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Welcome to the April 10, 2004 Issue of The Mindful Parent Newsletter.

Image Do you remember what you had for dinner last night? Believe it or not, this age-old philosophical question relates to the core of mindful parenting. I never quite got the television commercial that aired in the 1970's and posed this question to families across the country. As you may recall, the commercial promised that its canned dinners were so delicious that if you served it, your family would be sure to remember the meal the next day. My experience is, however, that unless one is eating mindfully, the better tasting a meal, the faster it is consumed, and little of the experience is remembered. In fact, it is the abysmal meals that prove most memorable. Why? Because when we do things reluctantly, we become especially attentive to what we are doing. Having devoted so much awareness to the process, our memory of it is vivid. Remember that root canal, or being spoon-fed cough syrup as a child?

As you know, being a parent is even better than eating a good meal. But like all those delicious meals of our forgotten past, we hear so often of children: "They grow up so fast!" "It feels like just yesterday when she was a baby," and "Where did the time go?" How often have you heard, and perhaps told others, "Cherish it while it lasts?"

So let's ask ourselves: What do we remember about the times we spend (or spent) reading bedtime stories to our child? Indeed, these are sacred moments. Do we remember most of it? Just a little here and there? Or is our memory an amalgam from a collection of bedtime readings?

When people share with me mindful parenting experiences, they almost always report that time slows down. Of course, it doesn't really slow down (or does it?). But, when we are present in the moment, a beautiful thing happens -- time lapses naturally. When we bring our senses together to experience a moment, we come to life in that moment. We are no longer merely an actor whose primary job is to remember her lines and deliver them as rehearsed. We also become an observer. And because we are so much more than the one role being played at the moment, the observer in us soaks in the majesty of what is actually taking place at the moment, including who we really are and the persons, places, and things participating in the moment. When we thereafter reflect on an event, be it a birthday party, a bedtime story, or a graduation ceremony, we do so with an awareness of particulars that grounds the memory in the timeline of our lives.

The practice of mindful parenting helps slow our perception of the passage of time. But beware! Because we are not used to this, it can make us feel a little uncomfortable. Have you ever tried walking extra slow for more than three seconds? Try it and you likely will sense your fast moving thoughts telling you to speed it up. Sustain the practice for more than three seconds, if you can, and you may come to realize what's actually happening around you.

The following verse is one we can recite to ourselves while we're reading to our child. If we are not with our child, or they are grown, we can recite this verse whenever we are reading and use it a reminder to bring our thoughts to our child.

Turning this page
I take a breath
And marvel at my beautiful child


All too often, we are not even aware of when we turn pages. Maybe we are thinking about some argument we had earlier in the day or worried about the things we need to get done before we go to sleep. Are we so enmeshed in ourselves that our child had to make an extra effort to get us to read to them or was the time leading up to the bedtime story one filled with nothing but joy? It would be nice if it were the latter, but it isn't always. Do we feel the joy of our child's smile as the storyline advances? Hopefully we do. But do we feel these things as much and as often as we could? Taking a breath is one way to bring us back to the present moment. Turning the page is a cue to take that magical breath. Whether you recite this verse with each page you turn, or just once during a bedtime reading, you will have engaged the practice of mindful parenting and, if done with an open heart, you will transform an otherwise fleeting moment into one of joy.

If we start making an effort to bring our awareness to the moment, we may find that our growing awareness begins to lead us to the moment. By becoming more aware of the moments of our lives and our children's presence in our lives, we need never feel that it went too fast. If we are present while our life is happening, it passes as it should.

Until next time.

Scott Rogers
Editor, The Mindful Parent Newsletter
http://TheMindfulParent.org

Recent Events at TheMindfulParent.org.
With the completion of "One Day Winston The Wave Woke Up," The Mindful Parent introduces its Mindful Parenting Children's Book Series. The story, which shares the experience of a wave that finds itself no longer in the middle of the sea but close to shore and facing an uncertain future, is available for free on the Internet to provide parents with additional tools to expand the boundaries of their mindful parenting practice.

Share your mindful parenting experience with us
If you have a mindful parenting experience you would like to contribute, please send it to us at Info@TheMindfulParent.org. If we publish it in an upcoming edition of the newsletter, we will include mention of your name as its contributor, unless you specifically request otherwise.

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