Flying with a Baby

 

This is the third time  Celest and I have flown internationally. 

In my last post, I mentioned homeopathy and nursing as great supports, yet I didn't  mention the thing that had the biggest impact in how well Celest was able to manage herself throughout the experience.

Celest did have her moments of crying, but I was able to talk to her and explain everything that was happening, as well as prepare her for what to expect next. One row behind us, there was a baby slightly older than Celest who cried for hours. Her cries turned to shrieks, she became hysterical, and she was at points gasping for breath. I did all I could support, but the whole scene was quite heartbreaking when you can see the implications. 

The reality is that there was one missing ingredient for that child and her father. One that takes TIME to develop, and if it is not already in place when it is needed, then there is trauma where there didn't have to be. 

The missing ingredient is VOCABULARY. Vocabulary means understanding. It means communication. It means developing understanding and communication BEFORE it becomes emotionally charged or an emotionally charged experience. It means the interaction between parent and child is effective. Having an effective vocabulary stabilizes the situation instead of escalating it. Instead of tears and screaming and hysteria, you get words and then actions and a return to stability. 

I have placed a focus on vocabulary development with Celest, using Techno Tutor software and the vocabulary builder, and when I do this I see a noticeable difference in her integration of words. She was stringing together up to 5 word sentences already by the age of 16-17 months old. With this, I was able to prepare her for the airplane ride, and to show her what is happening in real-time, as we had been learning all the words around travel/changing locations and flying beforehand.  

I notice that when Celest sees she can communicate her needs, she calms right down and we move forward. It's when she doesn't have the words that she becomes frustrated, angry, cries, throws things and we can get trapped into an escalating cycle of frustration. It makes me wonder if the state we call "the terrible two's" actually exists, or if our babies are merely lacking vocabulary? They KNOW what they want and need, yet they can't express it. How frustrating that must be!

On the plane, the father kept asking his crying daughter to TELL him what's wrong, TELL him what she needs - but she had no words and simply continued crying. Soon enough, the father became frustrated and angry, and decided she was crying for no reason, now yelling at her to stop.

Can you imagine being a child with a need, a pain, a fear or who just wants to be held, and instead of having your simple need met, you get angrily yelled at to be quiet and stop asking? It is heartbreaking.

Children EXPECT us to understand them, which is why we have the responsibility to give them the tools so that we can. They EXPECT us to figure it out and solve the problem. It simply cannot be placed upon them to do so - yet it is commonplace for us adults to do just that - and the end result is trauma, however subtle or severe. 

Communication, through a well-developed vocabulary, changes everything with having a baby - imagine what it does throughout childhood and into the teenage years! It's like night and day for me right now with Celest, between where we have words and where we do not. 

When we have words, the experience is pure joy, because that is what Celest IS naturally. Where we don't have words is where struggles manifest. I make sure to place the foundations for words during those struggles, setting us up to succeed the next time around. 

Parenting and Fear

 

Since being in Panama for a few months, I went through a kind of 'culture shock' as a parent to a baby that is becoming a wild and daring toddler. My daughter, Celest, is developing very quickly and is starting to interact more and more with the world... and that world currently happens to be the third world here in Panama. 

In Canada, I had access to 6 parks within walking distance, vast swaths of green grass to run wildly in, surrounded only by sleepy streets with slow moving cars, or safely fenced in with all the comforts like benches, sandbox, splash pads, jungle gym, sun, shade, waterfountain, baby pools, public security making the rounds, and many other parents and children present at all times, and Celest was just a baby, barely starting to walk. In Panama I have only an unpaved intersection, an indoor parking lot, a litter-lined public access path to the beach and the beach itself, as my options for outdoor activities within walking distance - and Celest is now running, climbing and throwing her body into everything she does, including the ocean. She wants to be everywhere, doing everything all at once! 

