Parental Healing:
Paradigm Shift
Mutual healing between parent and child
by
Raymond Koekemoer
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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published by:
Raymond Koekemoer on Smashwords
Parental Healing:
Paradigm Shift
Copyright 2011 by Raymond Koekemoer
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Parental Healing:
Paradigm Shift
Chapter Introduction
Parental Healing is a significant part of the journey of our lives. It is a journey that allows the release of our fears, our mental and emotional blocks and to relinquish our past so we might enter that sacred space of parenting cleansed and afford our children their freedom within a safe and healing space.
Our journey begins by acknowledging the pain and distortion we might have met in the world, and by acknowledging that, opening ourselves to that which is true, dynamic and inspired within us, that we might reveal this unto our children and shine before them that very brilliance we displayed as children.
Our Parental Healing journey continues its adventure through self healing and we rediscover that feeling of alignment and connectedness in our parenting that adds a spark of magic and joy to our interactions, and opens us up to inspired parenting which instantly transforms us from disciplinarians to bringers of light, wisdom and harmony.
We find that attunement within our parenting that brings a two way flow of forgiveness, discovery and alignment which allows us to step back as maestros while as we co-create an rich future of equality, abundance and co-operation.
Although we often refer to parenting, in reality the nature of interaction between adult and child is such that we must include all manner of guardian, teacher, caregiver, grand parent or other such roles.
Even though Parental Healing offers several techniques that powerfully facilitate healing, harmony and understanding, the emphasis is on a reconnection with that inner knowing and guidance, for each moment of parenting is unique in its revelations, its connectedness and in the kaleidoscope of love and experiences it offers.
If we are too technique-oriented we miss the mysteries of Parental Healing. That is pseudo parenting that is based upon techniques. If we emphasise technique we introduce ego and control to our parenting. We then attempt to DO rather than allow parenting and doing introduces unnecessary complications of layers of expectation, perhaps even force to what could be a gentle freeing experience for both parent and child.
We can learn techniques and our parenting becomes cold and controlled and we find ourselves disconnected from our children and out of touch with their needs. Parenting is truly not a technique, but love. It is not intellectual but an allowing of connectedness, of love. We have at our disposal countless books on parenting techniques, and real parenting is so much more than technique.
To arrive at that sacred space of real parenting, we need to transform our whole approach, not only in our parenting, but also in all aspects of our lives. We cannot expect our parenting to be holistic and spiritually connected if we live patterned and out of balance lives.
Parental Healing seeks not to make us feel guilty or inferior about our parenting, but rather to inspire and free our parenting. Parental Healing is reminder of that unique opportunity that parenting and caring for children offers for healing and progress on all levels for both caregiver and child.
There are those that emphasise rules and disciple, and there are those that emphasise freedom and individuality. Then there are those somewhere in-between that find that place of balance, of unity between love and discipline and between freedom and restriction.
Life is not a black and white polarity and it expresses itself in the myriad of greys and colours and hues including black and white. Life seeks to expand and transform in infinite ways, always reaching out to new experiences, new realisations and new possibilities. Once we step outside the confines of habit and custom and reconnect with that infinite divinity which indeed expresses its infinity through each one of us, we find a way of parenting that is free-spirited, connected, co-operative and inspiring.
Parental Healing takes place through a connection to that infinite wisdom within us and serves to liberate that expression of life, of inspiration within ourselves, that we might align with life's natural expansion within and through our children.
Chapter Acknowledgement of external influence
“The acknowledgement of our weakness is the first step in repairing our loss.”
Thomas Kempis
Acknowledgement itself is a powerful healing activity. This makes acknowledgement a very good place to start. We'll start by acknowledging outside influences on your parenting that are either seen or unseen, yet shape our expression as a parent.
If we acknowledge that we find ourselves in a society that is in a process of healing and changing certain assumptions and paradigms about humanity and our place in creation, our view changes. These changing paradigms have largely dictated our approach to education, parenting, disciplining and interaction within our society. It is also worth acknowledging that many cultures, philosophies and techniques exist that offer answers to our current societal challenges. Many individuals and organisations managed to maintain aspects of deep truth in their expressions networked into humanity, and even though we have been through dark times, we have always had available to us those shining lights of wisdom that continually lift us out of great depths and disconnection. These perennial sources of light have made an immeasurable contribution towards humanities survival and evolution and they to deserve an acknowledgement, gratitude and reverence.
Our dominant paradigm has emphasised our intellectual and mental attributes over creativity, intuition and emotion. Although this is changing, it has had its impact and we have all felt and experienced the impact of this in many ways.
Humanity has also emphasised one gender over another, mostly male over female. However, there are areas where femininity and women are emphasised over masculine energies and men in particular. This too has affected all of us at some level.
As we enter a time of balance and co-operation, where one gender will not dominate over another, we'll begin to find balance of our own masculine and feminine aspects. This will bring healing, not only for ourselves as individuals, but also for our children. As below so above, and as we find balance individually, so balance enters humanity, which then in turn strengthens balance within each one of us.
Society's influence on us cuts deep and acknowledging those influences that have brought us pain, discomfort, embarrassment, awkwardness, feelings of insanity, limitation and suffering is a good start.
Such influences have taken various forms and we'll acknowledge the primary influences in a moment. The dominant influences have been via government and bureaucracy, the education systems, religions, medicine and healing facilities, the media and then the conforming influence of parents, relatives and peers.
Parental, familial and peer influences
“Forgive your parents if they do any wrong to you, reason being there’s no textbook to teach them how to be good parents. So if you curse your life just because your parents blame you for something that wasn't even your fault in the first place, fear not for that may not be a bad thing because they make those kinds of mistakes for you to learn and not repeat those mistakes when you, yourself become a parent in the future.”
Alvin Ng You Xiang
Ironically Some of our first experiences of embarrassment, anger, judgement, punishment and negativity came from within the protection and care of our parents and caregivers. Now there's no need to judge or criticise here. We start by acknowledging this, and if memories or emotions arise, we acknowledge those also, without fuelling or engaging them. We'll use this approach throughout this Acknowledgement phase.
This early exposure to negativity may have influenced us while we were in the womb and we'll acknowledge that too.
These early influences had powerful effects on how we respond to the world, to our loved ones, to friends and helping hands and also to our own failings, shortcomings, triumphs, thoughts and emotions. These effects tend to ripple throughout our lives and deserve an acknowledgement and loving release.
The influence of siblings, friends and family may have also left us hurt, feeling inferior or wanting. Our early experiences of kindergarten, daycare or school would have left marks on our hearts and minds and we also acknowledge these effects.
Children can do things that seem evil and we may have suffered severely through backstabbing or mocking – even by our friends. Children that have treated us badly when we were children reveal much about themselves. It is important to note that their behaviour is a consequence of their lives and not to be taken personally. We have an opportunity at every moment to discern between behaviour and that person exhibiting the behaviour. In doing so, we learn to not take things personally and to use behaviour as a clue to underlying cause. This practice informs our parenting and sheds light on some of the experiences our children might endure. It might also assist in understanding how we might prepare our children many experiences we ourselves were perhaps not prepared for during our childhood.
In acknowledging those events that brought us down, it is also useful to acknowledge with gratitude those positive and inspiring events that brought us strength and courage to be who we are today.
All of these influences throughout our childhood, adolescence and into adulthood have left their mark upon us, and possibly eroded away at the innocence and purity we brought into this world. To acknowledge these influences and their symptoms in our lives goes a long way towards personal, parental and relationship healing while bringing us ever closer to that pure love we, at birth, brought as a gift to the world, to humanity and most of all, to ourselves.
Organisational influences
Most of human history has been dominated by a paradigm centred on control, competition and the diminishing of individual power, creativity, divinity and sovereignty. We have subdued our peers, elders, children and ourselves through various forms of government, monetary systems, religion, schooling and education, medical and psychological facilities and through the justice system.
We were born with a clean slate and have learned to survive in the midst of these control systems, often to our detriment. Although we need to use whatever systems are available to us to survive and interact with others,we need to find ways to honour our individuality, our freedom and our individual natures.
Our society has been orientated towards persecution and this too reflects in our perceptions, our confidence and our willingness to express ourselves. This orientation has influenced how we were parented, educated and interacted . We acknowledge this here and forgive ourselves and others for knowing no better, or for having no choice in our expression within this madness.
Parenting has generally reflected this persecutory society and the emphasis in the history of parenting has been on discipline and punishment over love, acceptance, forgiveness and understanding. The persecutory and control orientated society has lead many to attune themselves to negative and perceived disturbing behaviour and the punishment and criticism thereof, rather than encouraging sensitivity to positive attributes, individual talents and passions and an understanding of the cause behind behaviour.
By our acknowledgement of this, we allow ourselves the freedom to nurture our children, ourselves, our inner child and each other. We allow ourselves to connect rather than criticise, to forgive rather than punish and to be grateful rather than to feel guilty.
The persecutory attitude of humanity throughout its history is seen in our beliefs and perceptions of our Creator. We are slowly returning to a view of the Divine as being pure love and so embrace that Divine love within ourselves, each other and our children. This affords us the freedom to be human, make mistakes and express ourselves freely without fear of criticism or judgement.
While all of these changes are taking hold, we find ourselves in the midst of a major shift in the paradigm, from control orientation to co-operation orientation, from idealism to pragmatism and from judgement to understanding. Our parenting begins to reflect this as we become more forgiving, accepting and loving towards ourselves, so we begin to reflect this back to our children.
Every generation has a message, an overriding purpose and the message our children bring is a message of love and a return to being love. The subtle distinction in being love starts with ourselves and overflows onto all, rather than starving ourselves of love while attempting to love from the void left by that starving.
Our children are reminding us that we need to love ourselves to the point of overflowing. They're reminding us that we cannot truly love anyone until we love ourselves.
We can assist our children in their quest when we let go of any attempts to control, to diminish their individual value and worth and when we embrace our individual essence: LOVE. The sooner we get this, the easier and more pleasurable our parenting will be.
In summary
We have suffered much pain, distortion and the diminishing of our individual worth, power and creativity, and in acknowledging this, we take back our authentic power and our ability to love ourselves. We are moving from a control orientated society into a co-operative one.
Our children bring us a message of love and remind us also that we need to love ourselves first, so that we might love them and each other. The sooner we heed this message from our children, the better for us and them.
Chapter Self healing
Continuing the philosophy of loving ourselves to overflowing, we'll explore self healing and overflow from there. Our ability to love, accept and forgive ourselves has a profound effect on our parental healing abilities. Every healing breakthrough we make will have a powerful effect upon our children and our relationship with our children. By the same token, every healing breakthrough we have with our children and they have with themselves will have a powerful healing effect upon us and our relationship with them. This is a profoundly powerful positive spiral and one we'll build as we explore our parental healing.
Healing can be as simple as feeling good, and we find that feeling good within ourselves has powerful healing effects, which can transfer to our children and those with whom we interact. When we feel good we connect to life's natural flow and are open to laughter, playfulness, fun, inspiration and creativity.
We are complex beings made up of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual components that ideally function in harmony. We feel good when we're aligned and when these aspects of ourselves function as they should. The minute one of these aspects goes out of whack, we feel bad, uncomfortable or uneasy. This is pretty useful, as we merely need to tune into how we feel to know what state we're in. This requires no thinking or analysis at all. Simply tuning into feeling.
For this reason we'll focus much of our efforts here to uncover ways of feeling good and connecting with that alive and Divine feeling. In fact, we'll deal with finding that space of feeling good so often that we'll refer to this space of healing as “The zone”. Once we understand how to get into this place of feeling good within ourselves, or being in the “zone”, we become attuned to how we feel and intentionally find ways of staying in that feel good state. We begin to notice that people (and children) prefer to be around us and connect with us when we're in the zone. We begin to see that decisions we make while in this state, have a kind of inspiration and magic to them. The consequences of such decisions are similarly inspirational and magical.
So we'll explore ways of getting into the zone and continuously feeling good. We'll also explore various advantages of this and the powerful impact we begin to have on ourselves, our family and friends and ultimately on our parenting
Connection to self: being in the zone
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Dalai Lama
After I went through a devastating divorce I realised that I am the only person I can really rely upon. It was a practical lesson that brought me finally to become my own best friend and I am very grateful for that experience and the awakening I allowed myself. This didn't come to me all at once. I had to face myself, care for myself, find myself and discover compassion for myself.
I explored introspectively, I meditated, went for healing sessions, researched various healing methods on the Internet, studied various philosophies and drew upon all that I'd learned and understood up until that time, including more than ten years of study and application of Eastern and Western Philosophy. I made rapid recoveries which resembled a two steps forward, one step back pattern where I'd think I was OK, only to fall right down again to the lowest emotional and spiritual states I'd experienced. This was not an easy path, and I was determined to not lose myself as I had in my marriage. I was determined to pull various aspects of me together that I'd lost along the way and de-fragment myself to become as whole and powerful as I knew I could be.
This was a two year journey of discovery, and although it wasn't always easy, I find myself in a better state now than I can remember.
This realisation allowed me to channel all that I had learned and experienced into loving myself, accepting myself as I am and being my own friend healer. I found compassion and this brought with it tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness, a feeling of being whole and healed again. This was a magical gift I gave myself and I soon began to notice that it had a positive influence affected others also.
I found first hand that I had taken those closest to me for granted because I had taken myself for granted. I realised first hand that until I learned to value myself, to love, acknowledge and accept myself, I would be unable to the same for others.
As a phoenix rises from the ashes, I found inspiration, strength and purpose through constant effort, study, contemplation and a little help from my friends and family.
Many a scripture tells us to love ourselves, yet few direct us to how to do that. To find love in ourselves we'll start by an acknowledgement of the key to love: Acceptance. Where there is acceptance, love arises naturally and spontaneously. Conversely, where there is no acceptance, there can be no love.
This takes the doing out of self-love and opens up the constant adventure of self-acceptance. I've come to realise that compassion is the first law of humanity as it reflects that divine light shining within us. Just as the Universe constantly displays compassion towards us, we align with our lives by being compassionate firstly towards ourselves, and then by being compassionate towards all.
Finding feeling: finding the zone
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”
Dalai Lama
To reach that self acceptance, that compassion for ourselves, we need to encourage self-forgiveness, get out of the habit of self-criticism and develop the patience of constant vigilance. When we start to do these, we begin to get in touch with feeling – feeling good or feeling bad. Feeling becomes our guide as self criticism has us feeling bad, while compassion, self forgiveness and the self acceptance allow us to feel good – good about ourselves and good within ourselves. It becomes that simple and we do not need to label the feelings as this takes us into our heads and out of our feeling mode. This also keeps being in tune with feeling simple. To be in touch with those basic feelings of feeling good or feeling bad becomes a very simple and effective practice.
Human existence relies on alignment between our higher existence, our mental and emotional states and the grounding of our physical bodies. When we're aligned we feel the flow of life force, inspiration and energy and experience a feeling of contentment, comfort and bliss. Similarly misalignment in any of these areas has us feeling uncomfortable, diseased, unhappy, frustrated and generally out of sorts. Feeling is our direct measuring system for the degree of our alignment. Feeling is also our guide back into alignment and therefore back into feeling good.
