The Power of Self-Parenting
In a world where parenting advice abounds, there’s one concept gaining traction: why it’s better to parent ourselves than our children. This shift in perspective challenges traditional notions of parenting and invites a deeper exploration of self-love and unconditional acceptance.
Discovering Self-Love
Renowned spiritual teacher Byron Katie introduces a concept she calls “The Work.” In short, she guides people through the process of taking the spotlight off others and turning it around on ourselves to discover deeper truths about the nature of love. She says:
The Essence of Self-Love
“Self-love is living those turnarounds. Then you experience the difference in the way you see that child the next time they walk through the door — and everyone else. Then when you look in the mirror, there’s nothing you cannot do to love what you see.”
The Journey Inwards
The irony is that each time we experience our own capacity growing to love our children unconditionally, we actually fall more deeply in love with ourselves. We, therefore, keep chipping away at our own large and small traumas, shame, unworthiness, and beliefs that keep us from fully seeing the truth of who we are.
Building Our Inner Well of Love
As we practice self-parenting, our own inner well of love grows and is no longer being depleted by negative self-talk and firmly held unconscious beliefs. It begins to fill with the qualities of love that we can draw upon in the hundreds of moments every day that our children are asking us for patience and acceptance.
Compassion Through Self-Acceptance
As our capacity grows to handle our own uncomfortable emotions, thoughts, and misguided actions, our ability to access compassion for our children grows, too. We come to naturally embody the type of love we know our children, and all children, are so deserving of.
Passing on the Gift
And here’s the really beautiful part — as we love ourselves unconditionally, our children learn to love themselves unconditionally, which is far better for them than merely being the recipient of our love. We want to parent ourselves out of a job so our children can move through the world with their own inner well of unconditional love to draw from.
Nurturing Self-Sufficiency
There will be millions of moments in their lives where it will make much more sense for them to draw on their own well than to go looking for us. Ultimately, we want our well to runneth over, so when they most need it, their well, too, can runneth over.
Gratitude to Byron Katie
Thank you to Byron Katie for inspiring this post. If you’d like to hear her speak on the topic of parenting, this is a wonderful interview (and also the interview she is quoted from above). And here is a worksheet that is part of her self-inquiry process that is particularly helpful for parents.
About the Author
About me: Mom of two, wife, writer and podcast co-host who is fascinated by the intersection of parenting and spirituality — one seeker exploring the wild experience of being a parent and being human. For more reflections on parenting and spirituality, follow me on Medium and subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (sent on Sundays): aparentspurpose.substack.com.