There are sometimes venomous snakes along the roadside, or coconuts that fall on windy days, stray dogs that run in packs from abandoned areas with dilapitated houses and overgorwn yards that are everywhere. There's the broken glass and rusty metal hidden in uncut grass and under roadside leaves. 

It's not only the physical environment itself that presents new challenges, but the way the culture functions within that environment as well. The outdoors are treated like the wastebasket for everyone that passes by. Nothing is maintained by any public entity but rather 'left to entropy' and the 'tragedy of the commons', where nobody has the incentive or resources to maintain it privately.

Within this environment are lax laws and rampant bribery. There is a lot of drunk driving and public drinking. I've met a large group of drunk men cat-calling me in the street at night while walking Celest, and  cornered by a dog growling at me with beared teeth while holding her up. There is extortion and corruption from the big to the small, accompanied by a sense of having 'given up' in most of the people we meet. And I never see children casually playing, anywhere.

These are just a few examples of some environmental and cultural factors I have had to become aware of and handle, but there are more. Needless to say, I can become quite rigid from all the potential dangers that surround us in the environment we are currently in (which is also *one of* the reasons we are moving to Canada 🇨🇦). I begin to experience it as if my little baby were under constant threat from 360 degrees each time I venture outdoors.

I can get worked up into a stress, where I automatically play out worse-case scenarios in my mind in an instant, like a movie playing images of horrible outcomes with Celest dying or being permanently maimed. Each sound of tires on gravel could be a drunk driver that runs her over, each rustling of leaves a snake that bites her leg, or if Celest ventures more than a few feet away, some animal or someone could snatch her up. I get a jolt of energy in my body and move closer to her or pick her up from that starting point of fear. 

Please don't get me wrong - there is a practical point here, where we are in an environment that is not suitable for a baby. I can't just allow Celest to roam free as I could in the parks in Canada. The point is that I had done this kind of switch into 'fear mode'. It is exaggerated in my current environment which has many moments of truly being 'unsafe', but this is the state and condition of 'helicopter parents' on a an unconscious level. They are in a state of constant fear (not necessarily felt consciously). Because the thing is, it doesn't really matter which environment you are in. Switching over into 'fear mode', where we tend to believe we require stress and fear in order to 'step up' our vigilance (and then get stuck in that hyper-vigilant state) can happen in any environment. 

Over the period of a few weeks, I found I was really struggling with Celest (my red flag point). I would walk down the street and see coconuts hanging above, open gates where dogs live, piles of leaves where snakes could be. I was so busy 'keeping her safe' that I had started hovering over her and restricting her freedom of movement almost completely.  She started fighting me more, becoming displeased more and more easily,  not listening to me, and spending time with her outdoors had become something less enjoyable. It was stressful and I stopped looking forward to it, all under the guise that I am 'keeping her safe'. 

All the warnings, close calls and 'threats' were used in my mind to confirm and validate my worst fears - as if each one were not just a distant potential, but an inevitability that I must prevent. I would essentially wrap myself in those fears like a safety blanket, believing that holding on to them is what was keeping us safe. This means, instead of calmly walking over to Celest if she were walking towards a ledge for example, I would rush over to her with images in my head of her already falling off the ledge, or her little, lifeless body on the ground below.

What happens when you go into a 'fear-mode' like this, is that you are actually attracting events to you, both physically/practically and existentially. Look at dogs: they will more likely attack if they sense fear and nervousness. Snakes are highly sensitive, your fear is a threat to them, so they will more likely defend themselves with a bite. When you are in fear, you are not present and aware in your body, which is when accidents tend to happen. And then there is attracting events on a whole other level, where if you live in fear, Life will manifest events for you to face in order to overcome or let go of that fear. 

The second point is that when you exist with, surround and hover over your child in a state of fear, you are constantly impulsing to them that you do not trust them, there is no trust - no self-trust, no trust in life - only fear. This will also make THEM more prone to accidents and injuries, as they will pick up only on nervousness, insecurity, stress and panic, and will embody these words as they grow and develop.

