There are no perfect parents—no universally correct style of parenting—because we, the caregivers, are inherently imperfect. Life throws us curveballs. Each child comes into the world with a unique mix of chemistry, temperament, and emotional wiring. No manual can fully prepare us for the endless variables: sleepless nights, tantrums, resistance, developmental puzzles, and the deep identity shift that parenting demands.
Our capacity to parent with calm and presence is shaped by everything we bring to the role—our childhood experiences, trauma, nervous system regulation, coping strategies, and cultural conditioning. Many of us enter parenthood already dysregulated, carrying the unresolved pain and reactivity of our own upbringing. This, combined with the relentless demands of modern life, makes parenting feel overwhelming, even impossible, at times.
The challenges are not trivial: birthing trauma, breastfeeding struggles, the screaming and sleeplessness, the sacrifice of personal freedom, the constant need for attention and patience, the subtle resentments, the guilt, the loss of self, the emotional disorientation when we feel disrespected or rejected by our own children. These experiences are real. They test the limits of our nervous system, our relationships, our self-worth.
And yet—miraculously—we still choose to create life.
Why? Because something deeper than instinct calls us. Beyond biology, there is a sacred longing to love, to protect, to guide, and to experience the miracle of watching a soul unfold from its earliest breath. This capacity to love a child—even imperfectly—is perhaps the most redemptive force on earth.
But here’s the truth I discovered too late for some of the moments I missed: love, in its highest form, cannot flow freely through tension. It must be delivered through a relaxed and regulated body and mind. When I was lost in anxiety, I couldn’t show up fully. I was there, but I wasn’t present. My mind was hijacked by worry, shame, perfectionism, or distraction. And my child felt that.
It took years of self-inquiry, breathwork, meditation, and failure to finally understand the root of it all. The answer, which had been quietly waiting all along, was this:
Relax. And breathe correctly—all the time.
Everything else flows from that. When we learn to regulate our breath, we regulate our chemistry. When we soften our bodies, we soften our reactions. When we slow down, we finally see the child in front of us. The answers reveal themselves not through panic or force—but through presence.
This is the work of healing the world: one breath, one child, one moment at a time.