I am often asked how can we connect better to our children, and my stock answer is this, which kind of infuriates most parents, you should first connect to yourself. The extent to which you, yourself are a deeply grounded being, detached from the vagrancies of life, that is the extent in which you will be able to usher your children. True life, without getting swept away with their anxieties and in your own anxieties and societies anxieties; the extent to which we have raised ourselves, in a deeply connected of heavy language or conversation with ourselves; that’s how we will be able to connect with our children and have conversations with them. The extent to which we can run into the rain and not be afraid of getting wet is the extent to which our children will learn to live with spontaneity and joy. The extent to which we can love deeply or laugh loudly or risk freely or loose bravely is the extent to which our children will live lives with courage and abundance. Everything begins with how we are with ourselves; if we are intimate with life, unafraid of failure, happy to take on life’s challenges with gusto and gumption, that’s what we’re going to transmit energetically to our children. However, if we are discontented, disconnected, unhappy, unjoyful, haven’t found purpose, worth or meaning; how can we be a model of that to our children? It all begins with how involved and enlightened we are in our own life.