How is a child supposed to confidently walk into the world and reality when all they have been programmed with and impulsed is the many faces and flavours of FEAR? This is how we as parents inadvertently destroy our children from the getgo, where like most things, it all starts with good intentions. We destroy their self-trust and their godhood, we snatch away their innocence and eternal life and replace it all with fear. Fear as insecurity, fear as anxiety, fear as stress, fear as apprehension, fear as self-doubt - all of it just the different faces of fear.

The question is: how do you balance being practically safe and at the same time allowing for the development of trust, confidence and assuredness? How do you "allow your child to do dangerous things carefully" (jp)?

When it comes to most fears, you just have to STOP. Take a breath, release the fear, and delete the images. We are not victims to our minds - we can BE the directive principle of what takes place in our own minds, to use it as a tool. I look at the commonsense of: if I can so easily get locked into a 'fear mode', then I know I have the power to decide where my mind goes, and that that decision can be quite firm. So instead of locking myself into and trusting only 'fear mode', I lock myself into and trust my presence and awareness. With this, actions and movements are purely practical. I can calmly pick up my child when I see a car coming, or guide her away from areas conducive to snakes. I can be aware of my environment for dogs and assess the behaviour of the dog, which 99% of the time is calm and chill. 

I remind myself that, for example, dangerous things happen IN MOMENTS, and are not present all the time or even most of the time I spend outside. That I can be vigilant and preventative without fear. That I can bring forth my self-confidence, self-trust, self-assuredness, my constancy and consistency in the application of my awareness of myself, my surroundings and my child, and so impulse THESE words as myself, instead of impulsing fear.

Conversely, in the purely practical realm, it is very beneficial to have access to child-friendly spaces. In these spaces I allow Celest much independence and to take her own risks: to climb up high and get down on her own. To fall often and get bumps and scrapes, to go down the slide or climb up the rocks, to run along the edge of the bed and climb up on the stool - to do dangerous things carefully - as this is how she is learning and growing. 

Once I made the switch out of 'fear-mode' where I stopped hovering and moving my body in rigid, tense energy, and once I began stopping the doomsday thoughts and walked myself into presence, awareness and trust - there was a significant substantiation of my bond, communication and cooperation with Celest. I could see her blossoming more, not just physically, but in her cognitive abilities as well - all of this I use as feedback that I am moving in the right direction. 

The sad reality is that this world was not created within a consideration for children. And most or many of the systems that are designed for them, are done so in a way that limits and diminishes their greatness, all under the guise of 'keeping them safe' and 'preparing them for life in this world'. Our greatest power as a parent is to honour our children's Greatness, their Godliness, their Utmost Potential IN OUR OWN HOMES, and in those pieces of reality that we participate in.

Sibling Rivalry and the Efficacy of Vocabulary

 

Here Cesar is working on some stop-animation with his clay. He left all his characters on a table, and Celest managed to pull one down and break the tail. I was able to quickly retrieve it and prevent any more damage, but when Cesar saw the broken tail, he became very upset. 

The damage to the tail was an easy fix, but Cesar decided instead to destroy all his characters and start over. I found this reaction to be out of proportion to the situation, so I took a breath and looked deeper. 

I recalled the time we were going on a trip, and we forgot to pack Cesar's clay, as each had assumed the other had placed it in the truck. He again reacted very strongly, and I watched how Gian handled it. It is very easy for a parent to get frustrated and tell a child to just 'get over it' because it's not a big deal, and sometimes that is true, but oftentimes when we take the attitude to 'man-up' because "life is hard", we're only teaching children to suppress, which can lead to a lifetime of illness and disease, failed relationships and personal limitation. So Gian took the time to look a little deeper. He supported Cesar to put into words what was really going on - that it wasn't ONLY about forgetting the clay. For Cesar, it was about the implications of us forgetting.  Gian and I should know him, should have realized how important his clay is to him, and with that understanding, we should have MADE SURE and CERTAIN that the clay made it into the car - thus demonstrating and living our understanding of Who Cesar Is. And when we forgot it, for Cesar it was as if we had overlooked an important part of him, of how he would spend his time and how he would have fun while we were away, and it felt like we didn't know him (Cesar puts great care into ensuring we know who he is.

