Parenting

When it comes to parenting our children, the process might well begin when we contemplate pregnancy.  Perhaps we change our diets or resolve long-standing health issues.  We might not be aware that we are also plunging into a host of unconscious assumptions and beliefs about our expanding family constellation.

Parenting is what I refer to as the ultimate Rorschach test.  We begin to see the “ink blot” immediately in our minds, this perfect child with unlimited potential, the very core of the zen belief that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, the inchoate, emergent perfection upon whom we visit our deepest and most valued dreams.

S/He will be blond/green eyed/medium in stature/brilliant/a good soul/great at sports, etc.
However the birth unfolds and however the (healthy, dare we say) child emerges in its acorn-like potentiality, it is ours, and we can see Kosmic infinity in its eyes.  There are no bars to what this little soul might become.

Yet studies indicate that even in the nursery, the nurses hold males differently than they hold females.  And perhaps your family had been silently rooting for a male rather than the perfect little female that you now hold, which alters the way you and your family embrace the new family member.

We also=2 0know that neonatal conditions as well as genetic coding will begin to shape the evolving child in utero, much as a potter forms the finished product out of the mass of undifferentiated clay.

With daily awareness of our beliefs, our biases, our dreams, our cultural preferences, we can hold that child with the utmost integrity as it emerges and interacts with all of the forces in which it is embedded.

The content-neutral Integral model provides a framework by which, if we are honest with ourselves, can permit us to engage in our children’s unfolding even as we place our beliefs and values into their subconscious.

We will offer additional information on how Integral parenting is emerging, and the services and workshops that will call us all to deepen our parenting practice as we engage with the world.