How to be your OWN parenting expert

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Full Transcript

A lot of mothers feel quite insecure about their capacity to parent, about their knowledge of their children, their family and their parenting (you may be one of them and if so... read on!).

Generally, a lot of parents spend a lot of time going out there, looking for answers from other people, from the experts.
In this video we’re sharing ways that you can become your OWN greatest adviser first, how you can answer your own questions, those ones that you would generally put out there to other people, to the people you see as the experts.

In this current age of information overload (including here on Mama Thrive), theres A LOT of information always coming at mothers, and it’s all external to yourself.

There’s often a lot of experts claiming to know the right way to raise your children, the right way to parent your children and this brings us right out of ourselves. When we aren’t connected within ourselves we become very insecure and seek answers outside of ourselves. This can also be an ingrained habit because that’s what we’re told to do, to put our trust in someone else’s knowing and decisions.

 

Right from the time when we get pregnant on, we’re told that the experts outside of ourselves hold the answers

... and even before motherhood, we’re generally raised in a society where we get the answers outside of ourselves, we’re not generally taught to trust our own intuition.

BUT the reality is... you know your child, you know yourself, you know your family and you know the situation, the unique situation that you’re in currently with the people you’re close to involved... and that’s something an outside expert will never know as well as you do- ever. 

You also have within you, a really strong instinctual drive and intuitive connection.

This is within everyone but one gift of motherhood is an extra strong reconnection back to it, often more strongly than before giving birth to children.

We hold within us a place where we can access our Inner Truth, a deeper truth beyond all the ideas and theories, that feels right to us, that is our truth. It is your unique truths for you and your family.

When you can access that inner wisdom then you have so much more empowerment around your own experience of motherhood. It’s clearer for you what solutions you need to enact, it’s clearer for you when you need to make decisions, it allows you to step out around other mothers with much more confidence in yourself and your family’s approaches and it allows you to look outward, at all the information that's out there through the lens of your own truth.

It can be great to be exposed to new ideas, new solutions, but when you can look at external information with a strong grounding in and connection to your own truth, when you can know what’s true for you, then you can pick and choose.

Your Inner Knowing serves as a filter, you can understand clearly what is for you to take on and what is for you to let go and let pass by.

And these are just a few of the gifts that come from cultivating a connection with your own inner Truth or your Mama Wisdom.

 It’s about connecting with an intelligence and an inner communication that resides deep within you and its journey to do this. There are a lot of techniques and possible ways to do it, but the one that we want to share with you today is an awesome tool for getting started and its an incredibly powerful tool for any decision making.

 

Feeling the YES and the NO within your body

Mothers are making decisions all the time, everyday, multiple times a day so this tool is something you can practice and bring in all throughout your day.

We encourage you, when getting started, to do this with smaller decisions, because when it’s a big decision and there’s a lot of emotional charge around it there will be many voices vying for your attention and it can be harder to hear the deeper YES and NO, you may need to access different techniques filter through and clear those voices down.

If you start in smaller decisions~

Do we want to go to the park or the library?

Do we want to stay home today?

What do we want to have for lunch?

 you’ll build up the ability to recognise and hear the truth within you and your confidence in your ability to do so will also grow and then it will be accessible to you more and more.

This is a starting point in consciously communicating with your deeper wisdom via your body, and the messages are coming all the time. Your inner, deeper wisdom is communicating with you through your body, ALL THE TIME, its one of those things that is always happening in the background.

When you become aware of and familiar with the communication, you will be able to feel what is a YES and you’ll be able to feel what is NO through the signals sent through your body.

 

We call this ‘feeling a YES and a NO within your body’ and the more that you can feel it and recognise it, the more you WILL feel it and recognise it, it’s a cycle that grows once you get it started and continue the practice.

We’re now going to guide you through a process in recognising your YES and NO. Through this process we’re amplifying the feeling of the YES and the NO by taking you there in a very specific way. This is because we want you to really feel it and become familiar with it.

