This is a lovely meditation for parents who are expecting or have already given birth to their babies. Parents can use it together or separately, although before the baby is born, it is usually easier for fathers to use it together with mothers.
We recommend that you only use the meditation up to about the time your children reach eighteen months. It is specifically designed to intensify a parent-baby bond; and because children older than about eighteen months are moving into older stages of development, different kinds of bonding with them are best from then onwards.
Many Benefits
Prospective parents have found many important benefits in the meditation. Because the process of the meditation is so gentle and subtle, parents are often surprised at the depth and extent of the changes they experience.
The benefits for unborn babies and parents include that it:
• is an easy way to build energy and vitality when feeling tired or drained
• provides a wonderful way to develop a relaxed, joyful and fulfilling connection with the developing baby
• really helps promote a welcoming feeling and environment for the baby and helps in developing a strong awareness of him or her as the months pass
• encourages the development of a loving, accepting, sharing emotional field within which the baby can grow
• helps mothers who are ambivalent about their pregnancies to deal with the reality of their babies inside them and to resolve feelings of not wanting them
• can help mothers who have threatened miscarriages to go full term.
Parents of newborn to eighteen-month-olds have also found it wonderful. The benefits to them include that it:
• helps caretaking mothers (and fathers) get some rest with their babies when their babies are slowing down a little
• is a great way to find extra energy and recharge depleted batteries
• offers the chance to deepen the refreshment of brief periods of rest
• promotes more refreshing sleep and can help to get the baby to sleep
• enables mothers and fathers to continue to build their bonds with their babies after the birth, using relaxation and openness to do this
• helps to resolve ambivalent, repellant, rejecting or other uncomfortable feelings that many parents experience about their babies from time to time
• can add to the wonderful sense of sharing and loving oneness that accompanies feeding time or bath time is over
• promotes loving bonds between all family members who use the meditation.
Using the Recording
Parents can use the Loving Bond Meditation in many different ways. When they have time to sleep, the long meditation (about 40 minutes) can be used, as it does not have a wake-up call at the end. When only a short time is available, the short meditation (about 26 minutes) is the one to use. It will give a wake-up call at the end.
You can use the meditation in bed, while lying comfortably on the floor, or while sitting in a chair, or lying in bed or on a couch. The main thing to do is to make sure that you are completely supported and that your baby is completely safe. If you don’t have him or her in your arms, place your baby in a cot near you, or in some confined area. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR SAFETY.
If you are too busy to do the meditation during the day, do it in bed as you go to sleep. Just put the recording on beside the bed.
Each parent can do it alone with the baby, or with both partner and baby. You can also do it when your baby is in another room or even further away from you. Generally, the closer you are together, the better; and holding your baby is best of all. It is a way of linking and sharing your love, energy and nurturing your child, something all babies need continually through their early years.
Repeating the meditation is very helpful. The processes, both the relaxation part of the meditation and the bonding part, have an accumulating affect. So it is well worth doing it as often as you can, even if to begin with little seems to be happening. Remember to choose times when it is most easy to relax, such as when the baby is sleepy or needing sleep, or when you are both going to sleep. Even if your baby is restive or unsettled to begin with, you will often find that he or she calms down very quickly as you start to do the meditation.
Eventually, many parents find that all they need to do is to start the meditation and the sound of the music and Elizabeth’s voice are enough for their babies to begin to settle and often to go to sleep.
Produced by:
The Awakening Network Inc., P.O. Box 271, Seymour, Victoria 3661, Australia
Telephone: 1800 244 254 (Freecall in Australia);
+61 3 5799 1198 (International) Facsimile: +61 3 5799 1132
Email: contact@awakenw.net Website - http://www.awakeningnetwork.net