All quotes from
Shefali's book
Your
children are here to challenge your integrity.
Our
subconscious patterns hold tremendous energy.
This energy causes us to create an atmosphere our children react
to. We could say they pick up our
emotional “vibes”…. Our children don’t respond to our surface
instructions. Instead they are attuned
to our subconscious script.
The key
to effective parenting is to turn the spotlight away from the child as
“behaving badly” to our own “badly behaving emotionality”. Unless we identify and untangle our emotional
patterns, we will unwittingly foster dysfunctional behavior in our
children. We will search high and low
for ways to fix our children, not realizing there’s nothing to fix, only a need
for us to grow ourselves up.
All
conflicts with our children originate with our own internal subconscious
conflicts.
What we
think of as a need for discipline stems not from the child’s behavior but from
our emotional attachment to a particular idea of “how my child should be”.
An
unconscious aspect of human nature involves judging and labeling those things
we don’t understand as “bad”.
Every conflict in our present lives – whatever with our children,
spouse, or other adults – is in some way a recreation of our childhood.
Instead
of reacting emotionally, the parent needs to calmly decipher the meaning behind
the behavior and shift from the content of the child’s eruption. The key is that the parent remain centered,
not thrown off balance by the remark, so they can gently probe for the real
issue.
Natural
consequences are always consistent.
Learning
to walk the fine line between being attuned to our children and overreacting is
an art. It requires the parent to become
aware of how their own neediness may be in operation at any given moment.
Our children didn’t come into the world to be our puppets. They came here to struggle, fumble, thrive,
and enjoy – a journey for which they need our encouragement.
Each time our subconscious agenda doesn’t get met, we enter the
space of a hurt child.
All negative behavior is a manifestation of hurt feelings.
Precisely at the point where it appears that our children are trying
to exclude us from their lives, defy us, or manipulate us, they are signalling
they need us.
To live in the grey requires differentiation, between true feelings
and our emotional reactions. They are
vastly different. A feeling comes from
the heart and is a response to what’s arising in the moment. An emotional reaction is a programmed
knee-jerk from our subconscious patterns of our past.
Witnessing is about being able to connect with reality just as it
is.
This isn’t about whether a particular behavior is okay. It’s about the relationship being okay. A child needs to be learn that it’s safe to
confess their mistakes and admit their weaknesses. It affirms for them that no matter what they
do, they are still a good and valued person.
For another human to come into our life, especially into our care as
in the case of a child, is a privilege.
What is
it about us that led to the reaction we are getting from our child?
It’s our
ability to experience the burning sting of our pain, without assuaging it, that
empowers us to receive joy in all its magnificence.
