January 2024: Making deposits into your Spiritual Parenting Bank

by | Jan 3, 2024 | Connection, Parents

Last month we introduced the idea of creating the world of our dreams and crafting the type of life that you would love to be living! I hope that you had a fun time writing down what you would love to create for yourself in your life, that you began the process of manifesting that dream literally into reality!! I hope so!

This month is the start of a New Year and according to the Chinese calendar, the start of another 20 year cycle in all our lives. It is a time to let go of everything that no longer serves us to make room for all the positive energy of everything that we would love in our life!

As parents, it is no small task to help our kids to grow to be the souls that they came to this earth to be. While we nurture their spirit every day, it is all in an effort to help them to discover what they would love for their life. Our parenting efforts are to help them to grow and discover what their soul purpose is in this lifetime and what gifts and talents they would love to share with the world.

As Moms, we are the Health Managers of the Home. It is a big responsibility, especially in this day and age when so many women are trying to navigate the responsibilities of their jobs/ careers as well as all the responsibilities of being a Mom for our kids. This is in the setting of a world on fire, Social Media which has many of us hooked for many hours day, a food system filled with processed foods, fast foods, sugar, candy, and toxins in our food and environment, all of which can have negative impacts on our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. It can leave many women feeling drained in all ways. What I found along the way as a professional woman and caring Mom is that I sometimes look back and wonder how I ever got through those early years with a face-paced life and enormous responsibilities, let alone as a single mom trying to do it all.

There were several lessons I learned along the way that I can share with you and hope that you may find this helpful. The first thing that I found along the way is that if I was to remain strong, grounded, reasonably happy and upbeat most days so that I could be the best parent my daughter needed me to be to nurture her spirit, it was important for me to make my good health a priority and to make deposits into my Spiritual Parenting Bank every day in one way or another! It was a given that I needed to care for myself first with an exercise routine I enjoyed, wholesome nutrition and a stress management practice that brought peace and calm into my heart. If I did not, I could find that eventually I would feel run down, exhausted, and downright frustrated, irritable and impatient in many aspects of my life. I could feel burned out in my job, short tempered with my daughter and of no use to myself.

Another important lesson I learned is that health habits I developed and role modeled often became the health habits of my daughter-in many ways. As an example, when my daughter was little, we would eat organic wholesome food which eventually morphed into a vegetarian diet when my daughter realized that animals had to die in order for us to eat that chicken meat, hamburg or ham. She is a natural at organic, vegetarian living. Another health practice we would do together when she was little was kids yoga. I bought a kids yoga DVD so we could follow along a Gaia Kids Yoga practice where we would do Downward Dog, the Cow, Cat, and Cobra pose together. My daughter loved it and she was quite good at it. As she grew, it became built into her stress management practice which brings so much joy to my spirit!

The mirror image of this health habit I have found helpful, as well over the last few years, is to start the year by visualizing what I would love to let go of, what negative energies, habits, events, thoughts and feelings do not serve my highest good and I would love to release! One way to do this is to write down everything that no longer serves us, everything that has brought pain and suffering into our lives, everything that we have not forgiven, including ourselves and decide to release that from your heart. This includes forgiving those people or situations that have hurt you or to forgive ourselves for things we have done to hurt others and to make room for the good in our lives. Once you have your list compiled, choose to have a Burning Bowl Ceremony. This could be with a small bowl in a safe space or in a larger, outdoor fire pit in your backyard where you could invite several family and friends to join in the ceremony so that everyone releases what no longer serves them and you are in a circle of support and accountability to let go! It is an action step we can take for the good of our Spiritual Parenting Bank. We can say goodbye to those thoughts, feelings, events, circumstances that have weighed us down and caused so much distress. It can help us to feel about 50 lbs lighter when we do so and it also makes room for us to invite in all the positive things we would love to experience in our lives!
(**Of course, we want to do this safely, so please let your children know how important it is to do this with another adult, and safely, so that no one gets hurt.)

So let me ask you, when you think about good health for yourself in 2024, what do you visualize for YOU? What would YOU love for your Good, Better, Best Health? There is no better time than NOW to Visualize what you would love for your good health so you can make deposits into your Spiritual Parenting Bank and move towards your dream. Trust yourself, Trust the process, Know that the Universe is supporting you! Reach out, share your dreams with those in this community and know that you will be surrounded with Believing eyes as you move forward towards your Dream. You’ve Got This!