While you may believe your most important challenge is to raise your children well, there’s an even more essential task you need to attend to, which is the foundation of effective parenting. This task is to raise yourself into the most awakened and present individual you can be. The reason this is central to good parenting is that children don’t need our ideas and expectations, or our dominance and control, only for us to be attuned to them with our engaged presence.
It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.
Human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered "intrinsic" to human happiness and far outweigh "extrinsic" values such as beauty, money and status.
The best support you can give to anyone you love is your wellness. When you are well, joyful, fun, and happy, you are the greatest gift to everyone around you. That's when you inspire wellness, joy, and fun within them. When you take care of yourself, you are in a much better position to take care of others.
Your tiredness, sickness, and inability to look after yourself does not support or help anyone. Your loved ones don't want to be the cause of your unhappiness or exhaustion. They want to be the cause of your joy and wellness. Read more
Let's remember that there are people who rely on lipreading to communicate with those around them - for these people and others we encounter while wearing a face mask, let's do what we can to show our humanity through our eyes and behaviour. Read more
After 21 years, we made the difficult decision to bring our catalogue to a close. To stay connected with Dr. Kim's writings, please feel free to subscribe for free here: Dr. Ben Kim on Substack. Sending best wishes and thanks to all.