Going through a season of struggle with your child? You are not alone. This gentle practice can help restore your connection to resilience so you can continue nurturing out of love.
In our concern for our children, sometimes we respond out of place fear and worry. At times we may even lose touch with the love that lies beneath this care.
Reconnecting with the ground of our love and desire for our children to be happy and healthy, especially during difficult times, can be incredibly rewarding.
This practice from Wendy O’Leary offers a pause of support and encouragement that can bring you back to the core of compassionate wisdom—and you can come back to it anytime you need some loving parenting help.
A meditation on working with fear and nurturing from love
Read the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
- Sit in a comfortable position. You can close your eyes or carefully look down and soften your gaze, whatever suits you best.
- As we settle here, notice your breath or feel the sensation of your body as it connects with the earth. Feet on the floor, backs on a chair or pillow. Invite the attention to settle in a little. Come to this moment, sinking into the body with the breath and the sensations of the points of contact of the body. Get settled carefully.
- Now I invite you to shift your focus to thinking about your child, perhaps even picturing them in your imagination, remembering a time when you had warm and loving feelings for them. Pay attention to what they did and remember how you felt at that moment. You can even imagine that someone asked you What do you love about your child? What words, phrases, pictures or descriptions come to mind?
- Gently check in and pay attention to what you feel in your body, mind, and heart as you remember what you love about your child. You can even invite this feeling of love and connection to grow and expand in your body as you gently rest here in this feeling of love for your baby. Allow yourself to marinate in this feeling of love, warmth and care.
- Now think back to a time when your child was having a hard time. You don’t have to think about the hardest fight – instead, pick something that would be a three or four on a scale of one to 10.
- As you allow the situation to enter your awareness more fully, check in with your body again. Often when we focus on a difficulty, especially when it involves our child, it can be a common tendency to shrink back and lean forward. Check it out and see if it’s for you. To counter this tendency, carefully lean back a little. It can be a physical throw back or even a vigorous rest. Soften back and invite the body to soften, even expand, creating space to hold all that is. We’re not forcing anything here, it’s just a very gentle invitation to settle in and soften. Gently softening any emotions we feel.
- Now intentionally return that feeling of love by holding the challenge in a spacious field of loving care and awareness. To help you do this, you can remind yourself again of all the things you love about your child. You can even offer them a few wishes of prosperity and happiness as you picture them in your mind. May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. Or whatever desires feel real to you at this moment.
- If the situation you’re thinking of calls for some kind of response from you, you might ask yourself: How will this love respond? You can also take care of yourself because when your child is struggling, so are you. So maybe place a gentle hand on your heart or take a moment to remind yourself of our shared humanity. You might say to yourself something like, Every parent sometimes struggles with their children. Every parent sometimes worries about their child. Or another phrase that might fit your situation. You can even say to yourself It’s hard, and I’m here for you, honey.
- When you are ready, you can open your eyes to close our official practice. This practice can be a powerful way to restore feelings of love and release the worries and fears we often feel as parents. It may be helpful to complete the first part by remembering love and care as a short daily practice for a while, so that you can more easily evoke these feelings of love and connection at the most difficult time, when you most need help nurturing from love. We want to acknowledge the hard things and not lose sight of the goodness and love that lie at the root of our worries and sometimes even our difficulties with our children. With my best wishes, may you be happy and peaceful and move through life with ease and peace. Thank you for practicing with me.
