Myla Kabat-Zinn > Quotes

“Too many children live with the feeling that they are not accepted for who they are, that, somehow, they are “disappointing” their parents or not meeting their expectations, that they don’t “measure up.” How many parents spend their time focusing on the ways in which their child is “too this” or “too that,” or “not enough of this or that”? A great deal of unnecessary pain and grief is caused by this withholding, judging behavior on the part of parents. When has parental disapproval, in the form of shaming, humiliating, or withholding, ever been a positive influence on a child’s behavior? It might result in obedience; but at what cost to the child, and to the adult that child becomes?”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart.”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn

“Like a relay race with a long overlap in which the baton is passed—lasting at least eighteen years and often longer—our job as parents is to position our children to run their solo laps effectively.”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. THOREAU, Walden”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“The utterly ordinary is utterly extraordinary. It all depends on how you see things, and whether you are willing to look deeply, and live by what you see and feel and know.”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“Discernment includes seeing that even as we attempt to see our children for who they are, we also cannot fully know who they are or where their lives will take them. We can only love them, and accept them, and honor the mystery of their being.”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“Meditative moments have come in many forms—sitting up in the middle of the night nursing my newborn, soaking in the peace and quiet, feeding her as I am being fed by the sweetness of her being;”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“As every parent knows or soon finds out, each child comes into this world with his or her own attributes, temperament, and genius. As parents, we are called to recognize who each of them uniquely is, and to honor them by making room for them as they are, not by trying to change them, hard as that sometimes is for us. Since they are already always changing as part of their own nature, it may be that this kind of awareness on our part is precisely what is called for to make room for them to grow and change in those very ways that are best for them and that we cannot”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“The mentoring of children and adolescents by people who themselves know in some way their own wholeness, and can thus recognize the beauty and wholeness in others, is the sacred responsibility of the adults in any healthy society.”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

“We have to ask ourselves, over and over again, are we attached to their being a certain way? Do our girls have to be nice, thoughtful, sensitive, kind, quiet? Do we expect them to smile a lot?”
― Myla Kabat-Zinn, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting