Episode 204: Crying, grief, and loving presence with Michael Rose

I'm so delighted to have Michael Rose, the father of our children, back on the podcast. He was a guest on episode 49. Michael is an Aware Parenting instructor, Tai Chi teacher, and RiverKeeper. In this episode, we share about Aware Parenting, and also about The Marion Method for reparenting. Michael includes perspectives from Tai Chi and from counselling adults. Also in this episode, there is more than the usual background noise of birds singing and dogs snoring. I'm sending love to any feelings that you might feel when you hear those noises. (When I experimented with taking those sounds out, all the life energy in our voices also went, so I left them in!) I invite you to experiment with being present with the sounds while you listen to our voices. Michael shares about his experience of being a part of the Mythopoetic Mens Movement in London in the 90s, and how it helped him practice Aware Parenting. We talk about how grief, crying, and love are interconnected, and how our capacity to cry and to grieve deeply affect our capacity to feel and offer love. I share about The Marion Method perspective of the three types of feelings, and why this is particularly important for adults, and how crying as a result of ongoing harsh thoughts-feelings is not actually healing. We talk about the research process of Aware Parenting, and listening to, and trusting, ourselves as well as our babies or children. Michael shares about his most recent experience doing more counselling training, and how that deepened his understanding of presence, and what presence people need from others in order to experience being safe to feel and express their feelings. Michael talks about the experience of how some dads can believe that being with children is tedious and boring, and how those thoughts and experiences can be transformed. We discuss the shift that can happen from listening to our baby or child's feelings being exhausting, to the experience of us increasingly being able to be present, and the experience being fulfilling and energising. We talk about how Aware Parenting helps our children be more present than us, but also how the reparenting journey helps us become more present. Please note, as a content warning, that Michael shares about an experience of a dangerous experience he had with other men, starting at 1 minute and 8 seconds. Michael finishes the episode sharing about his dream and vision for fathers. You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net and my books at: https://marionrose.net/books/ You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/theawareparentingpodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD