The highest spiritual relationship is that between parent and child. We choose each other for a purpose and become each other’s greatest teachers. Parenting children requires immense energy, presence, and creativity. In this fast paced world, many of us are balancing full working lives with full home lives.
As a parent we are the energetic center of our home. If our energy is out of balance we will see and feel it immediately in the faces and behavior of our children. They are a perfect mirror. Caring deeply for your own energy by supporting yourself with acupuncture, acupressure, herbs and a practice like Dragon’s Way Qigong, can help you take parenting beyond the level of “survival.” In addition, consider beginning a meditative practice with your children!
In my practice (in office and at home!) I have discovered an approach to parenting that aligns with the vision of Indy Healing Center. The Nurtured Heart Approach was created by Howard Glasser as a way to connect through relationship with intense children at home and in the classroom. When children (including our inner child) act out, they do so because they are in need of loving attention.
Tune into my conversation with Nurtured Heart Therapist Heather Meyer on the power of this approach:
Most of the time when our child is “behaving” we smile from afar and go about our daily lives. When they act out on themselves and others, they get us to “show up” in a big way to help shift the behavior.
The Nurtured Heart approach encourages us to flip the way we connect in relationship by “showing up” in presence to honor the good stuff (even the “little” stuff) and holding space but not connecting in energetically when the acting out shows up. I call it being a “hummingbird parent.” You buzz in to show some love here there and everywhere.
I have personal experience using this approach. Literally within 3 days my child ceased lashing out physically. Within a month, he began to tap into his gifts and passions at a whole new level. He was being nurtured into full bloom. See more below!
Learn more about the Nurtured Heart Approach through the Transforming the Intense Child Workbook
Check out local Nurtured Heart Therapist Heather Meyer
Tune into my conversation with her on the power of this approach:
Empowered Parenting (my challenge / my opportunity)
I am blessed with four children of my own. Emma born in 2005, Ked in 2007, Sophia in 2011, and Ayla in 2016.
Every challenge a child takes on is both for themselves and their parents at both the physical and emotional levels. In relationship we challenge each other to grow.
Each of my children has offered and continue to offer up these opportunities. My son, Ked, and I have had a particularly intense journey together. I was pregnant with him during a time of great emotional/spiritual awakening. I was simultaneously very stuck and very open. This time of intensity began while I was pregnant with him and lasted well into his toddlerhood.
He was bathed in these shifts while in-utero and nurtured within them from infancy into childhood.
All of life is cyclical. One important cycle, is the 7 year cycle for women and 8 year cycle for men. Another important cycle, is 12. When we reach 12 this is the first time we return to our animal year in the Zodiac. Birthdays are another very important cycle, the time we choose to come to Earth! When we are in the peak of a cycle, all of the Universe conspires to help us breakthrough places we are stuck and tap into our higher purpose.
Ked
For my son, the time around his eighth birthday a volcano erupted within him. He began having intense sensitivity, emotions, and headaches / digestive imbalance. When he became triggered emotionally he would go through phases of vomiting that would reset him back to a state of balance. Literally, purging the intensity. He also began to have dark, negative self talk and lashed out at his sisters, himself, myself and my husband.
The words he said to himself were words I said to myself during pregnancy / his early childhood. It was as if the stagnation of that experience was coming up to be seen, felt, heard, processed.
I had to learn how to nurture him in a new way, the eruption commanded me to completely shift the way I parented. Whenever, a challenge arises for us, all the tools of support and wisdom to breakthrough are also present for us. We just have to do our own processing so that we can connect in to that truth from a place of clarity. And so it happens that I met psychologist Heather Meyer and dove into the Nurtured Heart Approach (NHA).
See more above!
What evolved was nothing short of a miracle! Within a few days he stopped lashing out at his sisters. Within a few weeks he shifted his negative self talk and within a month the digestive imbalance and vomiting began to diminish.
I began to apply the practice to every relationship in my life and in my practice with patients. I was so grateful for the gift he brought us all. Then, the next phase truly shocked me. With the release of the stagnation and the shift in our connection, he freed up his creativity. Ked does nothing in a small way. He took on the guitar and became a grunge guitar god. Complete with the long hair! Bring on the Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, etc etc. Witness for yourself through the link below:
Over the next four years, Ked continued to heal and grow emotionally. Occasionally, when school was stressful or there was a big seasonal shift / full moon, he would get digestive symptoms for a few days. I recoginzed he is very sensitive and was feeling into the energies around him at both the visible and invisible levels. I began to encourage him to help himself process that energy through the First Energy Gate acupressure exercise, breathing, and most importantly tuning in to his limits with technology and knowing when to shift to outside / creative pursuits.