For simplicity's sake I'll refer to feeling good as “being in the zone” while feeling bad is “being outside of the zone”. We'll keep it that simple: being in the zone is most desirable while being out of the zone shows that we need some space to return to ourselves, regroup and do whatever it takes to get back into the zone.
Love related activities, such as forgiveness, acceptance and understanding will bring us into the zone, while negative activities such as judgement, anger, resentment and not speaking our truth all take us out of the zone. So being attuned to whether we're feeling good or bad at any given moment is our guide to loving ourselves and also indicates how connected or disconnected we are.
Of course there's no criticism in being out of the zone. In fact being out of the zone soon tells us that something is out-of-place, and gives us the opportunity to step back and get some space to re-evaluate things and perhaps even practise some of those positive activities such as forgiveness of ourselves or others, acceptance of things as they are or to step back, and let an appropriate solution to present itself.
Becoming in touch with ourselves brings us ever closer to loving and caring for ourselves while bringing us directly in touch with those events, emotions and thoughts that take us away from loving ourselves, away from our centres and away from our essence.
Once we become attuned to being in the zone it has a ripple effect upon our lives as being in the zone heals, not only ourselves, but all in our presence. We become examples of being in the zone to our children, and example is their primary learning tool.
We soon learn to make decisions only when we're in the zone, and that such decisions are inspired and in tune and carry their own ripple effects.
We learn that when we're out of the zone, it is better to seek solitude or to speak to someone, or hug someone to return to the zone. We learn that others generally don't like being in our company when we're not in the zone.
Being in the zone shows us ways of loving ourselves even during everyday activities. When we bath or shower we connect with ourselves through touch and we begin to cleanse our bodies with love. When preparing a drink or a meal we begin to do so with love, and we give ourselves the gift of love. When we speak to ourselves we begin to say that things are OK that previously we would condemn. We begin to understand our thoughts, emotions and responses and forgive ourselves as soon as we make mistakes or move out of the zone.
Parenting from within the zone is rewarding and opens us to wisdom and insight we would have otherwise missed and we begin to spread healing with our every interaction.
Love is a state of being and it is also a feeling. Being in the zone has us loving ourselves and getting in touch with that feeling of loving ourselves and into that sate of self love.
Emotional freedom
When we attune to being in the zone of compassion and loving ourselves, we become aware of the effect emotions have on swaying us towards or away from the zone. Emotions result from outside influences and also from thoughts. As we become increasingly attuned we begin to master our emotions and manage them so that we maintain balance and remain in the zone irrespective of what arises emotionally.
Emotions seek freedom, just as we do, and to keep them trapped keeps us trapped. We have generally been poorly prepared for dealing with emotions which is why they hold such a powerful sway over us.
Mindful that emotions seek freedom we can use a technique we used earlier when we acknowledged society's' influence upon us: we acknowledge each emotion as it arises.
Acknowledgement of the emotion could take many forms. To simply become aware of the emotion might suffice, although some prefer speaking a sentence verbally or mentally, for example “I acknowledge that I'm feeling frustrated about this, and maybe that's OK I allow that emotion the freedom to pass while I deal with the what's happening.”
Some emotions might be so deep seated that we find it challenging to release them. As we get in touch with feeling and get out of our heads our perspective changes, our priorities change and our attachments diminish. It might take time and can be fun and enlivening while releasing almost unnoticeable those emotions once seemed overwhelming. It might be necessary on occasion to seek professional or spiritual assistance, though.
Generally acknowledging emotions is powerful and frees both ourselves and others. If your child is angry, you might acknowledge that anger, and express your understanding of the emotion. This frees your child from the emotion, and ends the emotion's rule.
It's also a useful technique in general when dealing with the negative emotions of others. Acknowledging a person's feelings and emotions goes a long way to settling them, and bring about a more reasonable state – preferably in the zone.
It is important to acknowledge both negative and positive emotions. I know that there are occasions where feeling really good can go by unnoticed and to acknowledge all emotions gets us deeper in touch with feeling and living from feeling.
Balance
“I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.”
William Butler Yeats
Feeling is a guide that helps us to find balance on all levels. When we operate from within the zone we can spot those feelings, thoughts, ideas and beliefs that throw us out of balance and allow us to integrate opposites even within ourselves. As we attune to feeling we also begin to notice those emotions, events and thoughts that get us into the zone and keep us there. It could be a song, or a friend or a memory. It could be humour or playfulness or just a pause within the flow of events. With practice, being in the zone could be as simple as a choice to be there. For example, each of us has both a feminine and a masculine aspect, and to criticise the opposite gender throws us off balance within ourselves, and definitely takes us out of our zone. To connect with feeling lets us acknowledge such gender criticism and release it to bring balance once again.
Our society has become head orientated, head spacey or overly intellectual. Our practise of getting in touch with feeling and being in the zone is an easy way to move out of our heads and address this intellectual addiction. Thought becomes habitual, patterned and out of touch. The mind becomes busy and few find rest there.
Being in the zone brings us to a state of peace and love which balances us. It negates the need to balance by keeping us focused on remaining centred, which restores balance naturally.
It's a kind of short-cut, the path of simplicity, if you will.
