Please understand that I am posting parts of this email to myself from Naomi not to promote anything she does that she is paid for professionally, but simply for the priceless information that she loves to share with parents! Her education, knowledge and experiences go way beyond positive parenting in a most amazing way. I realize that her beliefs can be extreme, but also beneficial. I have always had her permission to share what she writes. She is all about genuine (real) love and peace in all relationships, which benefit parents and children in very profound ways. However, I will check with Wendy to make sure I am not violating any terms! I am hopeful, so here is her email:
Dear Cindy,
Reminder: If you write to me, I can quote you in a newsletter.
Me (Cindy) talking: The following info is about a teleclass she is having but I have deleted the specifics just in case it does violate TOS. However, I found the information below to be both helpful and hopeful for those who are true PPers or those who want to know more:
2) Selina’s emails and my request for her:
3) More on wanting (response to my last reflection):
Hi Naomi,
I continue to be inspired by your thoughts and views on how we can better approach raising our children (and ourselves). I am becoming much more aware of how my own wants often interfere with just relaxing and enjoying time with my children (even if bedtime takes two hours!!!) In many other areas, my wants also can interrupt my appreciation of the 'here and now' with my kids. Lately, my very wise 5 year old has taken to saying "yes, I understand you want to, Mum,... but it's not important" as I try to convince him yet again to go along with what I want or 'have' to do!
You truly are a precious resource to me and my family. Warmest wishes,
Sherryn Loke
Dear Sherryn,
Thank you for these precious words of yourself and your child. And, I would take it a step further and even question the thinking that bedtime takes two hours. It is a thought that takes the joy out of your time with your child. In reality you go on living being with your child who is going to sleep.
In your language it sounds like it is long, and that you want it to pass sooner; as though you want the next moment more than you want this one. The words “even if” are resistance to the now and to what is; even though it is too long and painful... I find ways to...
Do you want being with your child at night to be over with? Check that wanting. Free of that wanting, bedtime is always now and wonderful. Would you watch a good movie “even if” it takes two hours? Or would you simply enjoy spending two hours watching a fine movie. It is the same thing. You are alive in these two hours, being with your beloved child; what could be better in that moment?
I would also question the idea of “putting” a child to sleep. You don’t have to. This idea creates struggle and it comes from wanting; wanting time without the child, be with partner in the evening etc. This wanting gets in the way of what is and finding other, more peaceful times for the couple.
You can all go to sleep at the same time and same place and skip this western strange concept of “putting children to sleep.” Children know to sleep on their own and do so when they choose to; when they don’t think they are missing something. If we stay awake and coerce the child to sleep, she feels excluded, gotten rid of and missing something. It is possible to live without this concept and the wants that support it. “I want you to sleep so I can have time without you,” may not be the most peaceful
response to living with another human being.
But if you “put” your child to sleep when she would rather stay up with you, then enjoy your time without wanting her to fall asleep sooner. This moment is always the best moment. Wanting the next moment robs you of this magnificent one.
Enjoy now.
With love,
Naomi
