inquiring parent

The purpose of this blog is simply to record some observations on life as a parent using The Work of Bryon Katie, and hopefully illustrate how it makes a difference to our family. If you are a parent too, my hope is that you will find the posts useful to your understanding of yourself and your child. If you’re not a parent my hope is you will still find it useful. 

I am not an expert, and I don’t believe there is one right way to parent our children. I do believe that we all know how to parent our children. Intuitively we know. I know, you know.  Always. But sometimes –  often – we don’t manage to listen to our own intuition, to the inner voice that shows us the way. We’re too busy listening to the clatter of voices in our minds, voices that tell us we should be doing this, should be doing that, shouldn’t be doing something else. These voices conflict. The thoughts that flit through our minds, the thoughts we believe and try to follow, are things people have said to us that somehow took root, that seem to make sense, or maybe we were just so young and impressionable when we first heard them that we never stopped to question them. So this site isn’t about learning new ways, so much as unlearning old ways. It’s about stopping to question how we do things, and looking at why we do them, what we unwittingly pass on to our children, the same way our parents unwittingly passed behaviours, beliefs, ways of being on to us.  

The best way I know to question thoughts and beliefs, be they ones we formed yesterday or forty years ago, is with The Work of Bryon Katie. (There will be many other ways and  I’d love you to leave a comment with anything you find useful.) Briefly, The Work is a process of inquiry where you write down whatever stressful thoughts and judgements you may have about others or yourself and as Bryon Katie writes: “use them as a starting point for self-realisation.” In practice, what that means is having written down your stressful beliefs, you then ask – and answer – four questions about each statement. The Work is not about trying to force yourself to change beliefs, but most people seem to find, as I do, that when we do The Work beliefs begin to dissolve away. 

I am a parent, and  I do the Work of Bryon Katie, on a (mostly) daily basis. That means I ask questions, wonder, and discover what I thought I knew I don’t know at all. This leaves me free to be the parent I am, not the parent I think I should be. And that is all we ever can be! 

To find out more about The Work go to:  http://www.thework.com/index.asp

On this site you will read about The Work and be able to download worksheets and other materials, all for free.  

Contact me at: yvonne@inquiringparent.com