Everlasting Arms

It’s like a sudden epidemic, all around me I can see relationships falling apart and watching the dreadful collatoral damage for children. Having been in a long term relationship I can certainly understand the pressures but it got me to wondering how a spiritual perspective can understand what’s it all about. How have we made relationships so difficult that we cannot survive within them?

The relationship starts from a feeling of ‘lack’. We go into a relationship somehow believing that some aspect of being togethor will ‘complete us’. Maybe this is to have children, buy a house, lonliness or simply to relieve boredom. The point is we start off with the idea that it is the relationship which will fill the gap.

As a consequence, we project onto the other the absolute necessity for them to continue to fill that gap. This puts intolerable pressure on the other, who no doubt will try their best to meet the growing expectation. Inevitably each will fail to live up to the other’s expectation, possibly in small ways, but resentment will grow. Within this process each person is looking at the relationship as the cause and are trying to meet the other’s expectation. In so doing they are making compromises and sacrifices and as they do, they are losing a sense of themselves. Resentment leads to anger and ultimately one or both, will try to reclaim their identity by reverting to who they thought they were before the relationship. I wonder if this is where ‘affairs’ come into play as it gives one the opportunity to relive the more carefree relationships of the past whilst feeling they are being loved, wanted, needed etc.

It is this orginal feeling of needing something from the other, based upon our own sense of lacking something that is at the root of it. This is compounded further by the fact that most of us do not feel worthy of love. If you can’t love yourself, then you cannot understand how another would love you. If this is your feeling you will be needing more and more loving, and validation, as times goes on. Of course, no amount of love will heal the root cause but you will feel compelled to look for it elsewhere.

The idea that we are all one, that we are all worthy and that we are all on our own journey of discovery are important steps to healing. More important still though is the necessity for us to look within for answers first, and to grow our vision of ourself as spiritual beings, in order to ensure we can bring the best we can to the relationship without being affected by the other.

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.” Donald Winnicott

The way I see it, is that the world is set up in such a way that we are encouraged always to do rather than to be. Doing is education and the workplace, being is playing, anywhere anyhow. My view is that how we are is more important than what we do.  The reason is because how we are affects how well we do everything and it’s a mistake to see it the other way round. If we see it the other way round we believe, for example, that we will be happy once we have done a particular act, a new job, new home, new partner etc. If we start with being happy without needing an action to cause it then life becomes much freer, and we find it far easier to create outcomes as our thinking is clearer.

From a spiritual perspective this makes it far easier to be active in the world without expecting or needing the fruits of our actions in order to validate ourselves. This is one of the cornerstones of spiritual thinking and is espoused by many great thinkers:

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.” Bhagavad Gita

At school we are encouraged to reach certain grades, standards and milestones, if we don’t we are labelled ‘unacademic’ or some such label which will define so much of the rest of our lives. We are also encouraged to reach targets that others have set for us. This can be so disheartening, the more so if we find it a huge struggle to reach others expectations of us. Such a targetted approach also encourages children to believe that it is only once they have reached the target that they will be able to feel satisfied. In so doing we are encouraged to see ourselves as unworthy until a goal has been reached, which is usually an interminable process.

Playing on the other hand is much more a state of being and is a great counterbalance to these unhelpful pressures.. How and what we play is dependent upon how we feel, how successful we play whether alone or in groups is dependent upon our own criteria. You cannot grade play.  It might sometimes look terribly negative, Jedi warriors destroying the Sith, or seem entirely unproductive, like hiding in a box, but play rarely follows any logic and therein lies it’s beauty. Not only does play, in any form, help us become creative, it is also a safe place in which to explore ourselves, or rather our place in the world. In so doing the emphasis is upon how we are, and not what we do.

Lego, one of the great toys of the world is a great example of this.  When a child is building and playing with a Lego set, they are exploring different facets of their personalities, trying them on for size. How does it feel to play the cruel and powerful Darth Vader or the innocent bravery of Luke Skywalker? With the experience of having had a tiny taste of how such roles feel, the child can go out to the world with a little more confidence about their place in the world and what it means to be them. More valuable is the satisfaction we feel after having played a great game, that satisfaction is truely one of the building blocks of a happy life. In that satisfaction we have realised that just by being ourselves, exploring, challenging and imagining we have felt contentedness.

I recently watched an incredible program on BBC about a young model from London returning to her homeland of Somalia. It’s incredibly moving.

More than anything it made me appreciate all those everyday things that I take so much for granted, running water, being able to visit the market without fear of being shot, food, toilet etc. So this campaign Live Below the Line has come at a good time. I am currently trying to persuade my children of the benefits, that they will appreciate their incredible abundance by committing to spend now more than £1.00 ($1.25) per day on food each.

I have to say that so far they don’t seem overly enthusiastic but I’m hopeful. I’ll let you know how I get on.

This is the reason why I blog so I can try to get a handle on mornings like today’s.. any advice would be greatly recieved.

