Awareness and Space to Grow and Heal

Many of our strong feelings are rooted in our efforts to make sense of the world from when we were children.  Child logic is largely egocentric.  That is, we perceived ourselves as the cause of the things that happened in our lives; others’ behaviors (especially our parents) were perceived as responding to us.  Especially with young children there is no sense of others’ motivation being not related to them.  Understanding this is important both in understanding our internal process and in being conscious parents.  The child’s notion of, “If I were better or different this would not be happening” is incredibly powerful.  Whether the “this” is divorce, separation, witnessing parents fight or a host of other lesser negative experiences, children are the center of their narrative universe, and as such experience themselves as the cause of whatever is happening.  What we do not understand as children is that everyone is bringing their own history and process to every situation and that all too often adults are unconsciously playing out material from their childhood and prior relationships.  So what can we do to decrease suffering for ourselves and for our children?   There are in my opinion two major components: The first is becoming aware of our own internal process, and owning it and our behavior.  The second is giving others (our children, siblings, friends, partners, colleagues, whoever) the respect and space to acknowledge that they have their own, history, process and preferences.  We are responsible for our actions, we not the alpha and omega of everyone else’s experience.