Copyright © 1997 by Anne Irwin
All rights reserved. Inquiries should be addressed to
Twelve Star Publishing, P.O. Box 123, Jefferson, MD 21755
There are many books available on parenting: books for new
parents, books for single parents, books for parents of teenagers.
There are hundreds of books on discipline, troubled teens, and
"tough love." There are books on getting your child
to sleep through the night. There are books on potty training
and bed-wetting. There are books available to deal with virtually
any problem you may ever encounter as a parent.
A constant in all of these parenting books is that they deal solely
with the five-sense world of cause and effect. They deal with
problems and solutions. They deal with the world of duality. They
identify what is wrong and try to make it right. Like traditional
medicine, these books identify a place of disease in the parent/child
relationship and seek to cure it. Often they seek to overlay a
set of behavioral modifications on top of the situation without
ever dealing with the root cause of the difficulty. They seek
to manipulate the physical manifestations in hopes of changing
the inner experience.
This book is different. It will take you beyond the visible world.
It will take you beyond the world of cause and effect and introduce
you to parenting at the spiritual level - the soul level. It will
give you tools to discover yourself and your purpose in this life.
It will help you discover what life lessons you are here to teach
your child and what lessons your child has come to teach you.
It will deal with some concepts of spirituality that you may have
never thought of as being integral parts of parenting.
This book seeks to completely change the way you think about parenting.
The most prevalent image in our society of the spiritual seeker
is the solitary monk or mystic alone in his cave or monastery.
He (yes, it is usually a he) lives alone or in a cloistered community
apart from the distractions of the material world. He devotes
his mind and his physical body to the uninterrupted search for
spiritual meaning. That traditional image is all well and good,
but for many of us who are committed to our own spiritual growth
and also have an active life in the material world it offers us
few helpful role models. I'm sure there are many mothers and fathers
out there who have longed for a few days in a place where everyone
has taken a vow of silence. Or, after reading the words of a spiritual
master, have thought to themselves, I'd like to see how enlightened
he'd be after an afternoon with a cranky toddler!
Enlightened Parenting is a spiritual discipline as valid, as valuable,
and as rigorous as any experienced by monks and mystics. It requires
taking the deep spiritual lessons of the soul and putting them
to practical use on a daily basis in the most challenging of circumstances
- the human family. It challenges our ability to discover our
truths. It tests our faith, our patience, and our commitment.
Enlightened Parenting is not for the faint of heart. At its core
it teaches us how to be an enlightened master and a mother or
father of active children. It brings spirituality down off the
mountain-top and into the living room, the grocery store, and
the PTA. It is about living each day as a spiritual being having
a human experience. It helps us to leave behind the spiritual
schizophrenia that entices us to separate our spiritual experiences
from our every day life. It is about the daily practice of experiencing
yourself, your children, your spouse, your friends and loved ones
as the divine beings that you already are.
It doesn't matter what age your child is, it is never too late
to approach parenting from its spiritual roots. Any moment is
the perfect moment to begin. Remember, spiritual healings occur
in an instant. Outside the bounds of the physical world there
is no experience of linear time - no yesterday or tomorrow, no
past or future - there is only the eternal now. A healing in the
eternal now transcends all experience of the past. A healing on
the spiritual level is a healing for all time. You need not regret
past mistakes or wish, "If only I knew then what I know now."
This book will attempt to convince you of the perfection of every
experience you have had up to this moment. The past is what you
and your child have chosen together. It is done, gone forever.
Now is the moment you can change. Now is the moment of transformation.
In fact this book can also be of invaluable assistance in healing
relationships between you and your own parents, even if your parents
are absent or have passed on. Everything you learn here about
your own spirituality and that of your child can be applied to
your dealings with your parents and the prevailing thought patterns
that formed the relationship. After all, the parent/child relationship
you share with your parents doesn't stop just because you are
now older and have become a parent too.
In many ways becoming an Enlightened Parent yourself may provide
just the insights you need to begin to understand your parents
and the challenges they faced. Our society has come a long way
in a short time in it's understanding of Enlightened Parenting.
Your parents, in most cases, were doing the best they could with
a limited and sometimes mistaken set of parenting tools. This
book will help you heal any aspects of that old relationship which
need healing and create a new, enlightened parent/child relationship.
Like you, I have read dozens, perhaps hundreds of self-help
and spiritual books throughout my personal quest. Some were useful.
Many were excellent. I gobbled up entire books in a single evening,
gleaning every shred of spiritual wisdom I could find. But that
was the problem. I read through them so quickly that the true
lessons found within their pages passed me by. I understood the
concepts on an intellectual level, but that was all. Then one
day I stopped gobbling. I slowed down and took the time to do
the various exercises. I found that the book's lessons stayed
with me in a profound way. By bringing new ideas and thought patterns
into my life in a concrete, experiential way they became imprinted
into my cellular memory. Instead of going in one ear and out the
other, they literally became a part of me.
It is for reason that this book has been designed to break up
the reading process. After each new idea has been introduced there
are a series of exercises to complete or a guided meditation for
you to follow. These interruptions encourage you to stop reading
(intellectually processing) and start doing (experientially practicing).
By doing the various exercises you will put the principles to
work in your life right now, today, when you need them most. You
will delve beneath the surface to deal with parenting issues on
a deeper, spiritual level. These new thoughts and behaviors become
a part of you, rather than just an interesting, but quickly forgotten,
insight.
The only materials you need are a blank book or spiral bound notebook,
a pen, and an open heart. If you have a small personal tape recorder
you may wish to record your own copy of the guided meditations,
but this is optional.
Enlightened Parenting is not something you do only for your children,
it is something you do for yourself. It is a giant step in your
own spiritual growth. It is permission for you to invest time
and consciousness in the growth of your own soul. It is permission
to give from an overflowing sense of joy, rather than a sense
of duty. You are, after all, the most important person in your
child's life. Your child depends on you not to tell them how to
behave, but to set the example by your own actions of a healthy,
balanced spiritual life. Through the unfolding of your own spiritual
journey you will lead them to the discovery of their own purpose
and joy in life.
Enlightened Parenting is a life-long commitment. It transforms
relationships and changes lives. Are you willing to give it a
try?
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