Parenting Is Yoga: How Mindful Parenting Becomes a Daily Practice

Parenting is Yoga

I’m currently in the middle of a two week half-term with no childcare - feeling grateful for all of this extra time with my kids but also pulled in a million different directions each and every day! Whether you’re like me in the childcare juggle, rocking a sleepless baby at 3 a.m., or taking a deep breath before guiding a toddler through a tantrum - you are practicing yoga, no mat required.

Parenting is yoga in its most beautiful, chaotic, magical, enriching form. It asks us to embody the same qualities we cultivate in our yoga practice: patience, surrender, presence and love.

In yoga, we teach ourselves to breathe through challenge, to guide ourselves back to the present moment when we wander, to let go and surrender. As parents we are asked to do these things day in and day out, whether your child is a teething baby, a toddler discovering free will, or a teenager coping with all the complexities of modern life. All the trying moments of parenthood become opportunities to really, truly live your yoga practice - pausing, breathing, noticing before reacting.

Philosophically, yoga is all about union - coming home the essence of our true selves so we can connect with everything else - including our loved ones. Parenting is definitely karma yoga - the yoga of action and service - showing up for our children every day in all the tiny and huge ways they need us. It's also bhakti yoga - the yoga of devotion - pouring love into every meal, every cuddle, every kind word. It's even jnana yoga - the yoga of wisdom - as we notice and observe our own patterns so we can learn to parent better.

Every season of parenting brings new challenges but the practice of yoga is there to grow with us, to guide us on our journey. We must practice ahimsa - non violence - towards ourselves, giving us the grace to make mistakes, learn and try again. Parenting is definitely a practice of santosha - contentment - even when, like me, you find yourself building the same train set for the 1535738 time.

Every day, just like in our yoga practice on the mat, we show up, we practice, we wobble or lose our way, we treat ourselves with kindness and we begin again. If you too find yourself in the beautiful chaos of life with kids, pause, take a breath. Notice your feet on the floor. Notice your breath. Be here now. This is all yoga.

With Love,

Meg