Ady Griffiths - Mindful Thoughts for Fathers: A Journey of Loving-Kindness

A journey of loving-kindness

Ady Griffiths

This book is a journey of loving awareness: of your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your children, and the people and world around you.

Pause for a moment as you read this and become conscious of where you are. Notice what you see and hear, the sensations in your body, the movement of your breath, the thoughts passing through your brain. Mindfulness can be as simple as that though of course, there is more to learn. And that learning is worth doing: it can help you develop parenting skills by creating self-awareness and increasing your energy, positivity, empathy and compassion from moment to moment.

While this is a spiritual and emotional exercise, it is also very practical and real. Fatherhood involves earning money, shopping, preparing food, cleaning dishes, laundry, wiping bums, soothing toddler tantrums or teenage frustrations, helping with homework, and much more. With practice, we can become mindful during the pleasures and the pains, rejoice in the joys and address the difficult times with a deep acceptance.

In traditional Buddhism, the purpose of life is to turn your heart and mind towards awakening, to become an enlightened human being full of mindfulness, love, courage and wisdom. This might seem like a tall order for a dad. However, our everyday actions can actually help us be in touch with this vision of life. Fatherhood is full of many highs, lows and plateaus: an epic adventure through the beautiful landscape of life with people we love the most, and for whom we would do anything. But sometimes we may find ourselves feeling alone in the deep dark valleys, lost, confused or scared, wondering how we found ourselves there in the first place, and how to find our way back onto the pathway of our old normal life again. We can learn to recognize and embrace these changes instead of letting them overwhelm us.

Mindfulness can act as a compass to help you navigate your way through these moments, and reflect on who you are and why you are here, letting you find your own way to a purposeful, valuable and generous life. Raising sons or daughters is an intimate and deeply personal experience that makes you face both the best and the worst in yourself: you cant hide from anything, unless you want it to come back and bite you like a naughty child that you havent given your loving attention to. Mindful fatherhood is a practice which helps you to turn towards everyone and everything you do with care and kindness. It is a journey that will open you up to every experience you have as you guide your child through the world. You dont need to waste time not enjoying yourself. Being, witnessing and contributing to the life of a human being are precious gifts, and you can learn to love your own life as a father.

I can remember being at the hospital to see the first baby scan of my daughter, watching the pulsing rhythm of her little heartbeat and the wriggling of her hands and feet. The immediate sense of the preciousness, seeing this little human being alive within my partner from an act of lovemaking only months earlier, seemed completely miraculous.

I immediately felt a deeper bond with this being. Everything somehow became real, and I know many fathers have experienced similar amazing moments. The reality of your childs imminent arrival seems to set in at this point because you can see the moving image, as well as feeling the movements in the mothers body in the later stages of pregnancy. It is these precious moments when we feel truly connected to our new little family that we hold in our memories and hearts forever.