As the world celebrates Mother’s Day and Father's Day, we see happy pictures all over social media. At times, the contrast is so stark!
There are moms and dads deep in the trenches, where they are increasingly frustrated and are in need of a break... from the anger, the patience it needs to be a parent, the frustration of falling short of our own expectations, and the eventual resentment towards the very children we are thanking for having promoted us from mere man and woman to dad and mom.
Would it help if I told you, it’s okay to feel the way you feel? That it’s okay to “love” someone so deeply but not exactly “like” them at that moment?! That when you are the go-to parent, all the time, it’s okay to just want to disappear.
What if I told you (as I hope many have been kind enough to tell you), just because you got angry, just because you want a day off, just because you don’t want to play yet another board game with the kids, none of this makes you a bad parent! IT IS OKAY.
None of these kids were downloaded pre-programmed.
None of these kids came off an assembly line - definitely not with instructions on how to assemble them.
None of these kids were delivered with a manual or a “how-to” guide!
Then why beat ourselves up with each mistake?
Just as this is your first child (or even second or third), this is also your first time being a parent. And it will be your first time raising that child in their current phase... toddler, preteen, teenager, whatever it may be. Of course, you will make mistakes. You are, after all – a mere muggle!
None of us is an expert. Every one of us is trying hard to do our best. And in my book, that is success. That is perfection.
And for all of you who have been told you are making so many mistakes, you are not good enough… let me tell you... all these mistakes prove that you tried! That is all that matters.
So have a great Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Parent's Day, whichever day you want to celebrate… celebrate you - you did your best yesterday, you gave it your best today and you will do your best tomorrow too.
If I were a mathematician - an average of three best days equals “best”... right?!
Sweta Shah Sakhpara is a pranic energy therapist and a pranic psychotherapist. She also teaches mindfulness and meditation to kids, adults and families. When she is not doing any of the above, she actively practices being a mindful parent to two kids.
Having learned and practiced pranic healing for ~fifteen years, Sweta has been blessed with the trust of many clients for ailments as simple as a headache to complex ones like Tourette’s syndrome, from depression and anxiety to finding ways to embrace the idea of a new normal with a child being diagnosed on the spectrum. You could read more about her HERE.
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