joi, 10 septembrie 2015

Listening more, teaching less

On parenting & the whole listening more, teaching less thing by Hollie Holden:


Yesterday, we were having a quiet moment (a rare thing in our house) and my four-year-old son was gazing out into the garden as he ate his food. Then he looked at me and said, with clarity and excitement: 'mum, I've worked something out. People come here and then they die and when they die they go back into the sun to make it shine more brightly for everyone.' 

And I really took in his realisation (and breathed it in) and I said 'You know, I think that's exactly it.' And we carried on eating. 

And I was thinking today about how often I hear of parents asking spiritual teachers how they can read the right books to their children, help them become connected, know the truth, be kind. And there are so many books out there to help us do this. But really my own response is that we need to find ways to let them STAY IN the wisdom, not help them find it. Or, if they lose their way, to help them come back home to themselves rather than look outside themselves for somewhere 'out there'. 

Which means as much spaciousness, peace, presence and listening as we can muster and doing our own inner work to forgive ourselves when we are not providing any of these things (!) and, above all, stopping with the whole teaching thing. Yes, guidance of course and boundaries definitely. But teaching is a whole other thing. 

And we can start doing it by becoming more disciplined around them - more present, less distracted (she says, making a mental note to Hide The Phone for the afternoon) and more alongside our children as they discover and realise and reflect rather than worrying about what answer to give them when they ponder life. 

Our children have everything they need to thrive, to be themselves (the most important job in the universe), to love, to find their way to kindness, to fulfil their soul path. Just like a seed that has absolutely everything it needs to turn into a whole, enormous, huge oak tree. Our job is to trust, not to mould. And to hold, not to teach. 

The other benefit of adopting this approach in our parenting is that WE GET TO LEARN HUGE AMOUNTS OF DEEP STUFF. Seriously, the wildest wisdom comes through when these young humans are given the space to speak. {I always love hearing the pearls; please share in the comments...}

We all turn back into the sun to give each other more light. Thank goodness I didn't miss that one. 


(And, by the way, our children also choose us, in all their wisdom, EXACTLY AS WE ARE for the highest learning of all of us. So your biggest job really is to get that you are enough. Do not, I repeat, do not use this post to beat yourself up, tell yourself you should be doing better or that you wish you had been more developed when your children were young. Strict loving orders. Just let the seed be planted if it needs to be or let a young shoot be strengthened in you or just receive the validation from a fellow doing-my-best parent.)