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Mindful Parenting is a contemplative practice through which we become more mindful of our children and, in doing so, experience a more joyful life.
The Mindful Parent is an organization devoted to sharing with parents and other child caregivers ways in which to enhance the many joys of parenting.  By mindfully attending to our children, both when we are physically present with them and when we are physically separated from them, we can enhance our sense of connection to them and, in turn, our connection to the cosmos.  This makes us a better parent, a happier person, and a more vital human being.
 
To facilitate a more mindful approach to parenting, The Mindful Parent publishes on its website, and in its bi-weekly newsletter, mindful parenting verses and commentaries.  The Mindful Parent website also serves as a community forum that encourages and supports a mindful parenting dialogue and the sharing of mindful parenting experiences.
 
In the spirit of developing a mindful parenting community, we encourage you to submit a mindful parenting experience through verse, commentary, and imagery to share with others.  We believe that through our collective experience, we can help each other develop a deeper and more meaningful mindful parenting practice.  Click here to learn more about making a submssion.  We thank everyone who has contributed or is considering making this very compassionate contribution.

Click here to learn what recent events are taking place and of changes to The Mindful Parent website.  Please contact us with your questions about mindful parenting or to share a mindful parenting experience.  We are devoted to working with you to enhance your ability to "be" with your children, and to experience the bliss that awaits you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
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(c) 2003-2004 Zen Health.  All rights reserved.
The Mindful Parent is a servicemark of Zen Health.
From the Archives
Thursday July 8, 2004
Today's Sip:  Your Life is not a Movie
 
When it comes down to it, much of the time there is no real difference between watching a movie at the theater and "watching" your life.  As for your life, the screen is a little larger (it sort of wraps around).  We get lost in both.
 
Were you engaged in mindful movie going, you would maintain awareness that you were "watching a movie" while enjoying the movie.  Each moment would pass with awareness of the moment.  So it is with mindful parenting.  Otherwise, before you know it the movie is over.  You wonder where the time went.
 
Today, when you see your child (or talk to, or read an e-mail or letter from your child) open awareness to how the events taking place are passing before your eyes.  Make sure you are not just watching a movie.  In a theater, it sometimes takes a very scary scene to jar us into awakeness. ("Yikes, remember it is only a movie.")  But in our life, we want to always be awake and the moments are not always so scary.
 
          My beautiful child
          Here you are
          There you go
          Where am I?
 
When you are with your child, be keenly aware of your child's presence: "My beautiful child/Here you are."  You are not just watching a movie.  This is not a film you can rewind.  Be attentive to your child's departing: "There you go."  So often, we come into contact with and separate from our child barely aware of what is happening.  It is all a blur, if that.  If you delete an e-mail or hang up the phone, or if your child leaves the room, open to the space left behind.  Breathe deep, soften your gaze, and ponder the empty space.  Above all, ask yourself, "Where am I?"
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