Flexibility
Our recovering from control culture and embracing co-operation is easier for some than others, and that's understandable. In an attempt to make sense of our world during childhood many of us resorted to attempting to control the people and events in our lives. These habits are hard to break and require much release, trust, forgiveness and understanding. All of the ingredients of getting into and staying in the zone.
It took me a while to cotton on to this during my early parenting experiences. My wife had two children from previous relationships, an eleven year old daughter and a six year old son. Now being a step parent requires a unique approach, much patience and the realisation that the biological parent is the real parent, and step parenting is more akin to friendship and mentoring than to parenting. Of course I didn't realise this until much later: I imposed my will upon the children and attempted to control their desires as many step parents do. I attempted to curb their passions and this seriously curbed their trust in me.
Fortunately I had already begun to practise much of what I preach here, and things didn't get too out of hand. I have since realised that adults are best equipped for bridging generation gaps and that flexibility and being in the zone are powerful superheroes that combat animosity and encourage peace and equilibrium within the family.
Flexibility, even when in the zone requires the ability to prioritise: finding whether the child's state of being or what you're trying to impose is most important. Most often the child's state of being wins, which doesn't necessarily mean you should give in to the child, but rather that the child and his or her emotions need recognition and that you and your child might need some time to reflect a little on the situation or desire.
To acknowledge the child's emotion, feelings, opinions, passions and ideas is all important here, and might just buy you the time to get into the zone and find a more inspiring course of action, while keeping the child feeling acknowledged and empowered.
I have noticed that many people become more flexible with age and I admire that. I decided that I would become flexible before I get too old to share the benefits of flexibility, not only with my children, but with myself.
I've found that flexibility has many benefits to staying in the zone because it allows me to surrender my ideas, emotions and thoughts quicker and easier and opens me up to possibilities I wouldn't have dreamt of otherwise. I believe it keeps me younger looking too, but that's just a bonus.
Parenting is not bossiness but leadership
The real
leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way.
~Henry
Miller
If your
actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become
more, you are a leader.
~John Quincy Adams
Bossiness has control at its core and punishment as its enforcer. It is essentially narcissistic by nature and is ego driven. Bossiness operates from a place of fear, mistrust, judgement, superiority, anger and is a misunderstanding of power.
In reality there can be no control and control is an illusion we need to dissolve through love, understanding and co-operation.
Leadership is gentle, understanding, forgiving and inspiring. It works from a place of love through co-operation and its primary form of expression is through example. To be a leader we need to work from within our feel good zone. It is here that we are connected to our wisdom, our peace, our patience, our understanding and primarily, to love.
To lead from the feel good zone, from within personal alignment and centredness comes quite naturally. Its easier to lead from within the zone and bring our children into their feel good zones from our example.
To lead from within feeling good takes care of so many of those ingredients of leadership: patience, understanding, forgiveness, example, love and inspiration.
To lead, we need to accept both ourselves and others unconditionally. Any judgement of self or another takes us out of leadership, and puts us back into a superiority/inferiority state of mind.
Leadership is not about superiority or inferiority, but rather about equality and co-operation. In terms of the roles we play, it might appear that the parent holds a superior role, while the child holds an inferior one. Certainly with regards to roles this might be so. In other ways, though the balance might be completely opposite: the child might be more intelligent, more creative, more in touch with the situation or simply calmer, and therefore more open to insight and inspiration.
In reality, child and parent are equal and communication, connection and example just works better that way. How each individual expresses his or her life is unique to that individual, and among individuals all are equal in life.
There is no one favoured by life, or by creation or by the Creator. Does the sun not rise for all? Do some have greater access to the breath of life than others? Albert Einstein certainly had a way with words when he said: “Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.”
It might take time for some to adjust to the equality model of leadership and parenting. Upon closer inspection we might find that during some of our most natural and uplifting parenting experiences, we were naturally in that state of equality and union.
Confidence to teach and learn
“While we teach, we learn.” - Seneca (Roman Philosopher, mid 1st century AD)
Parenting is a co-operative undertaking, not only between parents, but also with the child. When we reflect upon our childhood we notice how we did a great deal of parenting and sorting out how the world works and where we fit in all by ourselves.
Our recognition of this unburdens us and opens us to feedback and also to learn from our children. Increasing our sensitivity to our children’s parenting of themselves lets us act as guides and navigators while we correct and expand our own world views and philosophies and that of our children.
This goes a long way towards increasing our parenting confidence and sheds much light on our children's needs. It can also empower both parent and child in a two way interaction that feeds and nourishes both.
When my five year old son intimated that he could hear people's thoughts, I questioned him in a way that encouraged him to explain how he did this. Now whether he actually could or not was irrelevant to me at the time, as I had often heard of children's innate telepathic and other abilities. He continued to explain that he quiets his own voice, pointing at his throat, and then quiets his belly (pointing at his solar plexus) and then quiets his heart and finally quiets his mind (pointing at his brow). OK, so he had just gone through the major chakra or energy centres of the human being, and yet I could see how freeing and empowering it was for him to tell me this. Perhaps others he had attempted to speak to had stopped listening the moment he spoke of hearing thoughts and he delighted in the fact that I listened and encouraged him.
