How to Parent Soul to Soul
The deepest expression of love is in the not doing
When I pause to think of my best parenting moments many times it’s when I’m most not a part of the moment.
It’s walking through the woods with my five year old and watching her delight as she trots across the frozen snow and discovers deer beds nestled into the hillside, snow-covered boulders that double as slides, and fallen trees that make perfect winter forts. It’s her adventure, and my witnessing presence only brightens the experience for her.
Or it’s standing in the kitchen watching my two year old figure out how to put on her slippers, and when she gets stuck, giving her a nod of reassurance. Then when she finally gets them on, watching her stomp loudly and proudly down the hall onto her next discovery.
It’s in those moments when my children are immersed in an activity that suits their growth and developmental stage, they are delighting in the experience of life, and I am witnessing and gently supporting their evolution and joy. We are in the presence of each other as soul to soul.
But most of the time it’s not so straightforward. It’s me inserting myself into a sibling struggle, responding to a meltdown, or echoing that we’re going to be late for school, the doctor’s appointment, or whatever the activity of the day is.
My mind is full of expectations about how things should go rather than observing my children as they are. And the deeper I get into my own expectations and frustrations, the more strongly it sets off the same in my children. Suddenly, we’re not soul to soul anymore. We’re all expectations, emotions, energy, and egos.
The best definition I’ve heard of parenting is this:
Connecting soul to soul with our children as best we can and taking responsibility for anything that’s preventing us from doing so.
It sounds simple, but in practice, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So what practices can we keep in mind to actually be able to parent soul to soul — especially in the more challenging moments?
Separating the event from the story
When our children do something that triggers us (whether it’s something small like refusing to go to school if they can’t wear their blue shirt or something larger like stealing an expensive shirt from a big box store), it can easily set off a waterfall of stories within ourselves.
What is wrong with my child? Will they always think this behavior is okay? What does this mean about my parenting? What will others think of them? What will others think of me?
There are certainly questions we want to ask ourselves when challenging behaviors arise, but it’s also very easy to get velcroed to all sorts of thoughts that have nothing to do with the event — and in fact, make it even worse.
If our reactions stem from our fears, then we’re not actually responding to the event but reacting to the stories ticking through our head. It’s like being in Times Square and being glued to the news ticker while real life is unfolding all around us. When we’re glued to the ticker, we’re not actually available to see and help our children.
So the next question inevitably is, “How do we actually separate our stories from the event?” Enter the sacred pause.
Taking a sacred pause
The idea of the “sacred pause” comes out of the Buddhist tradition and is something that we choose to do when we notice our energy or emotions shift. Instead of continuing on with whatever we were doing at the time, we pause to watch what’s arising in our internal landscape.
Jack Kornfield, Buddhist meditation teacher and parent, writes:
[It helps] to train ourselves to pause before we respond. This is called the sacred pause, a moment where we stop and release our identification with problems and reactions. Without a pause our actions are automatic.
In a moment of stopping, we break the spell between past result and automatic reaction. When we pause, we can notice the actual experience, the pain or pleasure, fear or excitement. In the stillness before our habits arise, we become free to act wisely.
It’s the sacred pause that actually allows our wisest parent to rise up and deal with the situation at hand.
Taking responsibility for our inner landscape
Sometimes the sacred pause just isn’t enough though. We are so velcroed to our thoughts that it feels almost impossible to separate from them. Or we oscillate between watching thoughts and getting hooked by them, and it can feel like there’s a ping pong match going on inside our own heads.
These are signs that we are still in a state of resistance and we need to relax and release behind the emotions that are causing the thoughts. As Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul says, “The mind is where the heart goes to hide.” When something our child does causes a particularly big reaction in us, this is the hardest part, but it’s undoubtedly the most important. It’s only after we’ve worked through our emotional reaction that we can see the situation from a place of clarity.
Recognizing our children are right… sort of
Once our vision isn’t clouded by our own thoughts and emotions and we start to see things as they actually are, something fascinating begins to unfold — we have a much greater understanding of what’s actually happening and why. The event often makes complete sense based on our children’s limited life experience and brain development.
Would we as adults melt into a puddle of tears if our blue shirt was in the wash? Nope, but can we have compassion for our child who is attached to the blue shirt because it has a hood, and the hood makes her feel extra secure and held while at her busy school? Absolutely. Would we steal the expensive shirt from the big box store? No, but can we have compassion for our child who is still learning the hard way that self-worth is not tied up in material items? Yes, for sure.
It becomes possible when we see the event for what it is and then work to understand why it’s happening rather than resisting that it happened in the first place. When we understand why something is happening, we, as parents, can work at the root of the problem to help our children grow in their most challenging moments.
Raising the moment to the best of our ability
From a place of clarity and compassion and being empty of our own personal fears, biases and agendas we are ready to parent soul to soul. We show up as a witnessing supportive presence to help the growth of the other soul.
As Tara Brach, another Buddhist meditation teacher and parent writes:
The deepest expression of love is this non-doing presence because that’s when we are inhabiting who we really are.
Whatever the moment entails, we raise it and serve it to the best of our ability. At our best, we can even help set our children’s souls free from whatever very human experience they’ve found themselves tangled up in so that they can move through this world more joyfully.
The goal as a parent is always to be as clear as possible, but it quickly becomes obvious that it’s a lofty goal — especially in the trickier situations where we need to insert ourselves and intervene.
We will succeed sometimes and we will fail others. But no guilt, no shame. As long as our intention is to keep learning and growing from every experience and to move closer and closer to the ideal of parenting soul to soul, then we are always on the best path possible for both ourselves and our children.
The beautiful paradox of life is striving to relate soul to soul and loving our own and our children’s humanity every step of the way.
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 and subscribe to my free newsletter: aparentspurpose.substack.com.
© Caitlin Frauton. All rights reserved.
