Living An Inspired Life

I woke up about 4:30 am. I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep. I did my morning blessings and visualizations. I knew that today begins a new era in my work: now I share as massively as I can.

When I first heard of social networking via the net I knew it was a major vehicle for me. I’ve had dreams of traveling and sharing from place to place, places I love. And I am going to do that, but right now that is not happening.

Now I am sharing with all of you what allows me to perform what seems like miracles to others, so that everyone who wants to can do this, too. This is my contribution to creating heaven on earth.

I’ve been working in this field since 1970 starting with studying Montessori in India. I love India. And I love Montessori, provided the teachers are loving and compassionate. It has many things built into it that help the children stay true to their own nature and become deeply centered beings, as I believe we are meant to be by nature.

Sure they learn lots of things, reading, math, science, art, beautiful social interaction, how to focus, to concentrate….but really, the focus and the concentration happen by nature because this is their means to bring all of the elements of their being into harmony. So it seems to me that nature sets it up this way.

So…back to the miracles…My miracles are based on what I have come to call the Power of Respect. That is an inspired name, I am sure. I first used it as the title for a newspaper column I had. It was Q&A and people in my community asked me questions about how to be respectful in a variety of situations, and I would answer them in the weekly column.

This was after I’d written my first book, Friendly Families and the Power of Respect, so I guess I first used it here. I’d forgotten this, because for many years the book has been titled: Parenting for the New Millennium. Anyway, as I was writing that book, I became consumed with the desire to share this knowledge with everyone. That sure began a long, strange, wonderful journey.

It seemed as I looked around me (this was late ’80s), and this had been since we started our Montessori school in northern California in1973, no one else saw what I saw. No one else saw how powerful treating children respectfully could be.

Now times are different. Positive parenting has become much more practiced, though parents are still hurting their children (spanking, whipping, slapping, even beating, pulling their ears, washing their mouth out with soap, putting chili in their mouths–and some of these were listed on a Family Feud–so it’s still with us).

I’m not saying parents who practice a form of positive parenting hurt their children, at least not physically. (Time-out hurts, taking away things or priveleges hurts, grounding hurts…)Attachment parents may not hurt them at all. But understand that even just being the one in charge and they have to do what you say whether they agree or not, even this does hurt them, and worse of all–it keeps the love you are feeling from them from reaching them. You know that hurts…

Taking away any human being’s personal power hurts that human being. Period.

What I am here to offer is a fail-safe foundation for any positive parenting practice. I also hope to convince parents who do not practice parenting positively, that there is a way to create such good feelings in their family that family misery can be a thing of the past…and it can happen fast.

Well, this is as far as I am inspired to go today. So be as respectful to your children as you can and I can help you make this an unfailing bedrock to create a peaceful, loving, very enjoyable family life.

Best Wishes To All,

Karen Ryce