Woke up at 5am by 2nd born child (disabled). 3rd born woke up soon after having wet bed. Just as 2nd born is ready to go downstairs, 3rd born has a major major tantrum. Still not quite sure what it was about but he was asking his parents to buy something for him. 1st born needs to get up early as he still has some homework to do. He gets up late and then refuses to dress. Finally, 3rd born settles, rendering all other morning chores late. 1st born starts developing major issues about having to do his homework, my only redres seems to be to leave him to his own bitterness. 2nd born then vomits all over the carpet as I am changing a very very messy nappy. 1st born sorts out homework and attitude and amazingly gets himself ready to leave. Finally all 3 are ready to leave and if we hurry we might just get to school in time.

The hurrying causes an accident, 3rd born runs into 1st born on scooter, 1st born collapses, into dog poo, in a ball of anger and pain, as other hurrying parents step over him. Finally I get him up and have to support his hobbling, whilst pushing wheelchair and steering scooter! And that was all before 9am.

Wolves hunt by picking up the smallest or weakest animal, splitting him or her away from the protection of the herd and then going for the kill. Similarly, a child will instinctively know their parent’s weak spot and hone in on it, sometimes with unceasing and unremitting attention. This can be very very hard to bear, in fact many parents don’t bear it at all and come up with a myriad different ways to escape, from the ever present TV screen, to bribes, outsourcing parenting, or retreating back to the office.

However, I am starting to consider that there is a deep spiritual significance of such turmoil and in fact, a fantastic opportunity for healing. On one level, in trying to get some parental attention your children are highlighting to you, your own weaknesses and susceptibilities. In so doing they are giving you the opportunity to stare your own difficulties in the eye, and make peace with them. Once done, the healing will be complete and neither you nor your children will have to experience it again.

In many ways this is one of the most important jobs your child can perform for you… gnawing away at your falabilities until you can ignore them no longer. When this happens, and you feel that the pack of wolves are just on the point of making the kill and you have to fight for your mental survival, this is the moment to stop and to not react to your children. Instead find a way to turn your attention inwards and ask yourself what it is going on that you find so difficult to bear. Sometimes just a few deep breathes can do the job, take a time out.

In all probability this will relate to some distant hurt that was not healed. Now is the chance for you to heal it and move beyond. How you do this will depend to a large extent on what kind of person you are, but it’s not going away until you can look that hurt dead in the eye and no longer feel any hurt, pain or fear. You can lock yourself away, yell your children into submission or turn the TV louder all you like, but it will still be there. The key therefore is to, just at the point when you are screaming blue murder at your children,  to stop and then realise that it is not they whom are the cause of the hurt. They are performing their spiritual work by reflecting back to you something that needs to be healed. They are not the wolves, they want you to be strong and giving. A parent whom responds as if to a pack of wolves is demonstrating victimhood, weakness and fear.

As in all aspects of the spiritual path, the exterior world is just a reflection of your internal progress. In my view, this is particularly intensely felt when parenting, as children are such wondrous reflections of how we feel about the world. There is of course the flip side of the anger and frustration that we feel towards are children, and that is the love and affection, again something which is reflected from within.

So this being the first post I shall allow myself some self-indulgence. Partly to remind myself why I am doing this, but also partly as a reference point in time to look back in, and hope to see how writing this blog has helped.

As a parent I can say that I have seen and experienced a lot of the harder parts of parenting. We have dealt, or are dealing, with some pretty severe mental health issues. One of my children is severely disabled, and has frequently introduced us, to the issues surrounding childhood bereavement. On top of which, my children are all of the age that they require me to do pretty much everything for them. There are many people whom have experienced more extreme parental pressures, but the vast majority deal with much more day to day problems than I do.

The consequence of this is that pretty much all I do, is parent. I do take a little bit of time to sleep, but that is interrupted throughout the night, to the extent that not even my sleeping hours feel like they belong to me. In fact, even writing this at what should be the quietest time of the night, 9ish pm, I can hear a grumbling voice needing to be settled. My partner works, very very hard. This might not continue for long but has been for the last year or so. The upside of this is that, for now at least, we have escaped the additional tedium of poverty.

As I sit in my kitchen, with my son’s half finished homework to my left I am feeling terrible about the poor communication between my 1st born and I. My impatience with him seemed to ensure that just completing half of it was painful for us both. There is an unholy pile of clean washing needing to be put away. There is a half chewed rubber all over the floor, I really cannot explain why. In a rare loss of temper I threw open a box which now needs to be tidied. And there is a pile of syringes that need to be cleaned meticulously before morning. On the monitor my 2nd born, disabled son, is upping the tempo of his grumbles. I am wondering how long I can resist his calls. On top of all that, I am tired, really really tired and want only one thing more than a long sleep…. that is a deep and uninterrupted meditation. I want peace, real deep peace. This blog seeks to help me discover new ways of parenting that brings me peace.

Having been practicing meditation for many years, I had been so sure that meditation was my path, the ‘royal path’. However the frequency and consistency with which events, by which I mean children, interrupt my meditation has started me wondering if there is not another path I need to look for. The purpose of this blog therefore, is to help me seek ways to infuse my parenting with spirituality for my benefit and the consequential benefit of my lovely children.