I find willingness so helpful in parenting.
We can listen to:
Whether we’re willing to do what our child is asking of us.
Whether we’re willing for our child to do what we want them to do.
Whether our child is free to be willing to cooperate with us.
So much of the parenting work I do – around Aware Parenting and Nonviolent Communication, is to help our child be freer to be willing to cooperate with us.
And if we regularly do what our child asks when we’re not actually willing, then resentment and rage can often happen (I’ll write another article on that).
Today I want to talk about our own willingness for our child to cooperate with us.
When I ask you, “Are you willing for your child to do what you ask them to do?” you might immediately say, “of course!” but I wonder if you’ve ever checked it out!
For example, your child might be on their iPad and you might be asking them to get off and they might not be getting off.
And you might feel frustrated, and keep asking again.
But if you asked myself, “Am I willing for them to get off the iPad?” then you might be surprised to find a “ye….es” or even a “no”.
When you ask yourself if you’re willing, a couple of ways to see if you really are truly and honestly willing are:
1. Notice how your body feels;
2. Say it out loud and listen to how it sounds.
A true “YES” resounds through your whole body. You can probably feel it in your belly and your chest. There’s a whole aliveness in the body that goes with a true “YES.”
In comparison, a “ye…es”, which I call a ‘thinky yes’, generally comes from your head, and it seems as though the rest of your body isn’t involved.
That’s because we WANT to be willing, but we’re not truly willing.
Let’s carry on with the iPad example.
You might ask yourself, “Am I willing for them to get off the iPad?”
If the answer is a true, “YES”, then your question will be from your WHOLE body and your whole energy.
If you really are willing for them to get off, then you’ll be connected with all of yourself, and they will feel that. You’ll be available for connection with them.
And if you really ARE willing, then you might then get close to them, watch what they’re doing, find out whether they want to finish to the end of that programme or video of the level of a game.
You might then talk with them about finishing at the end of that.
You might do some attachment play, such as the classic that a friend of mine told me years ago and that I did a few times with my lovelies when they were younger, which was to go to the other room and draw an iPad on my tummy with some pretend apps, and then come back into the room and offer for them to play on the tummy iPad!
But if the answer is, “ye….es” (a thinky yes), then if you keep on asking, your child will feel that although your words are saying one thing, your feelings and energy and body are actually saying something quite different.
What you could ask yourself, then is, “Why not? What am I scared of? What am I protecting myself from?” And the answer might be, “If they get off then they will want me to be fully engaged with them, and I’m feeling tired.”
Ahah…. so THAT is why!
And with that information, your Inner Loving Mother or the Divine Mother might come in and say, “I hear that you’re tired sweetheart, and you think that if they get off, they’ll want you to be fully engaged with them, and you don’t have the energy right now.”
Once you’ve received that empathy from your ILM, you might feel a sigh of relief.
And then your Inner Loving Father or the Divine Father might come in and give some suggestions about how you can gain some energy. You might see that the video your child is watching is on for another 20 minutes, and so you might use that time to do something that will help you rest and feel energised.
Then, when you DO go and ask them to get off, you’re way more likely to be WILLING for them to get off.
You’re way more likely to be able to use all the skills and practices we talk about – connection, listening to their needs, giving empathy, doing attachment play, setting loving limits.
Perhaps it feels like a BIG thing, to keep on checking in with your willingness.
And it can be at first.
But like anything, it gets easier and quicker with practice.
In A Week of Willingness, my free course, some of the participants talked about how much easier it all became with practice!
Whenever we ask our child to do something, or stop doing something, if we’re really WILLING for that to happen, then they get a message that is congruent. Our words and our energy are saying the same thing.
And willingness is contagious. When we’re willing, there’s a life force that is so much more enticing and our child’s energy is far more likely to want to join with that energy.
And if there are other reasons of their own, then we will have access to the resources that are likely to help them to be freer to cooperate; most of all, being CONNECTION with all of us!
Understanding the power of willingness, and being able to help ourselves to be wiling, is SUCH a helpful skill in parenting.
And I’m so excited to announce that my course, The Wonder of Willingness, is now OPEN!
WOOHOOO!!!!
It’s $50!
And for this first live round ONLY, there are Zoom calls, so you can witness others going through The Willingness Practice, or being facilitated through it themselves.
The course consists of 2.5 hours of slides or audios, and there are PDFs that you can refer back to afterwards too!
Here are a couple of testimonials from the free version of the course:
The first Zoom calls start THIS SUNDAY.
They are on all different days and times; you can find more details on the COURSE PAGE HERE.
Love,
Marion
xxx