This feels hard, because it is hard

I have a confession to make. Being a parenting coach is hard.

Building your own business, conceiving and birthing each offering, producing engaging content, reaching the right audience - it's hard.

However I feel this internal call to keep going because I know without a doubt, that breaking generational cycles and parenting our children differently has the potential to change the world. That sounds like a big statement - because it is.

And yet.
Parenting with compassion has the potential to create adults who are more connected to themselves. Which in turn makes them more connected to others.
We will hopefully raise children who carry less trauma than we do.
Parenting without punishments means that  we don't need to resort to oppression or power over to meet our needs or get what we want.
Which in turn means we are more connected to the Earth & nature and willing to look after it.
Being aware and accepting of all feelings means we don't need to do engage in behaviours to repress our feelings like shopping or consuming. And so on...

And I know parenting like this feels HARD. I feel it ALL the time. It's so different to how we were raised and sometimes it feels like the whole world is going in the opposite direction. (But not you, because here you are reading this.)

And I know that in fact, I am raising children for a NEW paradigm and that's partly why it feels so hard. Not only is it all new to me, the world I'm raising my children for is hopefully not the world as we know it, but a better version of it.

So I can't NOT do this, because I honestly believe our children have the potential to change the world, to exist in a more compassionate, less oppressive society.

And I wonder if you could help me spread the word? You can forward this newsletter or the following link: https://parenttogether.co.uk/newsletter

This feels hard because it is hard.

Whatever Christmas means to you and however you celebrate, there's no denying it's a time of big emotions. Christmas is a time full of complexities, of expectations that often lead to disagreements, of unmet needs and past hurts re-surfacing.

Here's something I've found helpful to think about: what do I really want?
This weekend I took some time to think about what is meaningful for me and how I can honour that. This included making time to celebrate a Mexican Christmas, to feel connected to my roots and my family. I also thought about rituals that I want to keep and which ones don't resonate with me. I thought about which needs I want to get met and how I would like to feel after this period. Lastly I thought about the things I really didn't want - especially the things I was doing to please other people or meet their expectations.

One of the things that became clear, was that I want my children to remember Christmas as a time of slowness and connection. So we've decided to honour the winter solstice by spending an evening by candlelight.