Welcome to the Conscious Parents Corner of LA Yoga Magazine. Each month, this column will feature ideas and tips for parents looking to expand their vision on the path of parenthood.

This month’s issue of LA YOGA has a central theme of teacher training. As parents, many of us have experienced some of our most profound lessons from the teachers that have come in the form of our children.

Many of us in the Yoga community believe in the idea of reincarnation. If you subscribe to this thought, then perhaps you have had the awareness that your child is wise far beyond their years. Sometimes it feels like we are living with ancient, wise Buddhas, who just happen to be running around in Seventh Generation diapers. These beautiful beings have much to teach us, especially with respect to the practice of Yoga.

Many Yoga teacher training programs take the time to teach alignment, pranayama, sometimes even meditation and if we’re lucky, basic Yogic philosophy. As parents, we are in a unique position to learn some of the most profound teachings in the sanctity of our own family. Two lessons that we can learn from our children are: Beginner’s Mind and Staying in the Moment.

My teacher, Erich Schiffmann, said it best, “If you want to push yourself in Yoga, push yourself to show up often.” With a chuckle, he would add “Once you’re there, there’s no need to push yourself. If you do, you get hurt. Then you get mad at Yoga, and it’s not Yoga’s fault. It’s your fault, for pushing yourself.”

Most of us begin Yoga because we want to feel better. We want to be healthier, have more energy and feel more at ease with ourselves and others. But somewhere along the way, our deep-rooted patterns of perfectionism have transferred onto our Yoga practices. We’ve taken our daily struggle to be the best, to achieve and to excel, into our Yoga – completely defeating the purpose.

Our drive towards perfectionism has origins way before the Yoga mat. We want to be the ideal parent, the model employee, an exemplary spouse. All the time we are striving for perfection, we are missing life along the way. It is the nuances, the imperfections, the mistakes that bring us back to our own hearts and into the present moment.