This is how my husband and I are choosing to parent our two gorgeous daughters, trusting our own instincts, modelling to our girls, that trusting your own instinct is the key to living an abundant life. There is so much external noise around all of us in life, and I feel that society in the main is missing the important fact, that each of us has our own inner voice, which is more than capable of guiding us through life. We just need to trust her, and tune into what she is trying to say to us from moment to moment.
Trusting my instincts, impacts every area of my life, including parenting.
My husband and I have been blessed with holding a nurturing space, for our 2 daughters to find their own way, and use their own inner guidance to live the life they want to live. My instinct, is to give this freedom now as much as feels comfortable for us to do so.
Both my daughters are highly creative, intelligent young ladies and as a parent, I believe, it is my responsibility to give them the opportunity to continue building their superpowers (AKA the things they already excel in) and encourage them to explore their curiosity and other areas of life which excite them.
In order to do this, it requires us to hand over the reins to a point, and allow them to take full responsibility for their own decisions and actions. How else do they learn to trust in their own decisions in life, if they don’t start doing this at a young age?
From time to time, my "inner"mama bear steps into manage a situation, but more often than not, when I meet resistance from my daughters, this is a reminder for me to step out of their way. Of course I can get it wrong at times, and perfection is never what I aspire for, rather, I realise too, that this parenting journey is for my soul growth and expansion in infinite ways, and there are more times than not, that I get it wrong, before I get it right.
If you believe that life is always supporting and guiding you, then why wouldn’t life be guiding and supporting your child as well? This is something I mull over from time to time and often helps me to feel at ease, when I’m struggling with any given situation.
I often tell my daughters, that the only way that they learn to trust their own intuition in life, is for my husband and I to create the space for them to make their own decisions for their life and support them in their decision making process.
For instance, when it came time for both my daughters to research high schools, that they thought they might like to attend, we held the space by asking questions about what felt important to them when choosing a high school – Did they want to be with their good friends? Did they want to attend a high school which offered lots of varied subject choices? Were extra curricular opportunities important to them? What sporting and dancing opportunities were available for them? Both our girls loved dance and playing team sport. If they were attending a religious school, did they want to study religion? Then we supported whatever decision they made.
In fact, our eldest daughter opted to attend a school, that we actually didn’t think was in her best interests, and we still supported her decision to attend the high school of her choice – And guess what? She is now heading into Year 10 at this high school, has an amazing friendship group, is loving attending this school and is thriving academically.
I know that I have my own philosophies about life, which I’ve explored for myself and I want my girls to be able to explore this for themselves too. It starts with me, trusting my own instincts, and my husband and myself, giving them the freedom to do so for themselves. They may not end up believing in the things that I believe in and I will be OK with this, as long as they are tuning into what their own personal needs are and honouring their inner knowing.