Labels…Empowering or Disempowering?
25 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: communication, compassionate listening, intuition, labels, mindful parenting
As a teacher and parent, I have always had a problem with labeling. I am not saying I don’t use them, but I am mindful how I use them. I ask myself, what is the motive or purpose for the label? If it is to empower one to live in their essence and truth, and simply bring more understanding to guide and enable me to see a better way to support the gifts and talents of that individual, then I say go for it. The difference in choosing to use a label in this manner is I am creating a space, an environment that does not diminish, or limit one’s potential, and it is not a label I choose from my own perspective or projection. It has come from observation, intuition, compassionate listening, and communication in concert with the other to give them the opportunity to reach their highest potential and genius.
I often hear, and heard, parents say to me as a teacher, my child doesn’t listen, he’s hyperactive, can’t sit still, she’s a genius, a dreamer, silly…and the list could go on. The most important thing here is for one not to identify with a label. The label is not who he/she is, yet that is what we are ingrained to believe. Hopefully it gets recognized as a trait, as a way one moves through life. Hopefully it becomes a sign of awareness of the child’s strength to support him/her to navigate through life to expand his talents and gifts. These traits are not to be used to disempower someone, but are used to help identify the different modalities, whether physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual, that are their strengths, and to focus on those. Learn to weave them into activities of learning through living life that support his/her modalities.
Be mindful of what you say to your child. Watch the labels you may unconsciously use daily. Open the way for honest communication, and listening, and learn together how to support and trust each other to live by one’s intuition.
Like this:
Parenting by Design
16 Aug 2010 1 Comment
in Parenting Tags: children, genius, gifts, Human Energy Design, instruction, manual, parenting, parenting tool, talents, The Rebel Belle, Tuck Self, voice
Are you confident in your parenting style?
What if there was an instruction manual that gave you and your children deep insights into the talents, gifts, and genius you came here to be. Join me, and my sister Tuck Self, The Rebel Belle, as we share the amazing parenting tool of Human Energy Design. Learn how to hold the vision for the highest potential expression of your children to be who they came here to be.
Claim Your Voice, Own Your Life – MAGGIE SELF: Parenting by Design!?
A Child’s Garden of Guardians
10 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: beautiful, beliefs, child, children, experiences, garden, guardians, mind, parenting, purpose, Robert Louis Stevenson
“When you don’t know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful devine being, and cling to that fearful and needy self.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, from Stillness Speaks
I often loved reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems in his book, A Children’s Garden of Verses. I remember particularly loving the poem, “I Have a Little Shadow.” It goes like this – “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, and what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He’s very, very like me from my heels up to my head, and I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed…”
As a child, I played with my shadow. I loved making it big and small, long and short, fat and squatty, and had a playful time attempting to step on its head…oh that was so much fun! Now this shadow was truly harmless for it only mimicked my playful spirit. I never saw it sulk or pout, or feel less than, or not know its worth.
Now, as I grew, I began planting a garden with a variety of beliefs about myself. These beliefs I chose for my garden from listening to sources outside myself, such as my parent’s, friends, and teachers. These ‘guardians’ meant well in their awareness. They watered my garden with spiritual water, sometimes they totally forgot, and other times the energy of that water was murky, and clouded. Looking up to these ‘guardians’ that supported me in defining who I am, I took on many thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that did not nourish my soul. I created a garden of value judgments that were not me in my essence, and guess what??!! I created a new kind of shadow. Not quite like the one I used to play with as a young child.
We all have our shadows…our judgments around values, and what we should or shouldn’t do. Then we beat ourselves up, when we don’t adhere to what we have come to believe about who we are, and how we should show up in the world. What I know to be true, is that these shadows are our gifts, in that they show us who we are not, in order that we have something to compare to that which we are. We would not know ourselves, Who We Really Are, if it weren’t for these beliefs and experiences of who we are not.
So back to the child, and that playful little shadow in the garden with the ‘guardians.’ What if our ‘guardians,’ be they parents, teachers, schools, institutions, or whatever, become mindful of their role? In that awareness, not only are they mindful, they understand that when a child behaves in an ‘inappropriate’ way, it is simply because they are holding a belief about themselves through their own personal experience, while playing in their garden of life’s experiences. They accept a belief that does not lift them to the highest vision of who they really are, and one not in alignment with their soul’s sole purpose, their essence, their child of spirit.
As Guardians of their Gardens, let’s be the container (model) filled with tools that remind the children of who they are. Allow them to think and discern for themselves. Allow them to honor their feelings through listening. Acknowledge what is so for them in the moment. This is not about what you believe, but giving them the tools to listen to their own wisdom and inner voice to discern what they believe. Listen and they will tell you. Ask them, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? What do you really want? Remind them that when the shadow shows up that this is not who they are. Offer them new tools. Sprinkle these delicate plants with warmth, gentleness, integrity, and love. Guide them with these new tools, and allow them to see they can always make a different choice of who they choose to be, by what they think, feel, and really want. These choices allow them to start anew in each and every moment. They will begin to “uncover” the real me as they begin to experience life and learning in an empowering and response-able way.
Behold and remember…All shadows are a gift, and can lead us to “the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever of Who You Are.”
Like this:
Time to Think
05 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: child, children, creativity, discipline, dreams, interests, living, parenting, potential, thinking
It is time to ‘rethink’, or not.
Education is a learning from the inside out. This is not what our schools do. They tell us what to learn, when to learn it, and how. Whether it is subjects we must master, adherence to disciplines that hinder innovation and creativity, or facts that must be memorized for tests, they are taught primarily to measure one’s ability to follow standards, and used to define one’s worth and potential. Most of these mandates have little relevance to a child’s interests, and more often than not, are presented out of context to the whole. Separate from the whole, the connection between what they have learned and its application and functionality in every day life seems irrelevant.
If learning is about life and living, are we preparing our children to follow their dreams, their interests. longings, and desires? Are they developing intrinsic values or extrinsic values? Who’s dream and truth are they living?
We only know what you know…but if you are interested in learning more…stay with me and keep reading.
Who REALLY Needs Parenting?
04 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: child, coach educator, creativity, daughter, guidelines, love, mother, parenting, son
The one question I most often hear from parents is, “How do I keep the sense of wonder, awe, innocence, and creativity alive in my child?”
From my experience as a mother, educator, family coach and working with children most of my life, I have observed, and become consciously aware of how our conditioned values and beliefs around parenting quickly diminish that innate spark and divine light that we so want to keep alive in our children. And worse, what we are so desperately trying not to do to our children, we are living and doing to ourselves. We have forgotten how to let our own light emerge and shine. We have forgotten that our sense of well-being is paramount if we want to set the stage for our children. We have become slaves, thinking we are supposed to sacrifice our wants, desires, and inner soul’s sole purpose to honor our ‘programmed’ role of meeting the needs of everyone else. Yes, we are now labeled a parent, and by whose guidelines are we living out that role? This is where we as parents, as well as teachers, grandparents, and caregivers, must look deeply within our hearts, and discover what it is we want and need for ourselves to be the best role model we can for our children. Our children will emulate us! If we have given up the one thing we want to keep alive in our children, then it is time to rethink, and re-envision what our values and role is as a parent.
How often do you ask your child to do something you are not willing to do? Does that remind you of the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do?” How often does that end in a power struggle? Are you expecting your child to do things that reallly never made sense to you? Are you projecting your missed or unfulfilled desires onto your child?
I invite you to contemplate these words of wisdom from Kahlil Gibran…you are beginning to break a “biological contract!!”
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”
