Parenting as a Spiritual Practice :: 8-week virtual course

Experience the full potential of parenthood: a transformative vessel for evolving yourself, your child, and the future.

Miriam has done a terrific job in creating a genuinely viable version of Integral Parenting – one of the themes I am most often asked about. Those of you who would like to apply the principles of the Integral approach to parenting itself can now do so! Simply sign up and begin your very own Integral Parenting approach. Not only your child, but you, will benefit enormously, I’m sure. Very best wishes, Ken Wilber.

—Ken Wilber, integral philosopher, author, founder of Integral Life and the Integral Institute

A community learning experience facilitated by Miriam Mason Martineau

Starting June 12, 2012

In the hardest moments of being a new parent, and in the gentle arc of expansion, I found again and again, gems of wisdom that would surface in the perfect moment.  This course was priceless! —Adrian W. (father of two)

COURSE CURRICULUM FOR Parenting As A Spiritual Practice:

BONUS CALLS  Three 1-hour interviews with renowned parenting experts

Supplement the course content and deepen your exploration:

BONUS CALL #1 with Dr. Daniel Siegel from the Mindsight Institute on The Neurological Underpinnings of Attentive Parenting: Helping our children grow up whole

Daniel Siegel, MD, is a Harvard-trained physician and codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, where he is also on the faculty of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. An award-winning educator, Siegel is executive director of the Mindsight Institute. He coined the term “mindsight” to describe our capacity for insight and empathy. The Mindsight Institute promotes insight, compassion, and empathy in individuals, families, and institutions by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes.

Dr. Siegel is the author of numerous books, including Mindsight and Parenting From the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive. His latest parenting book, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, with Tina Bryson, PhD., explores the application of the mindsight approach to parenting.  Dr. Siegel’s ability to make complicated concepts exciting as well as easy to understand has led him to be invited to address local, national, and international groups of educators, parents, public administrators, health care providers, policy-makers, clergy, and neuroscientists.

For more information on Dr. Siegel’s work, please visit www.drdansiegel.com

BONUS CALL #2 with Michael Gurian from the Gurian Institute on Nurturing our Children’s Core Nature: Tuning into and supporting your unique child 

Michael Gurian is the New York Times best-selling author of The Wonder of Boys, The Wonder of Girls, The Good Son, Boys and Girls Learn Differently! and Nurture the Nature, and more than twenty-five books in twenty-one languages.  A social philosopher, family counselor, and corporate consultant, he is cofounder of the Gurian Institute, which conducts field research, launches pilot programs, and trains professionals and parents. Michael is a pioneer in the fields of family development, education, and gender studies.

Michael provides keynotes and consulting throughout the world, and his work has been featured in professional journals and major media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Time, Educational Leadership, Newsweek, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, PBS, and National Public Radio. He has been called “the people’s philosopher” for his ability to bring together scientific principles and people’s every day lives. He has pioneered efforts to bring neuro-biology and brain research into homes, schools, corporations, and public policy. A number of his books have sparked national debate.

For more information on Michael Gurian’s work, please visit www.michaelgurian.com

BONUS CALL #3 with Dr. Gordon Neufeld from the Neufeld Institute on Attachment Theory and Practice in a Developmental Context  

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist with 40 years of experience with children and youth and those responsible for them. A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld is an international speaker, a bestselling author (Hold On To Your Kids) and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm.

Dr. Neufeld has a widespread reputation for making sense of complex problems and for opening doors for change. While formerly involved in university teaching and private practice, he now devotes his time to teaching and training others, including educators and helping professionals. He appears regularly on radio and television. He is a father of five and a grandfather of three.

For more information on Dr. Neufeld’s work, please visit www.gordonneufeld.com

GENERALLY ABOUT THIS COURSE

• This course includes experiential, explorative, practical, and theoretical components.
• It’s at least as much about you the parent as it is about your child: You and I and all of us growing up (and waking up) in order to help our children grow up. As such, the shifts in perspectives, the personal work, and learning we offer are mostly directed towards you, the parents.
• This course is practical, concrete, and useful. In all of life — but especially in the realm of parenting — it all comes down to action and practice. How you think and what you intend is a first, very important step… What really makes the difference for your child, though, is who you are, how you show up, and what you do.
• We will outline the underlying principles and overarching perspectives at work in an integral approach to parenting, and provide concrete examples of how these play out in day-to-day, real-life parenting situations.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

Our primary focus is on on laying a solid foundation between parent and child. Because of our emphasis on the inner work of the parent, and the underlying principles and practices of integral parenting, this course is applicable to any stage of your journey as a parent: whether your child/children are new-born, six years old or twelve.