In the end, we asked forgiveness, which is a very important step - don't skip it - and we also explained to Cesar that his empowerment comes when he takes responsibility for his own things, so in the future he can take the step to ensure he has everything, even if that means reminding the adults to check as well. 

This recent incident was different though. Cesar HAD placed all his clay neatly in the middle of the table,  out of reach... but Celest has grown and her reach has expanded, and we had to find this out the hard way. 

When Cesar seemed inconsolable, I brought back the memory of how Gian had looked several layers deep, beyond the incident that played out in physical reality, and into the implications the child experiences, and I realized the point. I asked Cesar for forgiveness, and looked at the deeper layer. I realized that Cesar trusted me to look after his characters and take care of them while he is away from them for any period of time. If I fail to do this and don't communicate about it to him, it is as if I do not care, do not respect his projects, place less importance on his endeavours, and possibly place Celest's freedom of movement above protecting his creations (because now we have sibling dynamics to consider).

I reminded Cesar that Gian and I both respect and look after his belongings very much. Sometimes you have to remind a child of your proven track-record, because the negative experience can be blinding, where only the negative incidents are seen. I was not speaking empty words. I was reminding Cesar of Living Words such as Love, Respect and Consideration as consistent actions over time specifically when it came to taking care of his clay. The fact that we live these words in our relationship means that Celest WILL learn through us as examples to do the same. However she is still just a baby and does not yet understand things like 'mine' and 'yours'. I also reminded Cesar of when he cut up my expensive earphones with scissors when he was much younger, because toddlers do this kind of thing, and we have to move through it. We had a good laugh at that!

We finished by talking about the choice to 'linger in an emotional state or reaction' once all the points had been discussed and there was understanding and a way forward. It's true that some things do just suck, it's just a shitty situation - but how long do you hold on to that for? I showed Cesar that he now had a choice to remain sad, or to move himself towards having fun again. He admitted that sometimes he suppresses his smiles and laughter to remain sad, but that he would now let it go.

It's so cool when a child has a well-developped vocabulary and understanding, and you can actually get to the root of points as they arise. With setting this kind of foundation in children, we are giving them the tools, skills and abilities to "man-up" later in life when they do become grown Men and Women. They will be able to do it in a way where they don't simply push down and bury their feelings and emotions, but to actually work through them for themselves, because they've been given self-understanding and opportunities to take self-responsibility.

The tough part is that us adults were not necessarily given these tools (and neither were our parents, or theirs), so we have to do the self-work to cut through the reactions to the understanding. I use the Desteni tools for self-work and Techno Tutor for myself and the kids reading, comprehension and vocabulary development. My posts are the outflows of applying these tools. I post them to keep myself accountable, and to support others when similar situations arise in their own lives. 

First Trust; Never hold assumptions...

 

I was growing this spring onion in the window, and Celest was very interested in it. In Canada,  she used to pick the spring onions and chew on them, so I would break off pieces of this one for her or bring her close to look at it. I never let her hold the whole plant due to the assumption that she would make a huge mess and end up killing it. 

Finally, one day when she was very adamant, Gian suggested I just give it to her and see what happens. He reminded me not to hold an assumption or have any expectation of what Celest's behaviour might be. Rather give her a blank slate and allow her to show me what she will do. So I took the onion down and gave it to her. 

To my surprise, Celest played with the onion for hours! She was so gentle and would carry it around,  picking it up and putting it down, losing interest and then taking it up again, all with only a few broken sprigs. She was so careful with it, when I was certain she would dig out the soil and spread it over the room!

