Author: bjukuri

"Through our children, we get orchestra seats to the complex theatrics of our immaturity, as they evoke powerful emotions in us that can cause us to feel as though we aren't in control – with all the frustration, insecurity, and angst that accompanies this sensation."  Dr. Shefali Tsabary

What I love about this book, it is a book about the Parent, not the child.  It is helping us see ourselves and how our reactions change the lives of our children.  I love that she notes our "complex theatrics of our immaturity".  For we literally are reduced to the antics of a two-year old. Raging and screaming out of control…when 'something' doesn't go our way.

She goes on to say…

"Of course, our children don't "make" us feel this way. They merely awaken our unresolved emotional issues from our childhood. Nevertheless, because our children are vulnerable and mostly powerless, we feel free to blame them for our reactivity.  Only by facing up to the fact that it isn't our children who are the problem, but our own unconsciousness, can transformation come about."

"How did we become so reactive?  Not only do we inherit certain egoic scripts and roles from our family of origin, we also inherit an emotional signature. Beneath every role and script is a unique emotional imprint.  This is the case because, as an infant, we are in the state of being, not ego, which means our defenses are unformed and we are susceptible to the emotional energy around us. We energetically interact with our parents emotional state, absorbing their emotional imprint, until this energy becomes our emotional stamp.  Unless at some point in our life we become conscious of the emotional energy we have absorbed from our parents, we will inevitably transfer this imprint to our own children."

"Because we weren't taught by either our parents or society to access our inner stillness and find the roots of our pain and pleasure within ourselves, we are reactive to external circumstances.  Sine we didn't learn to simply observe our emotions and honor them, sit with them, and grow from them, our response to external stimuli became increasingly emotionally toxic, which is the root of our cyclones of drama."

"When we are raised to surpress our darker emotions, these emotions form a shadow from which we are cut off. When emotions are split from our consciousness, they lie dormant, ready to be activated at a moments notice, which is why so many of us erupt out of the blue. Whenever these emotions are triggered by another's shadow, we find ourselves upset with the person who evoked these emotions in us. Again, let me emphasize that no one could evoke such emotions in us were they not already part of our shadow. Not realizing this, we seek to ease our discomfort at having to confront our shadow by projecting these emtions onto the other. We then see them as the villain in the situation. So afraid are we to face our surrpressed emotions that whenever we recognize such emotions in another, we experience hatred, which leads to defiance, victimizing, and in some cases killing of the individual."  Dr Shefali

Imagine what a baby picks up in dysfunctional homes?

The swirling dark energies are absorbed due to no defenses to stop them.

And, then these dark emotions become part of who you are.

I know, that from my own experience this is all true.

I had a huge cavern of unexpressed emotions that could and would erupt at the smallest of provocation.  I was a mine field of buried explosives. I, like my children, didn't know when it would erupt.

I did blame them.

My inner feelings towards them were defiant at best.  Until I understood the time travelers of long suppressed emotions.  

I had a lifetime of feeling to feel.

Once I felt the dark swirling emotions that comprise the make-up of incest and the apathy surrounding it, I was able then to feel goodness.

I had to first fully embrace and swim in the dark.

My children were spared each time I dunked under the waves of despair.

I even recall trying to keep the energies within me or when they became to dark to go outside to release them. It was like I was contaminated…a toxic mess.

I now feel that it is up to me to keep my inner landscape empty. To feel and express quickly what I feel.  

By me fully owning my own energy field of dysfunctional emotions, my children will not feel its contents exploding in their lives.

It is amazing in how accurate Dr.Shefali understands this.  My inner charge feels to be at zero. And, if in the future I explode.  I will know that there is something within me that needs to be expressed and understood.  A time traveler of suppressed emotion.  Something I absorbed in my childhood.

Knowing my childhood…there was an incredible amount of dark energies that I took on…and I can be the one to transform them by feeling them.  Acknowledging they exist.  And, my children are the ones who will set off the charge.

There is no need to search.

When you are out of control and the emotions are drowning you.  It is then…you feel this.  See what and who you are trying to control so you don't have to feel.