Around the time of his 12th birthday, Ked developed digestive upset that got stuck. After a week, he began having fevers and a cough at nighttime. Knowing the cycle that was arising, I saw the challenge and the opportunity to breakthrough another layer. By two weeks, I became concerned that it had gone “too far.” He was diagnosed with pneumonia and went on a short course of antibiotics in addition to healing herbs and acupuncture.
Emotionally, there was a layer coming up for both of us. He would sometimes express thoughts / feelings that triggered experiences from my distant past (around age 12!). I found myself rising up and “trying” to immediately shift him out of those thoughts / feelings because I did not want him to become stuck as I did at that age. My aha was that I still had my own layer of processing around my personal experience at age 12. My past experience is not my son’s present experience! He simply needed me to hear him and then he could let go and move on.
In addition, at age 12 it became even more important for me to encourage him to step up and take responsibility for his own energy, as he moved through the healing process.
As he broke through another layer of stagnation, a burst of creativity blasted through. He discovered a gift for the piano. He tuned into the frequency of the piano and played it like a high level game. He would observe videos of others playing and found other videos that showed glowing lights coming down into the keys. With practice, intense passionate practice, he channeled Chopin amongst other great composers with a gamer’s edge! Witness for yourself:
I explored my healing journey with Ked with the lovely Lori Bisser on an episode of her podcast Gratitude Sandwich.
You can tune in through the links below:
https://rss.com/podcasts/gratitudesandwich/122079/
Apple Podcast of Gratitude Sandwich
Sophia
I want to also take a moment to reflect on my Sophia, whose name means wisdom. When she was almost seven (women cycle in 7’s, men in 8’s), she was in first grade and was struggling. She required learning support from many angles. She also was very emotionally sensitive and would swing from full engagement to shut down in a moment if something triggered her.
When reminded of her “Sophie-Power!” she could tap into all the ways to support herself from within, but she required frequent external reminders.
Soph was a kiddo who seemed to quietly, deeply take in the world on her own time and when she was ready she would leap. I mean quantum leap. When she learned to walk, she waited and watched and one day just got out of her stroller and took off. None of this holding on to objects for support thing.
At 7, I recoginzed that we were in one of those spaces where she just needed more time. I made a tough decision to allow her to have a “victory lap” and circle back through first grade one more time.
This was the best parenting decision I have ever made for her. Though she fought it at first, framing the postitive angle of just expanding her friend network and the concept of a “victory lap” made a huge difference.
I came to the first teacher conference in her victory year, expecting the full table of support teachers to be present. When I asked, they explained she had not needed any additional support!
In addition, she was almost always in her “Sophie-Power!” and needed little support from the teachers to handle social hiccups with friend groups.
Every once and awhile, she will have a challenge with fully stepping into the moment without too much hesitation. In a recent conversation, Soph mentioned that I sometimes doubted myself and said aloud that “I am not a good Mom.” She told me that perhaps some of her own doubt came from me.
Whoop! Wow. Yes. It also allowed me to reflect on the time I was pregnant with her. I was blocked right before I became pregnant with her. I could not figure out how to launch my professional presence in the world, and this made me feel frustrated and sad. I was doubting my own worth.
Then when I became pregnant I decided that grounding myself, caring for myself, and being a mother was my right now purpose.
Now during this same time, literally from the moment I became pregnant until she was born 4/21/2011, I was in my Dragon’s Way Qigong instructor training. When I integrated this training, my focus was deeply personal. The foundation of Dragon’s Way Qigong began to transform how I connected with everything in my world: my family, food, emotions, and all of Nature.
Sophia was developing while I was also bathing in this wisdom. She owns it, within every cell in her body.
This picture below is Sophia and I in her Victory year of first grade. She had me come in to teach her class about what I do in my practice and Indy Healing Center. Let me say that she taught the class and I was there as a prop : )
I birthed her 4 days after I became a certified Dragon’s Way Qigong instructor. By her first birthday I was invited to become an apprentice of Grand Master Nan Lu. By her 2nd birthday I was well on my way to launching Indy Healing Center, and by her 3rd I was three months into practice!
I am forever grateful to my Sosh (as she goes by now) for empowering me to rediscover and claim my worth from within!
