willing to foster the internal space in them that will enable them to
flourish free of your need to project your will onto them?
If these things are to happen, you will need to create an inner space
within yourself that’s free of the tendency to possess and control. Only
then can you meet your children as they truly are, not as you wish them
to be, fully accepting them without attachment to whatever vision you
may have for them.
When you relate to your children by honoring who they are at any
given moment, you teach them to honor themselves. If, on the other
hand, you seek to shift them from their present state, altering their
behavior to meet your approval, you convey the message that their
authentic being is inadequate. As a result, your children begin to adopt a
persona, which takes them away from who they really are. Letting go of
your attachment to your vision of parenthood and your desire to write
your children’s future is the hardest psychic death to endure. It demands
that you drop all prior agendas and enter a state of pure release and
surrender. It asks that you forego your fantasies of who you thought your
child would be and instead respond to the actual child in front of you.THE EGO OF CONFORMITY
We humans like to think of ourselves as product-oriented creatures. We
prefer to go from point A to point B. We want our interactions in life to
be orderly, organized. Unfortunately, life doesn’t come in a neat package.
It doesn’t provide us with easy solutions, ready-made answers. Instead of
being orderly and organized, it’s anything but— especially in the case of
parenthood. This is why parents have the hardest time with a child who