Child Worship

"Parents, please don't worship your children.  No child is capable of receiving your undivided attention.  it will scorch the child and damage the relationship.

The pressure of the orientation of your entire life around him or her will prove too much for you all to handle - and your love will transform into control, and your efforts to control will backfire.

No matter how deeply you love your child, he or she is going to resist being the focus of your life.

If you are very lucky, when the child brings a necessary shift, he or she will do so kindly.  Usually such shifts are far from pretty.  You were designed for much more than parenthood.  While it is a calling, it is not your only one, or the most important calling you have.

The sooner you focus on your other callings the better parent you are likely to become.

Child-worship has another extraordinary implication  the child expects all adults to offer similar attention and can often get peeved when these adults fail to deliver.

Let to.  Allow yourself to be free of the constant pressure to be at your child's beck and call - it serves no one well. "


John gave me this article to read the other day.  He had saved it from The Mercury newspaper (Friday, April 5, 2013)  Its written by Rod Smith from his column (which is a very worthwhile read) You and I.  Rod is a family therapist in the US and can be e-mailed at rod@difficultrelationships.com .

Forgiveness

This is my favourite definition of forgiveness...

 and...

and ...

And from one of my idols...

yeah.....

Judgment...

Nothing in life is about anyone else.  Seriously.  They are just mirrors of our own interpretations of the world.  And although I have known this for quite some time intellectually, it is always useful for me to feel it or be reminded of it through the circumstances of my life.

But I protest with every fibre of my being: "If my husband or kids are irritating me, its not about them.  Really?  I am sure that it is.  I am much more right than they are...I have the moral high ground.  They are wrong and I am right.  I am almost sure.  Its their fault things are bad, wrong, challenging. Surely?!"

Nope! Its just the ego fighting to gain the driver's seat of my life so it can run me like a pro, controlling my life with fear. "Who do you think you are?  You are not good enough! You are wrong!  You will lose those you love if you make them cross or if you are wrong! Danger! Caution!"

So calm yourself down.  Ask if this is just fear :
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real
...and ask yourself, as Byron Katie would:

1. Is this true?
2. Is this really true?
3. How does it make you feel when you have the thought......(They are wrong and I am right!)
    Hint: Its never good.
4. Who would you be without the thought....(They are wrong and I am right!)
    Hint: Its usually good.

So question your judgments.  It will make you feel good!  And that's really the point.

Happiness vs Joy!

Danielle laPorte wrote another article I had to share because of the "Joy" link....please enjoy and soak it up:

"The difference between happiness & joy. And why it helps to know.

There's a difference between the definition of happiness and the definition of joy. It's valuable to be aware of this because when things get tough, logic might want you to default to despair, or utter sadness or worse, you might think you have to choose between hardship and joy, or support and separation, or light and dark.

Consciousness is not an either/or equation. It's about bothness. The capacity to expand into bothness -- the awareness of your joy in all circumstances -- is so much of what it means to evolve.
"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, wracked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." - Agatha Christie

Happiness is like rising bubbles -- delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen -- ever present.

Happiness is always passing through. It can claim your full attention for the ten seconds it takes to swallow a sip of incredible coffee. Or it can stream through your being for weeks on end. But happiness can't hold the same space as sadness, or anger, or the range of so-called "negative" emotions for very long. This is why it's transitory.

Joy is the fibre of your Soul. It's the stuff of your essence. And since you, your Soul, can never be annihilated (yes, that would make you eternal and omnipresent), your access to joy never vanishes. Because joy is so foundational to your true being, every other state or emotion can rest on top of joy, it can accommodate everything.

This means that it's possible to grieve with your whole heart, and still sense your joy. You can feel rage, and be aware of joy waiting patiently for you to return, and take deep comfort in that. You can get fired, dumped, dumped on, and pulled through the eye of a needle, and still feel held by the container of joy -- the truth of your existence.

When you arrive at this awareness (you'll likely have to go through the ringer to get there), your logical mind is going to be confused.

"I'm going through hell. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me... so what's this mighty warmth I feel within? I must be losing it. I must be in denial. I should get back to misery."

Stay with the misery. Stay with the mighty warmth emanating from within.

"I'm aching over this loss, so can this aching gratitude in my core be real? Am I betraying my memories? Am I denying my pain?"

Not at all. You're expanding.



When you see joy beside the agony, you have the keen vision of a Soul warrior.


It has never failed that when I have been through the most heart-breaking passages of my life -- betrayal, financial hardship, divorce, dreams dashed -- the pain brought me to the floor of my being, and what was there to be found?:

The simple joy of being alive. So cosmically basic it's mind-blowing: the joy to be here, connected, animated, breathing, blessed, resilient, to be broken, to be open, to have what was, what's left, what's coming. The joy just to be part of reality.

Happiness. Love it when it comes.
Joy. It's the love that lasts no matter what. "

- Danielle laPorte

You are amazing!

"On this day of your life, dear friend, I believe God wants you to know...

...that your light is seen, your heart is known, your soul

is cherished by more people than you might imagine.

If you knew how many others have been touched in

wonderful ways by you, you would be astonished. If

you knew how many people feel so much for you, you

would be shocked.

You are far more wonderful than you think you are.

Rest with that. Rest easy with that. Breathe again. You

are doing fine. More than fine. Better than fine. You're

doin' great.  So relax. And love yourself today.

Then take in God's love. Right now, take it in.

You deserve it."

- Neale Donald Walsch