Its so easy to fall into the habit of functioning from assumption and expectation, thinking and believing we know what's going to happen based on past behaviour. But this can end up locking children into a past version of themselves without giving them the space to show us what they've learned or how they can so easily and quickly change. It is a cool reminder to regularily hold back all assumptions and expectations, and allow children to instead SHOW us who they are and what they will do.

Why I Worldschool

Keeping up with Cesar's self-education can be a little 😬🥵🫨 at times! I can start counting the terms I have to Google in order to understand what he is telling me in what he would consider a 'normal conversation'. 

Right now, Cesar is into taxonomy. In the picture below, he has created several phyla of classes out of his clay, explaining to me the sexual dymorphism, sexual and asexual reproductive methods within species, and the pleomorphism present within some of the species he's created. He then explains to me that he believes that tardigrades are not highly resistant and able to survive things like the vaccuum of space on purpose, but that they are extremophiles and their heartness is simply side-effect of this. (Total number of googles on my part: 6).

Cesar can become frustrated with me when I take some time to quickly educate myself while talking to him. He wonders why I don't know things, how this world can be so interesting and amazing, and why have I not taken the time to learn all about it? I have to explain to him that my childhood education was prescribed to me by others, and that I went from full-time school directly into full-time work. I had to be honest and tell him that my free time was spent moslty escaping the rest of my life, and that I was turned off from 'learning' as it had come to feel like a chore and was very boring in how it was presented through school. It only occurred to me in my adult life that I could become passionate about something and do my own research and investigations. 

Children that are moved through the education system do not get to nurture their personal interests nor spend timeless moments in their fascinations. To me, this is what that fleeting moment called 'childhood' should be all about. Most of us did not get to live it this way, but for those of us that see value in this approach, we can give it to the next generation. Cesar is an amazing example of how a child's appetite for learning is naturally voracious! All we have to do is give him the tools like reading and vocabulary, guidance, and lots of patience to see it all through to the development of this incredible human being that he is - not only in 'what he knows' - that is not the most important thing. It's about Who He Is within himself, toward others and the whole.

From the Mouths of Babes

I made some delicious sesame encrusted salmon with a teriyaki glaze, served over a bed of arugula and with a side of sautéed red pepper and white rice. It was soooo good! 🤤 As I was dishing it up, Cesar studied it for a moment and plainly told me, word for word, that the meal does not tempt him at all and he finds it entirely unattractive. He carefully reiterated - as Cesar often does to ensure complete understanding - that there is not one element on that plate that he would want to put in his mouth.  

Normally, an adult might find this rude or cheeky for a child to be so blunt. We might call it 'unappreciative' or 'insulting'. Yet I could not help but break out into laughter, because I understand Cesar and where he is coming from. 

We have told Cesar in the past that he must be honest with us about what he likes and dislikes in terms of food. There have been times where he would claim to be full after having not eaten, only because he saw how much effort went into the cooking process, and he didn't want to say he didn't like it. We explained to him that if he does this, we will continue to cook the same meals assuming he likes it, and then end up wasting food. In order to not waste food like this, we ask him to not only tell us if he likes it or not, but what exactly it is that he does or doesn't like, so that we can make adjustments. 

So, when Cesar was studying my dish, I knew that instead of disregarding the whole thing at first glance because it looked 'weird' or 'gross'to him, he was meticulously checking each element to see if there was anything he could eat, before giving his answer. This is not rude nor unappreciative, it is being honest. This is actually quite thoughtful. 

When I was a child, there were many times when I would force foods down my throat when eating at friend's houses so as not to offend anybody. The adults would see this as 'having good manners' and being 'well raised', when in fact it is teaching children to act in misalignment with their honesty in order to appease the emotions and expectations of adults. 

I would rather have a child be honest, know themselves and stand up for what they want and don't want to put in their bodies, because this applies to many more important boundaries later on in life. If we teach our children to bend to the will of others merely for the sake of appearances, then we are creating weak-willed children that will accept and allow abuse unto themselves if it means it won't upset someone, and we do this in so many ways. 