Release the messenger and be with the emotions…and release your need to control.

On Memorial Day, we remember those who fought for our freedom.  How free are we inside of ourselves?  Does it matter to be living in the land of the free, when inside we are held prisoner by suppressed emotions.  

We are too afraid to stop blaming others and to own our cyclone of emotions that are  out of control.  To fully own, the cause is coming from inside…

More from "The Conscious Parent" by Dr. Shefali Tsabary…

"Because we interact with our children based on how we were raised, before we know it – and despite our best intentions – we find ourselves recreating the dynamics of our own childhood. Let me illustrate how this happens by telling you ab out a mother and daughter I was privileged to help.  Jessica was a good student and the ideal daughter until her fourteenth year.  However, during the next two years, she turned into her mother's worst nightmare.  Lying, stealing, clubbing, and smoking her way through life, she became rude, defiant, and even violent. Being around her daughter, whose moods fluctuated by the minute, made Anya anxious.  Too deeply triggered by Jessica to contain her emotions, she unleashed her fury on her daughter yelling, screaming and calling her names a child should never be subjected to."

"Anya knew that Jessica's behavior didn't warrant these extreme explosions of anger, but she could neither control her rage nor understand where it was coming from. Feeling incompetent, thinking herself a failure as a parent, she was unable to provide Jessica with the connection she needed."

"In due course, Jessica confided in a school counselor that she had begun cutting herself."

"When Anya learned how much pain Jessica was in, she contacted me for help. "It's as if I were six again," she shared.  "When my daughter yells at me, I feel the way I did when my mother yelled at me.  When she slams the door on me and shuts me out of her world, I feel as though I'm being punished, like I did something wrong. The difference is that whereas with my parents I could never protest, yell, or scream, now I can't stop.  Every time my daughter makes me feel like my parents made me feel, it's as if my world crashes around me and I lose my sanity."

"The only way we could unlock the unconsciousness that Anya's daughter triggered in her was by revisiting the past, in particular her family of origin.  Anya's father was emotionally cold, which meant she felt starved for affection. Her mother "was just never there," Anya explained.  "Even when she was there physically, it was like she was never there. I was seven or eight when I began to know loneliness."

"So great was the pain of Anya's isolation and lack of acceptance by her parents that she resolved to create a new personality. "I decided I would start acting just like mom, then dad would begin to love me as much as he loved her." Anya's mother was always well put together, beautifully dressed, on top of things.  "I changed from a girl inot a grown-up woman overnight," Anya recalls. "I began to exercise like crazy and did brilliantly in school."

"Unfortunately, no matter how responsible Anya became, she was never good enough for her extremely strict father. One incident in particular led to a turning point. As Anya tells it: "I remember one day my father was annoyed with me because I wasn't sitting still to do my homework. Not a man of many words, he took me to the corner of the room and raised my arms in the air.  He then folded my knees and sent me to the floor. I knelt on the floor for the next two hours with my arms in the air. He didn't say a word the entire time. My mother didn't dare say anything either. No one looked me in the eye. I think that what hurt me more than the punishment was the lack of acknowledgment. I cried and begged for forgiveness, but no one seemed to hear me. After two hours, my father told me to get up and start studying. From that day on, I swore I would never get myself into trouble again. I swallowed my anger and hid beneath layers of resentment."

"In the same way Anya had learned to be the "perfect" child, she had trained her daughter Jessica to be her little automation, devoid of emotional expression, super-responsible, perfectly controlled and manicured.  However, being a different spirit, Jessica could only take her mother's rigidity for her childhood years. The minute she was able to break free, she did.  Not having a sense of a center, her emotional pendulum now swung to the other extreme. The more Jessica rebelled, the more controlling and dominant Anya became. Finally Jessica snapped. So it was that the cutting began."

"Through all her daughter's behavior, Anya only saw her own wounds, caused by her own parents' anger, rejection, and betrayal of her. Instead of seeing Jessica's rebellion as a cry for help, she interpreted it as undermining her role as a parent. This served as a reminder of how powerless and worthless her parents made her feel as a child. Only now, instead of becoming the "perfect daughter" as she had all those years ago in her parents' home, as a parent herself she fought back. The tragedy was that she was fighting with the wrong person."

