Be Still, Look and Listen

Do you have a child? Do you have a partner? Have you ever asked yourself this question: What do they really need?

Most of us court up in our busy life and never stop to ask this question. Our partner or our children does not need more information from us, because their mind is bombarding with information every second of their life from the internet. What they really need is our attention, some of you might say yes, I give my partner and my children my full attention. That's great! When I say what they really need is our attention, I don’t mean the attention such as tell our kids to brush their teeth, do homework and put their pyjamas on or give our partner what he or she desires because of our duty as a partner.

So what do I mean by giving them our attention? I personally struggle with this part because I found myself on my phone many many times when I was with my partner, Beck. Sometimes I get too excited to share with her all the latest information, tips and tricks but I notice all she needs was my attention, and yet my mind was going 100 miles per hour. Another example is me and my beautiful daughter Saachi. She would come up to me and ask “Papa can we play?”, And I would say “papa is busy”. It got to the point on one incident in martial arts grading session, this poor little girl had to put her martial arts gear on, the instructor gave them one minute to put their sparring gear on and Saachi was struggling with hers and where was her father? On Facebook.

Maybe you court yourself now and then in these scenarios, and you feel enormous guilt about it as I did, and you start to compare yourself with other parents to make yourself feel better as I was. I felt terrible after watching Anthony (Saachi's instructor) put the gear on to my daughter cause her dad was unavailable. From that day on I told myself enough is enough.  So I asked myself the question what does Saachi need? What does Beck really need? And I came to a conclusion that, what they really need is my presence, and to give them my undivided attention. To be able to do that I need to be still mentally and spiritually, so I start the journey of meditating and visualise myself to turn the phone off when I’m around Saachi and just be fully present with her. I start to envision myself looking into Beck’s eyes when I speak to her with an intention to understand and hear her.

I discovered something that I would like to share with you guys, the power of being still. Practice being still when you are in front of your partner and kids. When you’re still, something magical happens - your partner will talk to you kindly, your kids will behave nicely, and politely. As a result, you don’t stress. So I suggest you try this for the next couple of weeks and see how it will transform your life. Be still, look and listen.