Rather use meal-times as an exercise in self-understanding and the courage to be honest about what you know about yourself. There will be times when a child will not have the option to choose what is served to them, due to things like the cost of food, or time, or something else - but this can also be explained and understood on a practical level instead of in the context of pretense and 

Morality - Self-Forgiveness

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accept a world where others suffer without asking questions or challenging systems, simply accepting that this is 'the way things are' because I have accepted and allowed MORALITY to guide me, my actions and decisions, telling me what is apparently 'good' and 'bad', when in fact the system itself is BAD so long as it allows even one child to starve or be raped without doing everything possible to stop it, and yet with morality, I can justify and excuse myself as being a 'good' person that lives in, feeds off of and supports the very systems that allow for such evil to proliferate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed a world system of abuse, where there are lives being lived that I would never want to experience, yet I accept and allow that others live that kind of life, thinking and believing that I am a 'good person' because I pay my taxes and my debt and the interest, I say "please" and "thank you" and don't break any rules or shake up the morality that exists explicitly or implicitly within the social structures within which I exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live according to the morality of a system of abuse that protects only money and profit, power and control, and thus the absolute abuse of Life on every level.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in morality as a judgement system that defines and rewards the behaviour that protects the system and the status quo, and punishes that which challenges it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself  to trap myself into morality, where I reference not Who I Am and 'what points I need to walk' and 'how' in order to transcend those parts of me that are not Best/Best For All, but rather what is 'right' and 'wrong' in the eyes of society and the CULTure within which I live so that I can 'be a good person' and 'well liked' and 'fit in' to the accepted/expected mold for my specific age, gender, education level, socio-economic class and status and all the roles and criteria placed upon me by society and culture in order that I may be accepted and not cause friction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suffocate myself on a beingness level because of and due to 'following the rules' of morality, acting as both prisoner and prison warden inside myself so that I do not cross any lines that may cause friction in my life or in the system of abuse within which I live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react within petrifictation, humiliation and shame at the thought of breaking points of morality, where I would rather diminish myself and live a life that is less than what is Best for me and others, than to break my self-imposed and socially-imposed morality points that keep me limited and small, instead of seeing and realizing that just beyond the petrification, humiliation and shame is expansion and self-empowerment with which I can create a Self and a Life that is in fact Best For All.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to call myself a 'moral person' without questioning where those morality came from, and where and when I learned them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abide by 'morality' of the system instead of trusting myself and abiding by the principles of Life on Earth that considers everyone and every living being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to diminish myself within the confines of system morality instead of expanding myself by breaking the rules of morality wherever necessary to walk a process of self-realization. 

The Devouring Mother

I'm sharing this video and my perspectives on it for any mothers that are going through the point of pushing their child's independence/self-sufficiency and autonomy. 

In walking this point of mothering for myself for a while now, I have seen many points come up in me, points which I know are about me, and NOT the child. The primary context within which to confront this 'issue' is to take responsibility/self-responsibility in seeing that no matter what comes from the child, they are never to blame, and never to be on the receiving end of any emotional reaction the parent might go through. The child is coming from a point of absolute innocence, their out-put is a result of the input from their environment and the influences and forces within it.  Their responsibility/self-responsibility will come later, once they've learned and once they know better. 

In terms of my experience, I am in a very cool position of first walking this point with a child that is not my biological son - this means, I do not have that history of bearing him and raising him from a newborn, which is where a lot of the programming that blinds us, the chemistry behind the bonds is released into our systems, almost addicting us to our newborn infants - those years where our parenting personalities, self-definitions, and all the mind-points sprout and take root. I am not immune to any of it, but I can see myself more clearly than if I had borne him, as the blind spots were not yet in place. I also have a partner that has been through it and can guide me, I can thus navigate the terrain a little more clearly and prevent a lot of the common pitfalls before blindly falling into them. For example, I can clearly SEE, when I take a step back from doing something for the child in my life, that I feel guilty as if I am causing him unnecessary suffering, I feel bad/sorry for him when he struggles, his pain feels like my pain, and  have been trained to avoid pain, I feel good and fulfilled when I do things for him, as if I am fulfilling my purpose. It sometimes feels 'counter-intuitive' to have him do things on his own, and I have to literally restrain myself to NOT step in and do it for him - the programming is there and is being activated, but I have more 'wiggle room' to make a clearer decision about how to direct the points as the programming has not yet taken root into my behaviour.

