The Conscious Parent

them, you look within yourself and ask why you react. In the asking, you
open a space for consciousness to arise.
It was only when Anya was able to revisit her childhood and uncover
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 the 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 often 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