The realisation that parenting is an interaction that imparts knowledge and understanding both ways goes a long way towards empowering both parent and child to teach with confidence while being open to learning at every moment.
Gratitude
After substantial research regarding the “Law of Attraction”, I realised the layers of power in becoming grateful. I realised that gratitude is a potent antidote to many of the emotions that take us out of our zones. Gratitude is also a powerful magnet that draws experiences, events and our desires to us with great efficiency. Scientists have shown that feeling good has a healing effect upon the body and releases hormones and chemicals that calm and soothe the body in response.
With this mind I tried it out on my five year old son, and told him that the magic word is not please but thanks. The idea was to change his mindset from asking, to that of receiving with gratitude. I was inspired not go into any detail about gratitude and the law of attraction, but just rather assist him in adjusting his behaviour to align with it.
This is true for each of us, and the use of gratitude is one powerful way to return to the zone and feel good, and to align with the flow of things.
Gratitude is also a magnificent parenting tool, that tunes us to our children's behaviour that we wish to encourage, and frees us from focusing on negative behaviour.
Having said that, negative behaviour is a window into the child that can reveal the underlying cause or need that could do with attention and healing. Once we become grateful for negative behaviour, realising that the behaviour is a symptom of some underlying cause. We realise that what would appear to be many negative symptoms are often related to just one underlying cause or need. So tuning in to the need through various symptoms and indicators allows you to target the child's real needs and resolve much with little effort.
Gratitude holds the potential to unlock much in our relationships, in our lives, in our love and healing.
Getting in touch through touch
I have often marvelled at how our pets get more love and care through touch than those closest to us. Are we so out of touch that we forget the power of touch to connect and heal?
Touch could take various forms and could be a casual touch on the hand or a stroking of a child's hair. It could be a hug, a cuddle, a gentle pat on the back. Whichever form it takes, touch immediately sends a message of love and care. It lets people know where they stand with us, what our emotional state is and most importantly, it opens a two way channel for getting in touch for both parties.
Touch is the magic that can bring us into the zone in an instant or a bridge to share our good feelings, our openness and our overflow of love.
We need to be very sensitive as to how receptive our children are to touch, so as not to enforce or invade their space. Insensitive touch can be read as intrusive or inappropriate.
We've become less touch orientated and we need to encourage touch in our parenting. We encourage touch by being sensitive to moments that call for touch. These could be moments of extreme emotion, moments of disappointment, perhaps moments where positive feedback would be useful.
We also encourage touch by becoming open to receiving touch ourselves. Touch is a two way interaction. As we become open to the simple communication of casual touch and being touched, it also addresses our openness to both giving and receiving in general.
Go easy on yourself!
Our history has orientated us towards punishment and we reflect this in how hard we are on ourselves. We press ourselves to perform, to not make mistakes and to keep ourselves out of embarrassing situations to name but a few. As a rule, we are exceptionally hard on ourselves. We put ourselves under immense pressure which gets us out of the zone, out of feeling good and into our own little worlds where no-one, not even our children can reach us.
We become secluded and alienated and this example soon gets our children behaving in much the same way.
When we become forgiving, tolerant and understanding of ourselves we open ourselves to relaxation and we soon learn to lighten up. This gives our children and those around us permission to do the same and opens us up to much healing, love and care from creation, from our interactions and most importantly from ourselves.
At the root of being hard on ourselves is a myriad of ideas and beliefs, expectations and unrealistic goals that block us from flow and cause undue stress on us and our relationships.
Release this and breathe easy. It's OK – try it.
I have a tortoise on my property that insists on coming into my house to rest. Now to prevent a mess in the house I keep this tortoise outside by keeping the front door closed. I often remind my son to close the door, and he occasionally forgets. I recently closed the door and he turned and said: “Oh, that was my fault.” I responded by asking him why people are so intent on finding who was at fault rather than just solving the problem. He smiled and continued his activity.
Going easy on myself has let me go easy on others and creates space to explore and question rather than closing down the possibilities of interaction by blame, criticism, judgement and punishment.
My son and I both learned much more than simply to close the door, we learned that we're safe in each other's company and that we have a relationship of peace, understanding and respect. Contrast this with how he would have felt if I'd reinforced his blame by adding even more blame?
Healing your relationship with your parents
My dad had a way of standing with his hands on his hips and I often find myself in a similar stance – one hand on my hip or maybe both hands on my hips and this reminds me of him. He often stood this way, sometimes with a smile and sometimes just in a relaxed way. Now my dad and I only started healing our relationship shortly before he died. And I remember vowing throughout most of my childhood that I would be nothing like him, that I would be my own person, that I would not get angry especially not at strangers in public places and that I would not embarrass myself, my family or anyone else for that matter.
My dad was mostly a generous and kind man, though. He would teach me little things at every opportunity and empowered me with a vast general knowledge and a deep philosophical understanding of humanity, of creation and of myself.
In spite of all of this we clashed, because he was predominantly control orientated and I was far too free-spirited to conform to his detailed instructions and demands of me.
His death brought instant forgiveness and opened me up to being more like him by focusing on what he did right and on what resonated with me. Initially it bugged me when I started to notice how much I was like my dad, down to the stance with my hands on my hips. Now that I've made peace with our relationship, I feel comfortable being like my dad, and interestingly enough I feel more comfortable being myself.
