As a mother, I’ve come to understand that the emotional safety I provide my daughter is the foundation she will build her inner world upon.

When I became aware of this responsibility I felt such a pressure on myself. I was anxious and triggered so many times. I didn’t know if I could be the good mother that I wanted to be. It was harder 20 years ago with Ana when I was younger, but it was almost the same now with Maya. Because I am more aware.

I know there are many of you who feel the same way. I hear you. I see you!

What does Maya need from me?

She doesn’t need me to be perfect. She needs me to be present. To listen deeply. To hold space for her big feelings without shrinking from them or trying to mold them into something neater.

Our children don’t need to grow up navigating the same emotional wounds we had to heal as adults.

They need to be seen, heard, and accepted in all of their aliveness, joy, fear, anger, wonder, sadness, so they can integrate all of who they are, instead of hiding it away.

They need us to be their safe space!

The greatest safety we can offer as parents is the message:

“You’re not too much. I’m not leaving. You’re safe here with me.”

And maybe even more than that:

“It’s not your job to protect me. You don’t have to earn my love. My love is yours, simply because you exist.”

I often think about how many children silently carry the weight of their parents’ unhealed pain. How many grow up believing they must behave a certain way to be loved, tiptoe around adult emotions, or become little caretakers far too soon.

As parents, even when we love deeply, we may unknowingly pass on the very wounds we’ve worked so hard to overcome. And even more the wounds that we are not aware of yet.

That’s a truth I hold with both humility and heartbreak.

I know what it feels like to want to do everything right.

To read the books, regulate my own nervous system, give her what I never had, yet still lose my patience, still say things I regret, still go to bed thinking: Was I too harsh today? Did I miss something she needed?

But this is what I’ve learned: being a good parent doesn’t mean never making mistakes.

It means being conscious enough to see when we’ve hurt them, humble enough to name it, and brave enough to repair.

We can’t offer our children a perfect childhood.

But we can offer them something more powerful, a model of what it means to be human and still choose love again and again.

We can show them that love isn’t withdrawn when things get hard. That connection is repairable. That emotions can be held, not feared.

That they are not responsible for our moods, our happiness, our healing.

That they are children, and they get to be children.

If you are a parent walking this conscious path, trying to be present, to break patterns, to protect your child’s spirit even as you wrestle with your own, you are doing sacred work.

You are enough.

You are growing.

You are giving your child something that will echo in their heart for the rest of their life:

The memory of being safe in your love.