However, now I have a child of my own, and will be walking the point first-hand. Even with all the lessons and understanding in place, living a point in reality will always present the same challenges with the same intensity as it is REAL, and you have to work in real-time. It's not just knowledge and information that you can slow down, fast-forward, rewind and isolate. 

Looking at the point self-honestly, I first notice that all of the activated programming as the feelings and emotions are all about how *I* feel, they form MY internal experience. This means that if I blindly follow them as the ultimate 'truth', that I am not looking practically at what is best for the child in the long-term. Sometimes the child will ask me to do something for him that he can do himself, and he'll even give me reasons why I should do it, or go into a self-defeat just to get me to do the thing for him. In these cases I have to push even harder to remain patient and encourage/support him to take over, I have to push through my own internal emotional reactions and 'instincts' at the same time as walking him through breaking down his own walls and self/limitations, to 'fight' for him and show him what he is really capable of.

When the child does find success on his own, and when he does things for himself, we BOTH see his confidence grow. I get to see him become proud of himself, valuing himself and beaming with that look of self-satisfaction and contentment - that reminds me that it is so worth it to let go of myself and support the child to develop himself fully.

The "Devouring Mother"  is the mother that goes a step beyond falling into her programming - she does it intentionally. She'll do everything for her child as they get older, devouring the child's autonomy and ability to become independent. The Devouring Mother is essentially setting herself and her child up to create an 'adult infant' to fulfill the mother's wants and needs as long as she lives, as she is  creating a child that will and can never leave her.

I would like to add to what Jordan Peterson shares in this video by suggesting that the Devouring Mother is directly related to the mother's relationship with herself. I will explain why and how, and the benefits of sorting her self-relationship out so that she does not destroy and devour her child, creating that Freudian nightmare

Now that I have a newborn in my life, it has become so much easier when Cesar ('step-son') does things for himself. I can see how when I was completely available to him, I may give in more easily, or move more slowly on the point of him developing his abilities to do things on his own. I learned very quickly first-hand the dedication, commitment and repetition it takes to teach a child what may seem like simple things to do, maintain and remember. It is a LOT, and it feels as though everything is against you when you push for it - your programming, the child's will, not having the adequate developed vocabulary and understanding within self or the child,  time and life in the system, practicality etc... Nowadays it helps a lot when Cesar is not only more self-sufficient, but can actually help me by fetching things or giving me an extra hand, and he seems to like it. It gives him purpose, value in the group, equality and empowerment, and he sees he is helpful and useful instead of feeling in constant need of others.

I was the younger sibling in my childhood, and I remember how it felt to take that leap from looking for help versus doing things on my own. I only cut the final ties in my mid-twenties! There was a resistance and a laziness present, which I could feel but did not have the words for. It stemmed from a belief that I could not do things on my own, feelings of disempowerment, from trying and failing and not seeing things through to the end in not pushing myself until I succeeded. I could sense, even as a child, that when I fought for 'help', I was fighting for dependency and fighting for my own limitations. There is a sense of 'ugliness' to it, I felt like a burden, and even at that young age I could see deep down that it was not serving me nor anyone else in my environment. Yet at the same time, I felt like I was getting away with something, getting 'off the hook', having it easy, and this also fed the laziness and resistance, unfortunately making it stronger in me. 

