Google needed, but a simple yes to truth.
Reading this deeply beautiful, stilling sharing, a question arises – what do we live for? What moves us in life? Something inside us, or outside. And it becomes pretty clear there is a totally different way of living this thing we call life on earth.
I wished I’d had this kind of support when I went through pregnancy and the birth of my child. I was very much caught in the “doing” when he was born and am still working on breaking down the ideas and beliefs that seemed to rule my life around the time my child was born. Parenting comes with a lot of “should’s: that are not necessarily helpful.
“With being me – connecting to my body, feeling what was next, not having a picture of how that should look or be – came a flow, space and simplicity.” ‘Being with me’ too simple to believe the Truth and ease it brings, yet so true.
Children bring us so much more than we realise. They can challenge us because they can feel when we are disconnected. You show us how much can be learned about ourselves when we are willing to be open and know our children are our equals.
Yes, very true, the wisdom of the young is not appreciated and yet it shares with us gems that are beyond financial gain.
I love what you bring here – none of the rush and chaos, excitement and desire to do things right that one would normally expect; instead there is space, there is stillness and there is connection.
Space, stillness and connection = God. Sublime, utterly sublime.
Thank you Nicole, really appreciate the beauty, simplicity, wisdom and inspirational sharing, from a true & natural reflection of what is possible to be lived.
What i like about this post is that it feels real in the everyday living of life examples given, these can be lived by anyone of us, is inclusive of biological parents and of those of us who do not have children. This clear message is for us all for we are all whether we realise it or not are continuously either parenting ourselves and or each other. The quality of that parenting how it will be comes from how we choose to live as presented here in exactly what you have shared.