"Anya had no awareness that her daughter was behaving quite normally given the circumstances of her rigid upbringing. She couldn't see that Jessica was saying, "Enough of the charade. Wake up and notice that I'm a unique individual with different needs from you. I can't be yours to control any longer."

"Jessica was in effect screaming for the release Anya could never claim for herself. She was the flag bearer of her mother's unfought war. Though she appeared "bad" in the eyes of the public, she was in truth being a dutiful daughter, enacting her mother's unlived past for her.  Through her antisocial behavior, she was facilitating her mother in finally expressing all that had been trapped inside her for decades. In terms of the journey of becoming a conscious parent, Jessica's "badness" was a service to her mother, the opportunity for Anya to revisit her childhood resentment and heartache.  Thus Anya was finally allowing herself to scream, letting out her emotional toxicity. Our children are generous in this way, willingly becoming receptacles for our misplaced emotions so we can ultimately set ourselves free. It's our unwillingness to walk toward this freedom that creates the illusion our children are "bad" and must be doing things maliciously."

"If you understand that the inappropriate behavior of your children is a call to increased consciousness on your part, you are able to view the opportunities they afford you to grow differently. Instead of reacting to them, you look within yourself and ask why you react. In the asking, you open space for consciousness to rise."

"It was only when Anya was able to revisit her childhood and undercover her anger toward her parents that she could release her daughter from the trap of "perfection" she herself had lived in all her life.  As she embarked on the process of freeing herself, she began losing layers of pretense she had cloaked herself in, slowly emerging as a vibrant, fun, easygoing, person who was full of joy. Her apology to her daughter for all the burdens she had insensitively placed on her allowed Jessica to heal her own wounds. Mother and daughter were helping each other emerge into the authentic beings they had really been all along."

"The ways in which our past influences our present are indelible, yet paradoxically obstructed from plain view. This is why it takes someone close to us to mirror for us the wounds from our past, which is the reason our children are able to help us become free."

"Unfortunately, we parents don't allow them to fulfill their spiritual purpose in our life. Instead, we seek to make them fulfill our egoic plans and fantasies."

"How can we guide, protect, and provide for our children in the physical world, yet rigorously relinquish all sense of domination of their spirit, unless we have nurtured a free spirit within ourselves? If your spirit was squelched by parents who were divorced from their own emotional freedom, there is a risk you will squelch your own children. You might unconsciously engender in them the same pain you endured in your childhood, passing on the pain that has been handed down for generations. This is why it's so important to consciously free ourselves from our unconscious state and move toward an enlightened way of being." Dr. Shefali

If the only thing you get from this….is this… if you are screaming at your kids, you are not free from your childhood pain.  

This makes complete and total sense to me.  When I started to ask why I was reacting so poorly and sought to make changes IN MY behavior, I was becoming conscious as a parent.

I also know, that the sheer volume of rage and resentment I had towards my kids was so wrongly directed. AND, once I course corrected the direction of my rage….to my parents. My children were set free…along with myself.

We didn't have to be perfect…buried under layers of resentment.  I allowed myself to be angry etc.

If your child is out of control, it is for you to heal…If you are screaming…it is for your parent or the one who hurt you in childhood, that you haven't had said your piece.

Say your peace in the right direction and you will have peace.

This book is for those who are tired of being out of control.

 

 

"The Conscious Parent" by Dr. Shefali Tsabary is a 100% turnaround from what most parents have been doing.  It is a much needed change to bring resolution to the dysfunction that is bringing such pain to our children.

She writes.

"To shift to a more effective way of relating to our children, we must be willing to face and resolve issues in ourselves that stem from the way we were parented. Unless we invite such transformation, we will likely parent with a certain irreverence, unheeding of the cry of our children's spirit and blind to their wisdom.  Only to the degree we as parents are attuned to our own being will we know how to help our children attune themselves to their unique essence."

