Healing Truth Artistry
You have to take care of yourself, before you can really take care of someone else well.
You have to make yourself comfortable, before you can find the best ways to comfort someone else.
You have to find yourself, before you can help someone who is lost.
You have to be standing stable, before you can get someone off the floor.
You have to save yourself, before you can begin to help someone save themselves.
While it is true that life can dish out some unfair circumstances, we do not need to “prepare” our children for this by treating them unjustly.
Children and teenagers are very aware and sensitive about fairness. It is emotionally and psychologically painful to them to be treated in ways that are unjust.
They need to be heard and validated. If we are to teach them to have integrity and to treat other people fairly, we need to do the same with them.
Children and teenagers do not learn by what we say, as much as they learn from what we do. Our actions are far more powerful that our words.
Children learn what they see and what they experience.
They should have a chance to tell their side of things and to talk about their feelings. We cannot teach them that our legal system offers a fair trial and then turn around and punish them without hearing them out.
Let us treat our children that they matter. Their integrity and self esteem matters.
This is the way they can learn to set boundaries with other people.
They can learn how to explain how they feel about things and why they feel that way.
If a situation arrises that the child will experience consequences then they should understand what is happening and why. Those consequences should be equal to their behavior and not overblowing what actually happened.
Teachers that punish an entire class of students, for the bad behavior of 1 or 2 students, are not teaching the children that they are individuals with individual rights.
Sometimes there are unavoidable consequences for a child due to something their sibling or their classmate did, but consequences should not be inflicted upon innocent bystanders just to exercise control or to make a point.
Children need to grow up in a safe emotional and psychological environment.
Imagine if you were at work and forced to do overtime without pay, all because of a disruptive co-worker who slowed down the progress of the workday.
You would feel angry and mistreated. How would this affect your feelings about the supervisor that made you work extra hours with no pay?
How would this affect your overall morale?
There is an old saying that you may have seen on an office poster….
“Until morale improves…the beatings will continue..”
You cannot punish people into wanting to behave better. Children and teenagers are people and they need to be able to trust their environment.
This will allow them to blossom and learn. A benevolent and just environment will allow children. To feel valued as individuals.
The ability to express one’s emotions and thoughts is a learned skill. To be able to present your side of a situation in a logical and understandable manner is a critical life skill.
Let us hear our children and teenagers out. Teach them respect of others and respect for themselves.
Let us celebrate the young minds and remember that those minds can tell when they are treated unjustly.
There is a psychological consequence for every negative experience and there are associations wired into the brain im regards to repeated experiences.
If we want the respect of our children, we need to treat them with compassion and empathy, as best as we can. There is no rule that says the adult cannot apologize if you make a mistake.
It shows the child that you respect them when you admit when you are wrong. It teaches them that everyone makes mistakes.
When you forgive your children for their mistakes they will learn to forgive you for yours. This will help to build their self esteem.
Self esteem is critical for survival. If we bring up children to be adults that cannot self-generate self esteem then they will be targets for predators and abusers.
Children and teenagers that learn to express their feelings and expain their side of things will be better equipped to deal with the people they meet as adults.
There is a great healing that comes along with accepting ourselves just as we are. You are not a compilation of your mistakes. You are the beautiful person inside that is more meaningful to life than you realize.
Once we can do that then we can begin to explore who we can become. We do not have to be entrapped in a perception that because we have not done things in the past that we cannot do them.
Others say things about us. They label us, describe us, talk about us. They tell us what we can do, what we can’t do, what we should do.
They advise us on our careers, families, religious beliefs. Other people’s opinions can limit us if we choose to believe their perception of us.
They can limit our potential.
They can limit our possibilities.
If we allow them to keep us in the little box they have assigned to us then they will destroy what we could have become.
We do not have to take on the perception that other people have of us. There are great gifts deep inside of you that have yet to flourish. Because others in our lives do see our possibilities, we do not explore them. We feel like we need to conform to who other people think we are.
To reach out for possibilities and explore untapped gifts inside of ourselves is to upset the apple cart. It upsets people who have their reality based on who they think we are. They have assigned to us roles and levels.
You are far more gifted and intelligent than you let other people see. You keep those parts of you hidden and give up on them as unattainable dreams of who you wish you were.
If you have a vision…a picture in your mind’s… eye of you want to become…of things you wish you could do…then do not let other people determine your boundaries or keep you in their box.
It might be inconvenient for other people to get used to you becoming more of who you are. People like to keep things the same. Some people are better off when you are struggling and kept down. Your true self may intimidate them.
But you are not living your entire life to fit into another person’s perception. That is not your purpose.
But there are so many things you can do and so many other people who can benefit from your stretching beyond just going through the motions of your designated roles. Some people may not even be worth keeping in your life, if they are always minimizing you and telling you what you cannot do.
We are each of us on our own path. We are on a path of discovery. Discovery of knowledge, beauty and spirituality. Discovery of our own potential and possibilities.
Reach into your heart and mind. Feel what your soul is calling you to do. The people that see you day to day can sometimes be the ones that know you the least. They just know the role that you play.
You have a purpose that is beyond the people in your family. your workplace, your school and your group of friends. You can start right where you are. It does not matter what choices you have made in the past.
Each new moment is a fresh opportunity to think differently and see things from a completely different point of view….to see yourself as much more significant than you have ever considered before.
Blessings.
GentleKindness 