How to Let Go for Your Kid to Grow

Greetings and welcome to this SOS meditation on letting go as a parent. As a parent, the inevitable act of letting go can be one of the hardest things to do. For many, it starts almost immediately with dropping off the baby at daycare. And from there are the many other instances, a parent will have to practice letting go, leaving the children with a babysitter, a baby taking their first steps and no longer crawling, dropping them off at school, allowing them to hang out with their friends alone for the very first time, allowing them to drive alone. And the big one, sending them off to college. Letting go can be difficult because we love and care for our children so much. So first, realizing that there's absolutely nothing wrong with experiencing these emotions. Our meditation practice helps us to accept and manage these emotions. So as we drop into practice now, let's begin by adopting a comfortable and dignified posture of awareness. And when you're ready, taking a gentle deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, allowing the attention to gently drop into this moment. And now just allowing the attention to shift to the natural rhythm of the breath, noticing each inhalation and each exhalation. And if the breath doesn't feel appropriate for you to use as a focal point in this moment, that's perfectly okay. Maybe using the contact of the feet with the ground or the movement of the chest with each breath, the gentle invitation is to find that focal point that works best for you in this moment and allowing your attention to be with it. And as you're paying attention to your focal point, it's almost inevitable that distractions will present themselves, pulling at your attention, thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, smells. This is completely normal. So noticing the distraction, acknowledging it, and gently bringing the attention back to your focal point and repeating this process as many times as necessary without any judgment. This is the practice. So let's take a few moments to practice this right now. Now, if it's comfortable for you, once again, taking a gentle, deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, allowing the eyes to open if they were closed. And just noticing how you're feeling in this moment. And as you continue on your parenting journey, facing the inevitability of letting go. Remembering there's nothing wrong with experiencing the emotions that come with it. Our mindfulness and meditation practice helps us to build up our emotional resilience. And knowing that this meditation practice is always here for you to come back to whenever you need it....