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Jan 25 •
The World Needs Authenticity
Hi everybody, I’m Amanda. I’m glad that you’re here. I want to pop in really quick and let you know that this page is a bit of a work in progress right now. It’s something I’ve been wanting to start for a long time, and I keep thinking I need to make it perfect and polished, or maybe finish my college degree before I start. But let’s be real. The world doesn’t need a perfect parent or a polished page; the world needs authenticity. So here I am in my authentic, messy self. My "Gurus" (The Bio) I’m 43 and have been a mother since I was 19. I have three biological children and three adopted through foster care. I am parenting children who are neurodivergent, trans, autistic, living with chronic pain, and ADHD. Some were impacted by prenatal substance exposure; some suffer from CPTSD. Some are academic geniuses, some are athletes, some are addicted to vaping and struggle to make it to school each day and some have their own babies already!!! All of them are my most precious, honored gurus. They teach me, they help wake me up (metaphorically and literally), and they are my dharma. My Life & Roots I live on a 50-acre ranch in Northern California (so if I say the word "really" a lot, or "hella," or use the word "like" too many times—that’s probably why!). I have an almost Master’s degree in clinical counseling and work as an ABA therapist and private tutor. I love making things from scratch—including this community. I love the teachings of DOGEN, Michael Singer Mr. Rogers, and Jesus (the real one, not the white republican one—whoops, sorry if that offends! not judging anyone, I promise, I just think of Jesus as a dark-skinned radical). I also have a wonderful husband I am intentionally in love with, and I love audiobooks and growing food. Why I Started This I’ve worked with children for 23 years and I feel like the best way I can serve them is to help parents wake up. By waking up, I mean realizing our True Nature. I know that can sound a little "woo," but by true nature, I just mean that quiet space of awareness that exists before the stress of the day tells us who we are supposed to be.
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Jan 25 •
Hard Like a Diamond
No one needs to tell you that parenting is hard. We all know the cliches—the mountain of laundry, the sibling rivalries, the homework battle, etc. And if your life is anything like mine you can add in endless doctor appointments, rotating therapists, and searching your kids' rooms hoping to NOT find more vapes (ouch). But hard doesn’t have to be bad. Hard can be steel, it can be a diamond, it can be the very thing that wakes us up. But how do we stop suffering through the hard days and start waking up? It starts with recognizing that we suffer through hard days because we’re racing against an imaginary timeline. When we live by the clock (Chronos) more on that later, we think we have to accomplish a certain amount in order to feel better and we can never truly rest. We feel like we are racing against Time—and that the clock is our master, and 24 hours is never enough. We never feel like we are "finished" or able to really rest. We have this dread our babies are growing so fast that if we blink, they’ll practically be in high school and we will have missed all the preciousness while racing about like a chicken with our heads spinning around and screaming "where are my car keys.... we are LATE!" And "who let the dogs in again!!!" You can see how this really zaps the joy right out of the room and the hard moments become insufferable. We get lost in the race against time and turn on ourselves. Here, in A Place for Parents we stop the clock. We come home to our centers and find that the peace we have been craving for so long is already here now. And lucky for you and me it’s what’s looking through our eyes and reading this very post right now. The Foundation: So, here is the first practice and it is simpler than you think. So simple you won’t think it’s going to work but it will become a bedrock foundation that can change your life. You don’t have to force yourself to be still, meditate and take deep breaths. You don't need to visualize, journal, or anything. Instead, every time you feel that frantic pull to get to the "next" thing, just name it. Say to yourself: "Oh, I’m rushing."
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Welcome to a place where we learn to drop the measuring stick and know peace NOW. We are coming home to our true center and bringing our kids with us.
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