"For this reason, to parent consciously requires us to undergo personal transformation.  In fact, it's my experience that the relationship between parent and child exists for the primary purpose of the parent's transformation and only secondarily for the raising of the child."

"When I point out to parents the ways in which they need to undergo transformation, I frequently meet with resistance. "Why us?" they retort, puzzled that I would suggest they need to change. When I explain that the only way their children will alter their behavior is if they as parents become more conscious, they tend to be dissappointed, unable to accept that the focus needs to be on changing their own mindset rather than on their children.  I find that many parents are afraid of opening themselves to the unknown in the way that shifting from unconscious to conscious requires. This path isn't for the faint-hearted, but for those courageous souls who wish to experience kinship with their children.  Our children come to us so we may recognize our psychic wounds and call up the courage to transcend the limitations these wounds placed upon us. As we uncover the ways in which our past drives us, we gradually become capable of parenting consciously. Until then, try as we may to bring awareness to the way we parent, unconsciousness seeps into our interactions with our children at the least provocation."

"I want to stress that there's no point wishing your unconsciousness didn't exist. Rather, understanding the ramifications of unconsciousness and become aware of its consequences can motivate a person to embark on the penetrating self-examination that's required to become an effective parent."

"In this your children are your allies, as they repeatedly mirror aspects of your unconsciousness, affording you the opportunity after opportunity to awaken from slumber. Because children deserve parents who are conscious, don't we owe it to them to allow ourselves to be transformed by them at least as much as we seek to transform them?"

"While the precise details of the transformation we must each undergo are unique to us as individuals, the nature of this transformation is in many ways universal.  Hence a conscious approach to parenting urges parents to address issues that are the hallmarks of consciousness, such as:

"Am I allowing myself to be led toward greater spiritual awakening through my relationship with my children?"

"How can I parent my children with an awareness of what they truly need from me, and thus become the parent they deserve to have?"

"How can I rise above my own fear of change and transform myself to meet the requirement of my child's spirit?"

"Dare I go against the stream and parent from a place where the inner life is valued more than the external?" 

"Do I recognize every aspect of my parenting as a call to my higher evolution?"

"Am I able to perceive my relationship with my children as a sacred relationship?"

                                    Dr. Shefali

What I know now, that I didn't know when I became a mother, is that our children are indeed here to transform us.  And, each time I felt out of control with my children, it was the whirlwind of my transformation blowing.

It was a moment, that I knew I was going to have some intense soul searching to do.

Once you encounter, or come face to face with your own lack in the midst of a confrontation, it is brilliant in its design.

It literally can change you into knowing the trouble lies with you. 

I so hope that many parents will embrace this concept and see how incredible it is to  'fix' yourself in the midst of great angst with your children.  

The power of control is then grasped, for it is only you that you have to change…you are free from having to change your child.

There are so many gifts in parenting this way.  The first being you can see the innocence of your children and how precious they are.  If you are trying to 'fix' them, you are not accepting them as they are.

To me, my inner transformation was to love… by letting my children be free. To be free to be who they are. Nothing needed to be fixed or changed.  And, as soon as I thought there was, it was a change that I needed to make about me.

All the fixing and transforming was done in me.

My children were spot on in knowing where I was off.

Always.

I would not be the person I am today, had my children not pushed all my buttons.

They literally went into every place I was broken or wounded or in pain or insecure.

Pointing out to me where I was off.

If parents could get this…our world would be completely healed.  Fix the parents and leave the innocent children in peace!

 

I am re-reading a book "The Body Never Lies" by Alice Miller.  She and her viewpoints make complete sense to me.  

She writes. 

"In his famous novel Fateless, the Hungarian writer and Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz describes his arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp.  He was fifteen years old at the time, and he tells us in great detail how he attempted to interpret the many grotesque and appalling things he encountered on his arrival there as something positive and favorable for him. Otherwise he would not have survived his own mortal fear."

