How to Prepare for Parenthood: Essential Skills for New Parents

This post is part of a series: Essential Skills for New Parents: How yoga practices can help you parent with peace and presence.

Athletes and CEOs learn skills to help them manage their own physiology to be able to perform optimally in intense situations. Why not parents?

Early parenting is intense. No one really tells you what a crazy wild journey it is. I knew enough to be terrified, but I couldn’t have really understood what it was going to be like and what I would need to get through it. Luckily, by the time I came to parenting, I had twenty years of yoga and meditation practice under my belt to support me. From all that practice, skills emerged to support me through the intense challenges of early parenting and helped me to get through the experience with peace and presence.

I think that these are skills that anyone can do. Don’t worry. You won’t have to spend months in an ashram or weeks in silence like I did. Parenting itself gives you enough opportunity to practice.

Don’t panic if you are about to become a parent and are not terrified. I have this additional challenge of dealing with a chronic illness for more than twenty years. Dealing with a chronic illness is time and energy consuming. I had no idea how I was going to handle the additional demands of parenting. But love, or blind faith or something fuelled me forward.

You know how life sometimes has a special surprise for you? Or, something works out in an unexpected way? Well, I found out that my years of dealing with chronic illness, primarily through yoga and meditation practice, had prepared me for dealing with the intense challenges of early parenting. I found that my yoga practices emerged for me right when I needed them, to help me get through the challenge of the minute or the day.

It was so profound, that I decided to write it all down to share with other parents. I thought surely if these skills and practices helped me, they could help other new parents too, even those who are not also dealing with a chronic illness.

I have written ten posts that explain how I used a specific yoga skill to address a particular challenge in early parenting. I hope that it serves you on your parenting journey.

All the topics in the series will be posted over the next few weeks:

This post is part of a series:

Essential Skills for New Parents: How yoga practices can help you parent with peace and presence.

Please subscribe to my newsletter in the blue box below if you want to be sure to get the rest of the posts. And click here to see all the published posts.

I am working on a book on the same topic to compile all the practices with further information and make it available as an easy reference for new and expecting parents. Please subscribe to my newsletter in the blue box below if you want to be sure to get the book.

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