Ayla
Our Practice Deepens Faith / Our Faith Deepens Our Practice
In July of 2015, I was shocked to find myself pregnant with my fourth child at the age of 39.
This little one chose me at a time when my Qi was in a very positively intense state of flux and I was in the midst of massive shift / change creatively in my life. I had just officially opened my acupuncture practice, just six months before I became pregnant.
I had a clue something was "up" before the test turned positive when my Qi hit the floor. I would go to practice Qigong and I would literally lay face down on the floor!
On August 9 2015 (my birthday), I was at the retreat house in the Catskills for a picnic. Grand Master Lu checked my pulse and I could see and feel the message immediately. If I did not make changes, I was going to lose my baby. I decided then and there to take a month off from my growing acupuncture practice. I decided then and there that I needed to go into deep stillness within my practice.
I began holding our standing Qigong postures (such as The Dragon Stands Between Heaven and Earth) for an hour every day, in the dark, without any music (very not my usual for anyone who knows how animated I am!).
As an "elderly" pregnant lady (yep that's what they call it!), the nurse midwifes and doctors were all in a tizzy about how often I should be seen, ultrasounds, etc. I had to make a different kind of stand holding the space amongst these messages with my Faith. My Faith in "There Are No Accidents." My Faith in the practice to support my energy, my pregnancy at the deepest level.
My energy foundation rose and I had to stay very conscious of how and where I used my energy (super tough for me!).
On 2/18/2016, I was seen by my nurse midwife and she was very concerned that my amniotic fluid level was low. She scheduled an induction for 2/20/2016. Again, another opportunity to feel into my Faith. I said yes.
On the morning of 2/20/2016, my husband was checking emails as I was nudging him that it was time to GO. He said there was no rush and we would stop for coffee. I had it. I grabbed my suitcase and tossed it in the car. And...my water broke!
We went to the hospital and I had a lovely day dancing with my labor (which I found out is way more intense without the cushion of extra amniotic fluid!) and decided to have a water birth, my first.
Ayla Coeur was born on 2/20/2016 without induction or intervention at 5:30 PM. This little fire monkey taught me so much before she arrived and showed me at day two of life (that smile!) how much love she has to share with us all!
Emma
Everything about Emma is intensity, passion, and creative explosion. In its right time and space. She is my first.
In my second year of residency I suddenly, compulsively decided it was time to become pregnant…like NOW! I discontinued birth control and became pregnant immediately with Emma.
I was pregnant and nursing her during a time of being on call, delivering babies, being in charge of code blue’s, etc! She was nurtured in high pressure and stress!
I went into labor with her on July 4th 2005 and after 36 hours (again right time and space!) she exploded into the world like a firework on July 5th.
It became clear as soon as she could express that this one was going to be a one woman show. I wish I had the picture of her dressed up like Dolly Parton at age 5 complete with accent and stories about all of her exes (she came up with this on her own!)
As soon as she could figure out a device she began to make movies. I soon learned that she had multiple projects running at once over many months or even years. She would write, direct, film, add musical score. She even wrote a musical where she is the only star playing three different roles!
She has YouTube channels all over the place but would end me for sharing. Again, right time and space.
All of this came from her connecting to the art form. And whatever she was passionate about she would excel in: writing, drawing, painting, singing, acting, piano.
The content of her writing was wise, beyond her years. She writes poems, screenplays, novels.
Back in 2018 (she was age 12), between myself and our loving nanny we nudged her into an opportunity. She was in an intensive acting camp in Hollywood and starred in a short film. Oh, she so loved and hated it. Again, that innate feeling of timing she has and not wanting to be pushed out there too soon! Oh, yeah, she was awarded “star of the show!"
From there we ended up at a talent convention/showcase in Vegas. So not territory I was comfortable in, nor she. On our way there she revealed she had been song writing “in secret” for years. Hundreds of song ideas…really really good ones!
We ended up signing with a song developer and through their collaboration they built out three of her songs. We recorded the songs in 2019 and they are now available on Spotify, Apple Music etc. Ohhhh and the love / hate with this process. It was like labor for her and I was the doula.
Emma holds access to infinite creative gifts. She has an undeniable feeling for the right time/space and through which channel she NEEDS to express.
As her mom it is a dance of tuning into when she might be holding herself back, doubting herself, becoming stuck in a cycle of perfection.
Enjoy one of her latest original piano compositions. No lessons!
(just hit the play arrow below)
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Organ Function, Emotion, & Spirit: Five Element Consciousness
