"Parenting is your meditation"

At a recent Silent Retreat, Susan L. Woods offered us the phrase "parenting is your meditation". This resonates so much with me lately as I've been working early/late hours, solo parenting sick children, solo parenting healthy active children and simply working on maintaining as much balance as I can muster between 5am and midnight. 

To find this balance, however, I have sacrificed my early morning meditation. And yet, I find it helpful to remind myself that this is only temporary. I am learning every day new ways for me to find "presence", "mindfulness" and "lovingkindness" throughout my day (albeit, in small but valuable snippets . And while my meditation isn't me sitting mindfully  on my zafu along side my children (it's more like them trying to piggy back me while I'm frantically trying to finish the last 5 minutes of a guided meditation), I am learning how my children are my most powerful and rewarding teachers of presence, compassion, and lovingkindness. Parenting, messy and chaotic as it can be, is my meditation today, possibly tomorrow and definitely on Thursday. 

And so I send to thee, dear mamas, papas, & caregivers, some gentleness, cupfuls of compassion and a boatload of lovingkindness - in whatever form that may take. 

Today, these all came to me as I was hiking in the pouring rain with my son, hand in hand, and in blissful silence - listening to the rain falling on the forest leaves and watching the puddles dance. 
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Where are you finding presence in your busy, chaotic, and messy worlds? I'd love to know!

xo rebekka

ps: This post was originally published on my Facebook page and inspired by Mindful.org image of the fantasy of meditating with children vs the reality of meditating with children!