Parents make many mistakes and often have unresolved emotions and a bunch of ideas that no longer serve them. The point is that no-one is all bad and no-one is all good either. There is no perfect parent and there is no perfect child.
When we acknowledge that, and that we may have suffered distortion or life altering damages through our parents, we can move on. We can draw a line and from a space of love, of feeling good release patterns that have been passed down generations, and embrace those qualities of our parents that are indeed divine, loving in essence and expanding of our world and that of our children.
When we release any negativity towards our parents and become grateful for their role in bringing us where we are today, we release ourselves from anything that may hold us back from being who we really are. This puts an end to parenting habits that may no longer serve our children while encouraging useful parenting techniques. We also open ourselves to that ancient wisdom that may have filtered through our history and also open ourselves to new inspiration and wisdom that might have been blocked by judgement, ideas or resentment.
To forgive and honour our parents is to free ourselves from any attachment or idea that serves us or children not.
There's a story of a man who travelled by train. Another man observed that he was carrying his suitcase and spoke: “Brother, you can put down the suitcase, because the train carries it whether you are or not. You'd might as well put down the suitcase and just let the train carry it.”
In a similar way, we tend to carry much from our past along with us, including our feelings towards our parents. Better we just put down whatever we might be holding onto regarding our parents and unburden ourselves.
Our parents were our way-showers to spirituality and the realisation of our life purpose, our strengths and our passion. They did their best with what limited knowledge, resources and understanding of spirituality they had. In a similar way, we are those way-showers to our children, and although we cannot go back to change or rectify our parents' work, we can be sure to present only what best serves our children right now.
Healthy selfishness and feeling good
We can use the analogy of our hearts to illustrate healthy selfishness. The heart always receives blood first, because the heart needs to take care of itself first before sending blood to the rest of the body. In the same way, we need to learn to love, care for and energise ourselves before we allow an overflowing onto our children and others.
If we do this, we'll always have abundance to give and never feel deprived in our loving, caring and service to our children and others. If we learn to do this we'll find ourselves feeling good more often and being of much greater service than if we were to attempt to give more than we have allowed even ourselves.
Is it not strange that we find this selfish, to give to ourselves, while we see giving to others as generosity? Are we not giving less by loving ourselves less?
We hear that we should love our neighbour even as we love ourselves, and perhaps it is better to reverse the wording and say that we should love ourselves even as we love our neighbour. Perhaps even more to the point, that we should love ourselves even as we love our children.
Unconditional love is not born of self deprivation, neither is it born of lack. To love ourselves so much that it overflows as fountains of joy onto the world is the key to that abundant unconditional love.
To love ourselves so fully and completely that we require nothing from another is the key that unlocks our receiving of love from all. How can we receive love from another when we cannot even receive from ourselves first?
It is in giving and receiving graciously in ourselves that we learn to do so in the world.
This is a return to our natural state of love, and our children pick up on this and begin to do so for themselves, so opening their blockages to giving and receiving love while healing themselves and learning that they can love themselves so completely that this love overflows onto the world.
When we do this we can see that we are indeed responsible for our own emotions, and not for the emotions of anyone else. This unburdens us from keeping others happy, and turns our focus to that inner fountain of happiness. We learn that happiness is not a state that can be acquired from outside influences, but rather a natural state that arises when we allow it. We take responsibility for our own emotions and love, forgive and care for ourselves unconditionally and we allow others to do the same. The emotional state of our children and of others is not our responsibility, but theirs. We can assist them in recognising their emotions and in so doing, help to release those emotions. Our example in doing so ourselves will increase their understanding, allow the message of acknowledgement and release to be heard more clearly.
It further unburdens our children from doing what children often attempt in their innocence – to keep their parents happy. Instead they are free to tend to their own inner contentment.
We soon find that our outward desires that left us wanting were a subconscious yearning for our own love and that nothing else will do. That indeed our love for ourselves gets reflected back in the world. We realise that attempting to acquire love without first loving ourselves leaves us empty and unfulfilled.
Laughter
Laughter is indeed the best medicine, in fact I would go so far as to quote my friend Brian who says “Laughter is the only true magic.”
Laughter brings a state of surrender second to none, and we've used it throughout the ages to break down boundaries, ideas and beliefs that block us from moving forward. Think of court jesters and modern day stand-up comedians. I have watched comedians challenge people's thinking and beliefs and their audience laughing while releasing those ideas.
Children have a natural inclination towards laughter and this ought to be encouraged.
We have gotten far too serious, haven't we? It's all intellectual these days, grey suit personalities frowning upon child-like behaviour which no longer serves us or our children. Take a tip from me – watch some stand-up comedy training videos on YouTube.com if you must, or attend comedy training yourself, or even attend a comedy evening somewhere and watch it transform your life. Try out Laughter Yoga or seek out Laughter Workshops. Whatever it takes, just find laughter again.
Be silly, be childish, be playful and most of all encourage laughter wherever possible.
Laughter will get you into the zone and keep you there and is the most fun you can have in public!