"Probably every child who has suffered abuse must assume an attitude like this in order to survive. These children reinterpret their perceptions in a desperate attempt to see as good and beneficial things that outside observers would immediately classify as crimes.  Children have no choice. They must repress their true feelings if they have no "helping witness" to turn to and are helplessly exposed to their persecutors. Later, as adults lucky enough to encounter "enlightened witnesses," they do have a choice. Then they can admit the truth, their truth; they can stop pitying and "understanding" their persecutors, stop trying to feel their unsustainable, disassociated emotions, and roundly denounce the things that have been done to them.  This step brings immense relief for the body. It no longer has to forcibly remind the adult self of the tragic history it went through as a child.  Once the adult self has decided to find out the whole truth about itself, the body feels understood, respected and protected."

"I call the violent kind of "upbringing" abuse, not only because the children are thus refused the right to dignity and respect as human beings but also because such an approach to parenting establishes a kind of totalitarian regime in which it is impossible for children to perceive the humiliations, indignities, and disrespect they have been subjected to, let alone to defend themselves against them.  These patterns of childhood will inevitably then be adopted by their victims and used on their partners and their own children, at work, in politics, wherever the fear and anxiety of the profoundly insecure child can be fended off with the aid of external power. It is in this way that dictators are born; these are people with a deep-seated contempt for everyone else, people who were never respected as children and thus do their utmost to earn respect at a later stage with the assistance of the gigantic power apparatus they have built up around them."  Alice Miller

What I love, and don't recall reading the first time is that the reason we choose a different perception is to Survive our own mortal fear.  It is to run ahead of our fears.  I knew we changed the images of our abusers to make them kinder to survive, but I hadn't gotten this part that it is to outrun our own mortal fear.

Fear is chasing us…forever, until we can see our abusers and their crimes.  Our body will not rest as long as we pity and understand our abusers.  I know this is right.

And, unless we stop and face our fears, we will use others when we feel insecure. We will control them to feel power.

What is taken from us in abuse is our power…for we are overcome by someone older and wiser than us. We allow, for the lack of choice, someone to overpower us.

In order to gain our power, we have to reconcile that moment.

I had to look up the word Reconcile.  For, someone told me it must be hard to reconcile with my parents.

I see or feel reconcile differently. 

Here are some definitions of Reconcile.

"Restore friendly relations between…"

"cause to coexist in harmony; make or show to be compatible."

 "to find a way of making (two different ideas, facts, etc.) exist or be true at the same time."

What I believe most of humanity is looking for between a victim and their abuser, is to return to friendly.  When in actuality, from the victim's perspective, we have to reoncile the two people.  The friendly one and the non-friendly one.  To bring into account the two different sides of one person.

I don't believe the two can even be brought together in harmony.  In acceptance yes…but not to return to friendly in the relationship.

When therapies and society and religions are looking to the victim to reconcile, do they know what they are asking?

How is it possible to reconcile things that are the polar opposites?

How will they co-mingle in harmony?

I think our greates Fear is knowing it is impossible.  We can't reconcile in our minds and hearts that the man/person we loved and trusted, did this to us.  We know, we will not be able to trust this person again.  Our greatest fears is that we are alone. Or worse, alone and vulnerable to attacks.  That the friendly life of harmony is over.

How can we restore something we didn't separate?

I did reconcile my past.  

I brought in the truth and no longer pretended to be friendly or be in harmony with such energies of abuse.

To those who want victims to find peace and love and joy with their abusers, they are asking the impossible.  Our bodies will hold the differences.

The body doesn't lie.

The body will feel the juxtaposition between title (Dad) and the energies (negative) that are running inside.  It feels the power seeking and the controlling.  It feels the energies of abuse. 

Abuse will end when we can all see the separation between father and pedophile and not ask victims to reconcile…but separate.

My reconciliation was to bring in the negative that I feared.  Somehow we know that the relationship is over when you can see the negative.  We fear being alone.

Some have even told me how alone I am. 

Isn't it better to be alone in the truth, than in company of lies?

The well being of victims comes when we can separate ourselves from those who seek to gain power outside of themselves.  

When I found my own power within, I stopped trying to control others to be powerful.

My power comes from the freedom to make choices that bring me peace, love and joy. 

Healing comes with freedom. The freedom to reconcile my past.