Promise

My theory about raising children include the importance of giving them tools that will help them lead fulfilling and independent lives. I also believe that the more empowering programming you can implement in your children early on the less time they will need to spend on re-scripting later in life. Although it usually is way more impactful to live my theories, than it is to try to raise my daughters into a behavior by talking about it, sometimes I believe it can be valuable to start implementing strategies and theories even if you don’t feel that you’re mastering it yourself just yet.

Your inner voice

For children and adults alike it is valuable to become aware of the beliefs  and often subconscious meaning that we color our lives with and that effect our actions. One way to help someone bring the internal dialogue into the light is to put a name on the “person” that does the talking inside your head. I’ve touched on this theory in terms of becoming friends with your fear.

Everyone has an inner voice that whispers the truths of the heart. To be able to hear this voice and then to grow the courage to follow it is paramount to live a life with integrity. For myself I’ve been practicing for years to hear that voice and to be brave enough to listen and to act accordingly. I’ve come to believe that this practice will be an integral part of my life that will never be “done” but more like a way of living. Even if I can’t say that I follow my truest desires or even always know what they are, yet, I still feel that it’s an idea worth introducing to my girls.

I’ve discovered two areas that are powerful in terms of discovering that you have an inner voice. The theories of these areas are simple so you can start with these even if you as a parent is not walking your talk just yet.

Telling the truth

The first area is telling the truth. You can measure the level of how you live your truth by how you feel about yourself when you’re alone. If you feel like you have nothing to hide, that the people closest to you know everything about you and still loves you, you can sleep without worry. Look for the non-egotistical version of pride and imagine how amazing it feels when you know you’re living according to your truest values.

Give the gift of living a life in truth to your children by staging situations where they will experience how good it can feel to tell the truth. Help them identify with someone who tells the truth and minimize the risk of them keeping things bottled up.

If you start when they’re small you can practice with relatively easy things and build trust and an open channel of communication. In the future you want your teenagers to tell you when things happen, you want to have a connection that ensures that they come to you with questions or situations they need to reason through with a trusted adult. If you have a shared history where it is safe to tell the truth to each other then it is far more likely that your child will continue to let you in as he/she grows older.

Keeping your promises

The other area is keeping your promises. Akin to telling the truth, the idea of keeping your promises is something that will greatly impact how you feel about yourself. There are two different kinds of promises you make, the ones you make to yourself and the ones you give to others.

The essential thing is that when you talk to others, or think something to yourself, your subconscious is listening. If you say something and then don’t act accordingly your subconscious will get confused; “We said something but we didn’t take action on it. We better protect ourselves from feeling stupid/confused or like we failed. Let’s make that thing we talked about into something “not important”. We would never NOT do something that’s important so let’s make sure we don’t waste time on that unimportant thing! Ever!” Your subconscious will definitely not assist you towards positive action, it might actually work against your higher goals.

These internal conflicts might not even be known to your conscious self. But having them will give you a physical reaction that will keep getting more intense for as long as you don’t adjust your course. If you have stomach-issues, difficulty to sleep, have tension in your body you might want to look inwards and see if your inner voice is telling you to do something that you’re not following through on or if you’re actually voicing something out loud to people that you’re not acting on.

Help your children to create an identity for themselves of someone who says what they mean and do what they say. By doing this you will have given them a behavior pattern that will help them lead a life based on their inner truths and to become someone that others know they can trust.

If you’re going on this journey as an adult

Treat yourself with extraordinary care during this process. If you’re not used to stopping and listening inwards it might be somewhat surprising and scary. Be gentle, be loving and be patient. That internal voice is yours and it will never say anything to hurt you. In fact, that voice, just like the voice of fear, is trying to get your attention so that you can live a fulfilling life.

Maybe you need to step back and look at the promises you give. Maybe it’s time to lower your ambition. I know that sounds insane! But it is MUCH more detrimental to your wellbeing and your progress to give high promises that you don’t follow through on.

While working on yourself you can still introduce these thoughts to your children.

Practicing with my daughters

I’ve been focusing on truth and honesty with my girls from an early age. There are so many opportunities to practice these skills during a day. Focus on the small truths and on the miniscule promises that are being stated and kept and shine your spotlight upon them so they become clear.

My youngest was once asked during dinner to put her plate into the dishwasher after she was done which she agreed to do. She was about 4 years old at the time. When she was done, about 2 minutes later (small kids have short concentration spans so help them by asking very close to the actual event), she put her plate in and I hugged her and told her how much I like that she’s the kind of girl that keeps her promises.

Another time one of my daughters told me about a situation where she lost her temper at a boy in her school. He accidentally broke her key chain and she snapped really harshly at him. She told me how she actually heard that inner voice tell her that she’d been too hard on him. He didn’t know how important that key chain was to her and she knew it wasn’t his intention to brake it. Her voice had made her go to him and apologize “almost against her will”. When she told me this story I hugged her fiercely and told her how proud I am of her, that she listened to her voice even when it didn’t feel so good in the moment.

Would it make a difference in your family?

What positive results do you think could happen in your family if your children were encouraged to listen to their inner voice and to make and keep promises? Would it be helpful to get some more inspiration and ideas on how to think and act as a parent to start to implement?

Actionable

1. There are many situations during a normal family day that will come with the opportunity to practice. Head over to the Lifehacks page at MotherOfLions to get some ideas on how to implement and begin this journey.
2. Practice often and please remember that it is SO VERY important to always give your children praise for telling the truth when they do. Start when they are small and the consequences are relatively small. Trust that you have instilled values in them so that they already know what the right thing is. When they come to confess is NOT the time to lecture!
   There will be times when you need to bite your tongue to keep from getting upset. There will never be a better time to prove the love and trust that you feel for your child. This is the time where you focus on expressing how grateful and proud you are that they told the truth. The harder the situation the greater the reward for keeping that focus on your connection.