It is never too late to turn on the light.

“It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape does not depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective does not depend on how long you have held on to the old view.When you flip the switch in that attic, it does not matter whether it has been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades.The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you could not see before. It is never too late to take a moment to look.” — Sharon Salzberg

While studying child development and graduating from Dr Shefali’s Conscious Parenting Institute, I encountered many uncomfortable realisations.

There were moments when I genuinely feared that I had already “screwed up” my children — that the damage had been done and could not be undone.

When you hear that the first seven years are crucial to a child’s development, and your own children are either turning seven (as mine were) or are already past that “magic window,” it can trigger waves of anxiety. In my case, it was a tsunami!

Even the Greek philosopher Aristotle famously said, “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.”

I also found myself questioning how biology could be so ironic — that the prime years for having children are in our early twenties?! But how many wise, self-aware, and conscious twenty-somethings are truly walking this Earth?

My daughter was born on my thirtieth birthday. When I saw her and held her for the first time, I felt an extraordinarily profound love — so big it made my heart ache. I was in awe that it was even possible to love someone so much. And I thought that love alone would be enough to make me the best possible parent — that it would be enough to raise her consciously.

But I was young and naive.

I had no idea then that raising children is not instinctive, and that love — no matter how big or unconditional — is not enough on its own.

There have been many moments in my parenting when I reacted, disciplined, punished, and made choices I later regretted. I was acting from my own conditioning — shaped by generational patterns and driven by a wounded inner child I had not yet met.

As I began to unpack those patterns and look more deeply, guilt and shame flooded in. How could I have done this to my own children? How could I have been so unconscious? How could I have carried these generational patterns without even noticing?

During one of my sessions with Dr Shefali, she said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“Guilt is a mask of great arrogance... the illusion of grandeur that I should have known better, that I should have been perfect.”

I did not understand it fully at first, but it struck a chord.

Gradually, with great compassion for my own ignorance, I began to let go of the guilt. Slowly, I allowed compassion to replace the shame. I began to surrender to the parenting journey as it truly is — messy, imperfect, and always evolving.

My purpose was never to be the perfect parent — how exhausting and impossible would that be?What mattered was the noticing.

Noticing my energy.Noticing when I reacted instead of responding. Noticing how I felt after disciplining or punishing my children.

When we begin to notice, we start to question. And when we question — whether it is ourselves, our behaviour, or the norms of the culture around us — we begin to realise just how much of our parenting has been unconscious.

We have been walking in the dark, not knowing, simply following the crowd.

It takes courage to pause. To take off the blindfold. To open your eyes — and to notice.

When I look back now, I can see clearly: I would not be here — on this path — if those mistakes had not happened. I would not be growing if my children were “perfect.” I would not have evolved if I had not dared to turn on the light in my own attic and face the cobwebs waiting there.

It is never too late to wake up. It is never too late to learn a new way. It is never too late to evolve.

And it is never too late to turn on the light.

A question for you...

What would happen if, just for today, you gave yourself full permission to be an evolving parent — not a perfect one? What might you notice?