Your Mis-takes Are Fuel For Your Children

Your mind creates all kinds of stories, especially when there is an event that gets you triggered. While supporting my son’s journey with cancer, some days the stories in my mind have had the power of hurricane winds, but I have not gotten caught by them, except for a short time on Mother’s Day. 

Usually my two kids plan something so we can all be together. This year, I did not hear from either one of them until my son called me around 8:30 pm and informed me that after his latest round of chemotherapy, he had slept all day. Then my daughter called me on Monday (she had gone away for the weekend and forgot to tell me).

During the day on Sunday, my storyteller started turning the situation into a problem. At one point, my mind said, “What did I do to raise kids like them?  I must have really screwed them up.”  The wonderfully crazy thing is that I have a very good relationship with my kids, but that didn’t matter to the storyteller. It was more than happy to react and start singing the song, “I don’t matter.” As soon as I brought consciousness to the hurt one inside of me, I was able to give this part of me the love and compassion she so desperately needed and I was able to recognize that my own inner child needed my mothering on Mother’s Day. 

Can you imagine what it would have been like if I had bought into the story that I screwed up my kids?  It is very helpful in parenting to know that there is no way you can do it right.  And one of the gifts you give to your children are your own struggles. Why? Because they are the fuel for their awakening. My mother’s paranoia was my fuel. Although I took on her paranoia and lived in great fear for most of my young life, her paranoia was also what drew me to exploring my fear rather than trying to fix it.

Dark and light are not on opposite sides, just like the yin and yang symbol. They are nestled together. Part of your job as a parent is to love your children, but the other part is to give them the wounds they need for their own awakening. When you can understand this, it will totally change your relationship with your kids because, rather than beating yourself up for all the mistakes you made, (there is NO way you can do parenting “perfectly”), you begin to accept yourself exactly as you are. Then you can stay open and available to your children. Patricia Sun, author and spiritual teacher, once told me, “Mary, with all the mis-takes you have ever made in your life, you never made a mistake.”   

It is so easy to get caught up in the stories created by your mind, but Life is so painful when you live in those stories (and this is where most people live). When you can calm down enough to actually see that they are just stories, they are fascinating to watch. As you awaken, you will realize that the stories are not true and you are not the stories. And remember that with all of your mis-takes, you have never made a mistake. You are okay exactly as you are, and so are your children. 

Image – Change of Seasons by Artist Alberto Murillo  http://www.albertomurilloart.com/