Learn to love yourself unconditionally
“To love yourself is to be yourself, and to be yourself is to be loved”
It might be that the word love gets extended, because it has a richness of meanings that makes its use imprecise and challenging. On the other hand it may well be that this in itself illustrates how all pervasive and comprehensive love really is.
If God is love then all that exists is love, of love and from love. That would make the big bang an explosion of love that we feel to this day.
If all that is created is love then we are essentially love and what we call love is the experience of sharing our essence in connecting with another. That makes love the conduit through which we relate, connect and share all that we are with others and ourselves.
Love is the great unifier, for in truth all things are born of love, all things are essentially love and all things return to love. By that very understanding, you and I are love and in loving ourselves we bring unity to all aspects of ourselves and become that which we really are – Love.
To love yourself makes you whole, makes you complete and puts you in sync with all that is, for in truth that love you afford yourself bridges the gap between your ordinary existence and the Divine unfolding of yourself, your life, your loved ones and indeed all that is.
I am that I am, indeed I am that love. Love is the power behind your power, the humour in your laughter, the joy in your heart and the greatest gift you could give, to yourself and to the world.
Once we realise this, we no longer seek to control or manipulate , we feel compassion and understanding towards any other. For in truth, where there is love, we are one in and through that love.
When we begin to realise this we realise that love holds no condition, no expectation, no judgement. Love has no future date, when we have achieved this or acquired that. Love needs no sweetheart, no lover, no object of desire for love brings a sweetheart unto all who express it.
We say that it is in giving that we receive, and certainly this giving starts with ourselves. A giving so fully that we feel naught but love and we have no space for any other emotion, for in truth there is only that one emotion which is love. All other emotions are distortions of that love.
Love yourself unconditionally even now, and now and now and soon you'll explode your very own big bang of love onto the world.
Learn to listen
“It is better to listen to understand than to listen to reply”
There are many kinds of listening and all of them are helpful and important. How often do we get told to listen to our bodies and not overeat, overexert ourselves or to get enough rest. We could also listen to our hearts or listen to our intuition, listen to the “voice of reason”.
Yet listening to others, to our children is a challenge. We tend to have a thousand things on our mind including a response to what we're hearing before we've even heard it. And that's OK.
To listen, truly listen, is to be one pointed, to be attentive, to pay attention. This is something that takes practice and what better opportunity to practise paying attention than in listening? Isn't that what each of us desires most in this world – just to be heard?
What better gift to give your child than just to listen, with no thoughts, no judgement and no seeking for a response either. You'll be amazed at how much gets shared in listening far beyond even what is being spoken.
The sense of hearing is the only sense that can observe stillness and in listening you are able to connect with that inner stillness and rest in that, while allowing your child to find that inner stillness through your listening.
Listening in itself is healing and puts you into the zone. It is also easier to listen when you are in the zone.
So many of us feel unheard, and yet it is in listening that we free others to listen to us. Practise listening, even to everyday sounds that you normally block out. It is very stilling and makes a wonder of what would ordinarily seem mundane.
Listening is a practice of patience, and patience is an aid to listening.
Live without punishment or reward
“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” - Chinese proverb
To live without punishment or reward is a fine art. It involves overcoming society's persecution complex. In the context of parenting we need to learn to trust our example to our children and realise that this, beyond all else is our main healing and teaching tool. Punishment and reward are corrective tools and they are inferior to the implementation of wisdom and intuition.
If indeed example is our main influence in parenting, what example does punishment offer? Is punishment not an example of bullying, of extortion or even of torture? What example do we set by punishing our children?
At the other end of the scale, is parenting through reward not an example of blackmail, of bribery or corruption?
Punishment and reward enforce ulterior motives. This enforces an inclination in humanity today of ulterior motives: work for money, avoid crime so as to avoid a fine or prison sentence, avoid sin so as to not end up in hell or live a good life so as to ensure a place in heaven or to avoid bad karma, and so on. Ideally we would work for the work's sake, to serve and best express our passions and talents. We'd live responsibly because it is practical rather than to avoid punishment, and live a good life simply because it best expresses our nature without taking us from our paths of finding and loving ourselves. Similarly when we parent through example and share understanding, our children will co-operate responsibly out of understanding that it serves them and all with whom they interact better. In that way the child's attention is directed at responsible action and the true consequences of that rather than having their attention diverted to imagined and synthetic consequences that have no true bearing on their actions whatsoever.
The child's attention gets turned to an inner knowing, and the child co-operates, not out of fear or desire, but rather out of understanding. That inner knowing is a divine gift all too often overlooked by education and parenting. Connect a child with inner knowing, and we empower that child for all manner of situations and circumstances. We empower that child for life.
What method of parenting corrects behaviour without the use of punishment or reward?
Are these not methods of correcting behaviour? If correcting behaviour is indeed our objective, is the incorrect behaviour pattern not merely a symptom of something underlying? Is incorrect behaviour not merely a symptom of a deeper cause, perhaps a misunderstanding, a miscommunication or perhaps merely an exploration of life and different ways of doing things?
Perhaps this then reveals another one of society's habits we need to face – that of being symptom orientated. Most modern medicine addresses symptoms rather than causes, and modern parenting is no different.
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