Even though the questions we ask you may invoke very clear YES’s and NO’s, be aware that that same feeling responses are always running within you. They might be toned down and sometimes harder to decipher but the YES and the NO responses are always being communicated to you through your body.

When you ask a question or pose a problem your Inner Truth will actually respond faster than your mind. Often you’ll choose to ignore it, hearing it briefly but then allowing the rational mind to kick in, drown it out and complicate the issue with all the other tangents possible. The rational mind will then keep spinning (as it does) and it can lead you away from the YES and NO that were there.

All the other voices are very likely to sound louder and more clear because they are what we are used to hearing and listening to, and this practice can be the beginning of learning to listen to something else, to a deeper voice.

 

So, here goes.. do this along with us: 

1. The first thing to do is to breathe and drop down into your body, its important to do this because this is a practice that requires you become aware beyond your thinking mind and we often are are up in our heads, especially when we have decisions to make.

So take a breath, and with your breath, drop down into your body, become aware of your body, drop your awareness right down to your womb space, to the space about a hands length below your navel... and relax.

 

2. Think of a statement that is an absolute ‘YES’ for you then turn it into a question that you imagine someone asking you.

Example: ‘I love my children, heart and soul’

‘Do I love my children with all my heart and my soul?’

Close your eyes, ask yourself the question, and feel the YES of it’s truth within your body.

 

Where do you feel it in your body?

What adjectives would you use to describe it?

Does it have a colour?

If you could touch it how would it feel?

If it had sound with it, what would it be?

If you were to hold your yes in your hands, how would it feel to you?

If you were to pick it up and smell it, what would it smell like?

 

Be aware with each of your senses.

Really get to know your YES

This is YOUR YES in YOUR BODY, it is the Yes you will grow to recognise when you ask other questions that have a true YES answer for you.

 

3. Now think of a statement that is an absolute ‘NO’ for you and turn it into a question that you imagine someone asking you.

Example: ‘I hate my children and want to run away and never see them again’

‘Do you hate your children? and will you run away and never see them again?’

Again close your eyes, imagine yourself going against your NO answer and doing it anyway (eg. imagine yourself running away and never seeing your children again).

 

How does that feel?

Where do you feel it in your body?

What adjectives would you use to describe it?

Does it have a colour?

If you could touch it how would it feel?

If it had sound with it, what would it be?

Is it spoken? If so what does it say?

 

Be aware with each of your senses.

Really get a sense of your NO with all of your senses because this is YOUR NO, the No you will grow to recognise when you ask other questions and your Inner Truth is a NO to them.

 

And that’s it and the practice is to become so very familiar with that feeling.

There are a couple of ways you can do that, the first is to ask yourself a question throughout the day and then feel for your YES and NO. Do this as many times as you can because the more familiar you can become with it over time, the easier it is to hear it.

The second thing you can do is you can notice, for the next day or two anytime that you are feeling a huge YES, a big expansion around a topic or a decision. When you notice that surety, become aware of how that feels in your body, ask yourself the questions we asked you above, and apply that self awareness in that moment.

Also, do the same with your No. If you’re having a crappy, shitty day and there are NO’s all over the place, drop in, feel the NO, get to know your NO.

There might be a few different nuances and flavours to your YES and your NO in different situations but the more you connect with them and become familiar with them, the more you’ll be able to tell what’s in the NO category of bodily responses and what’s in the YES category.
And next time you are taking in information on parenting, run what has been suggested through your YES and NO practice so you can tell if it’s something you choose to let go or something for you to follow on with.

It can be valuable to get tools from elsewhere, to look at parenting books, to listen to people like us, to actually engage with all these things, but filter the advice, opinion or theory through your own deep wisdom’s communication.
And... the extension practice is to actually honour the YES or the NO answer you feel within your body. For now, recognition is a powerful first step, and the next is to honour what you recognise (and the more you honour it, the more clear and loud it will become and the stronger you will become at hearing it).

But, please don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t honour the message you received within, this is a journey and recognition is a powerful first step, celebrate it!