I think it was Ruby Wax who said that the minute her first born was born was the happiest of her life. She couldn’t believe the happiness she felt at being a parent.
The love she felt.
…and then 5 minutes later she realised the responsibility thrust on her and shouted out, “don’t let me die !
As a parent that is something that made me laugh lots as I identified with the overwhelming need to make my children’s lives as happy as they could be
And that was down to me
As their mother I had to get in and fix everything for them
…Make sure they were popular …
….Make sure they were happy …
….Make sure they were successful ….
All of it my job!
Because you see I innocently misunderstood where my happiness came from
I thought it came from outside. Jobs, partners, children, money, success….all these outside things made me happy I believed .
Which meant that I manipulated and clung to those around me and tried to shape their lives to look a certain way because my happiness came from them and so they had to be happy too.
All of it story. None of it true.
But of course peace of mind (happiness is only a very fleeting feeling, it’s peace of mind we’re after! ) is an inside job, not an outside job. Our experience comes 100% from thought – the inside-not the outside problem then that’s a game changer
When I saw this for myself – properly saw it, everything changed.
My thinking changes all day long – everyone’s does and so I don’t need to take any of it seriously. I’m only ever feeling my thinking in the moment and my thinking changes all day long – and most of it is made up anyway .
Well that means that my children are feeling their thinking too.
My boss is feeling his thinking in the moment too and my partner … everyone’s feeling their thinking in the moment
And the way we know this is true is to test yourself. You have an argument with your friend and walk away, furious.
Five minutes later you hate her.
An hour later you start to think she’s actually to be pitied- she’s got so many problems in her life, no wonder she reacted the way she did.
Two hours later you think you’ll send her a text and apologize.
Same set of circumstances. Different thinking.
Couple this with the access to our innate wisdom we have – the inner guide we’re born with- read more about that here – then our children are feeling their thinking and have access to their wisdom too .
And that means it’s not my job to parent them – not in the traditional sense anyway.
When everyone stops looking in the wrong place – outside – then BOOM! We have peace of mind and a much better experience of life
To work together and explore this in more detail click here