Pregnant parents and those considering becoming parents are very welcome too! We also welcome anyone curious about how we can parent so that our kids don’t have to “get over their childhood”. And of course, aunties, uncles, grandparents, and caregivers, who make up “the village” that raises our children, are a wonderful addition, providing much-needed support.

Course Facilitator

Miriam Mason Martineau is a mother, counselor, writer, and researcher. She has spent the last 20 years studying and applying Integral-Evolutionary theory, educational frameworks, and spiritual practice.  Miriam holds an M.A. in Psychology from the University of Zurich, with specialization in Youth and Child Psychology, and has been working in private practice as an integral therapeutic counselor since 1993. She is presently writing a book on Integral Parenting called “Raising the Future” and is passionately interested in parenting as a spiritual path — both in theory and in practice.  What a humbling and delightful adventure it is! She is vice-president of Next Step Integral, an international organization that brings an integral perspective to ecology, education, parenting and community. She lives near Nelson, BC, Canada, with her husband, Stephan and their 8-year old daughter, Adonia, whom they homeschool.

My heart is moved at its core by the mystery of what it means to be a human being fully alive on this earth – I stand in awe at the potential, the fragility, vulnerability, strength, and resilience present in the human being, and the responsibility we carry to accompany the little ones into this world at this time. I look forward to journeying with you here, sharing what we have discovered, learned and practiced thus far, and explore with you where we can take this, and how we can put the idea of “Parenting as a Spiritual practice” into actual Practice, for the benefit of our children and our shared future!

Past Course Participants share:

This method of parenting has brought me closer to my children, my authentic self, and God. —Julie M. (mother of three)

This course was an important step on my journey into conscious and creative parenthood. Connecting with other parents through the course offerings was insightful, fun and engaging. —Marlo R. (mother of two)

The course was the foundation for our family’s journey into deeper mindfulness and conscious contribution to the evolution of the next generation. —Rachelle M. (mother of two)

Miriam and Stephan shine a brilliant light of discernment on the multifaceted adventure of parenting. This course is divinely inspired. —Mark B. (father of four)

My husband and I treasure our experience with the course we attended, it will forever affect the way we parent. —Shannon D. (mother of two)

Reflections on Miriam’s Work:

Miriam Mason Martineau redefines and uplifts the task of parenting to be one of our greatest opportunities for personal growth and spiritual activism. An inspired evolutionary visionary, Miriam is a living example of what she teaches, and she has created a path of practice that enables us to grow alongside our children, catapulting our own developing while causing our children to thrive. While most of us are focused on transforming the present, Miriam’s calling is to transform the future, one child at a time. She does it with such deep goodness and heart, that one cannot help but become a better parent in her presence.

—Katherine Woodward Thomas, author of Calling in “The One” and co-founder of the Feminine Power Global Community

A hundred years ago Sigmund Freud called the adventure of parenting an “impossible profession”. Seen from an integral evolutionary perspective, our children and our parenting are both more exciting, more important, and lighter and more free. Miriam’s daughter Adonia is remarkably happy and poised, able to play and be silly in one moment, and to be present and related to adults in a remarkably mature way in the next. Having studied the map with tremendous dedication even while she has given herself unreservedly to swimming and flowing through the actual territory of parenting, Miriam has rich embodied wisdom to share with anyone interested in better understanding how to enjoy the impossible roller coaster ride of doing your best to raise healthy, happy, balanced, high-performance kids who can become your lifelong friends.

—Terry Patten, author, Integral Life Practice, Integral Evolutionary Practice, The Integral Revolution

I recommend this course without reservation. I’ve had a chance to watch Miriam and Stephan raise their beautiful daughter, who is a vivid display of the intelligence, the purity and the natural joy that shine in our children, when we learn how to parent them. My deepest sense about witnessing this is that if more parents could learn to be with their children in this way, we would have a very different world, one in which children would be deeply and joyfully engaged with their lives – curious, alert, and present.  It’s so easy to think that parenting will all come to us naturally. I don’t think this is true. It was not true for me, and it is clearly not true for many of the families that I work with. Don’t wait until your children are in their teens and you feel desperate. Start early and take your time! I rejoice that this kind of support and wisdom is now being made available.