Hello!

One of my original reasons for wanting to help mothers was because I saw how much my own Mum’s inner dialogue affected her and how she responded to me.

My Mum is one of the most generous, giving, loving people I know ~ and so filled with harsh self-talk.

The self-judgment that she learnt from the culture around her means that she would often hear things as judgments, and would then feel deeply hurt and would withdraw.

Over the years, she does this less and less.

Once I realised what was happening, I could reflect back on my childhood and see that often the parts that were most challenging for me where times that she was being harsh with herself.

The times that she didn’t listen to herself, or didn’t care for her body, or judged herself, or negated herself, had painful repercussions for me.

And that is one of the reasons I am SO passionate about helping mothers change that inner dialogue and those inner relationships,

so that we listen to our needs and feelings with more love and compassion,

and we learn to set loving limits with the harsh, judgmental voices that we internalised when we were growing up.

I see that in my own parenting too ~ how much my children are affected by my own inner dialogue.

The more unconditionally loving I am of myself, the more unconditionally loving I am of them, and at those times there is often a huge sense of love, connection, fun, joy and ease.

As that becomes more and more our usual state, I notice more and more easily those times when I shift out of that deep inner-loving connection, and how immediately they respond, and how disconnection and challenge results.

And that is what I LOVE about Aware Parenting.

We can use it to LOVE our children’s needs and feelings,

and to use attachment play when things get tricky,

and REAL loving limits when feelings are coming out in challenging ways.

We can listen to their tears and tantrums,

and when they have big feelings in response to apparently small things, we can trust that it is their natural healing mechanism operating, and that they are healing from past hurts that weren’t heard then, and listen to their feelings.

And we can use EXACTLY the same Aware Parenting skills that we learn with our children, with ourselves.

We can learn to love our needs.

We can learn to be deeply compassionate with our feelings.

We can learn to be playful when we need more connection.

We can give ourselves empathy when we do things as mothers that we regret, and listen in to what needs weren’t met, what feelings weren’t being expressed, or what new information we needed to learn.

We can set true loving limits when we are doing things that aren’t helpful for others – true loving limits, without any trance of harshness, punishment or blame.

And we can also use these same skills to help us share our gifts in the world.

Whenever we go out into the world, our own past painful experiences of what happened when we went out into the world come up to be heard and healed.

That includes our birth experience, our first time of being looked after by other people than our parents, our first day at school, our experience of leaving home, and so on.

We can listen to those feelings, needs and unexpressed words, with our Inner Loving Mother and Inner Loving Father.

I love that all the things we are giving to our children, we can give to ourselves.

And that’s why I create and run the courses I do.

The Inner Loving Presence Process Course is all about forming relationships with our Inner Loving Mother, Inner Loving Father, Inner Best Friend and Inner Beloved, so that we can treat ourselves the way we treat our children.

When I was doing my Inner Loving Crew practice this morning, I came across the need, as a baby, to be loved by someone who unconditionally loved themselves.

And my Inner Loving Mother told me, over and over, that she unconditionally loves herself. And she held me in her arms, and I felt such a deep and abiding sense of safety, to be held in the arms of someone who loved themselves like that.

And that is one of the reasons I keep doing my inner work.

Not only because I feel SO much happier to be increasingly free of self-judgment, shame and guilt,

but ALSO because I know that the more I give myself the gift of unconditional love, the more wonderful that feels for my children.

Not pretend unconditional love.

True unconditional love – that means my Inner Loving Mother loves me whatever I do.

I wonder if you resonate.

Do you notice how it is for your child/ren when you are believing those harsh inner voices?

Do you notice how it is for your child/ren when you are listening to your needs and feelings and being compassionate with yourself and how hard it can be as a mother sometimes?

And if so, what is one thing you can do to be more loving with yourself?

And if you haven’t already joined in with the free taster of my Inner Loving Presence Process Course – you can do that by clicking HERE or on the image below.

Love,

Marion 

xxx