Children are quite perceptive like this, they are aware of what they are feeling, but they do not yet have the vocabulary to define it for themselves - this is why they cannot work with the point and cannot direct it. The parent's role moves from doing everything for their infant, to then teaching and directing the growing child to become capable, able and self-sufficient. For me in my childhood, having not really pushed the point, it led to things becoming more difficult for me in my life in later years. It is the responsibility of the parent to educate the child and give the child the words and understanding to describe what is going on within themselves. Oftentimes, the parent themselves has not developed the insight to do this, because it is how they were taught (or not taught), and it was how they experienced themselves and did not correct themselves in their growing up years. When we do this we end up learning through life lessons and consequences, leading more burdened and complicated life circumstances than was necessary. Rather put in the effort to support the child while they are young, before the resistance, procrastination and laziness have really taken root, when there is more plasticity - this is when it is ideal for the parent to really push themselves and give it their all.

Now that I'm in the position of having a baby, I can see more clearly where I've catered to Cesar too much (this is where physical feedback shows you where to focus and correct). In most cases, it is a case of a mother's good intentions gone 'bad' (as in, not what's best for everyone involved). I can easily justify why I did things the way I did, how it was necessary given the circumstances, how I saw it as best at the time, and it may have been - but none of this negates when there are points to be corrected in the present moment and situation, regardless of how or why they are there. This is where self-forgiveness plays a big role. We can forgive, release, let go and correct from where we are NOW, and not bring in the past as justifications and excuses.

I believe this point does not get the attention it deserves, because if left unchecked, over-protectiveness and excess compassion can become very big detriments to the child. It gets overlooked because when you observe it happening, it looks very 'nice', even 'heartwarming', like a caring and helpful mother tending to her child's every need. It can also be experienced this way by both the mother and the child, so it is difficult to identify it in the moment, and oftentimes you'll only see the detriment later in down the road, in hindsight. 

Pushing a child's self-sufficiency is often hard to do, like a mother bird pushing the baby out of the nest, it seems 'harsh'. Within this, we have to remember that Real Care often hurts. It is, at the same time, encouraging, gentle and embracing - but there is a quality of 'growing pains' to it. It has to feel 'bad' for a moment in order to serve as a reminder as to why the thing needs to change. It also involves pushing beyond comfort zones and perceived limitations, and a child will not always do this willingly of for himself. It doesn't feel 'good'.

In the video above, Peterson explains very well the dangers of "excess compassion" coming from mothers towards their children. There is so much talk in social media about "masculine toxicity", but you rarely hear about "feminine toxicity" and how this overprotective nature can fatally undermine a child. This creates a society not of REAL men and women, but of emotionally dependant, reactive, easily offended 'adult infants'. 

As women, we are nurturers naturally, but we are also adult human beings. Having been through child rearing before, my partner has talked at length with me about 'life after Celest' (my newborn) - because right now, the role of caring for a newborn is so fulfilling, so purposeful and so rewarding, that I can see the temptation to want to make it last forever. But as soon as Celest can crawl, this role is going to slowly change from her complete and utter dependency, to beginning that process of boundary-setting, developing independence and autonomy and everything that comes with that. After that, childhood, and then a teen... And within this, even though it seems so far away, I will still have a life after Celest's infanthood. What would I like to be doing then? How do I want to support myself? How would I like my body to be? I have to look at these questions now so that I set myself up as best as I can for a successful transition when the time comes. If I do not focus on myself in these ways, Celest will become my whole world, and this is too much responsibility for a child - it is not their job to be this, and they I'll be flooded and suffocated in the most 'beautiful' and 'nice' ways if the mother neglects to maintain herself and her self-relationship.

So many women let go of their bodies and/or their sexuality for example, when they become mothers. I experienced this immediately after Celest's birth while I was in recovery and had this tiny little newborn in my care: my body was only a life-giving machine and nothing else. I saw this whole new expression coming from me and I loved it! But as time passed, I had to ask myself if I truly wanted to give up the other aspects of my expression, my body, my self, my individuality and my 'personhood', and my answer was that I did not. Fitness, my ability to do things, my sexual expression (and this goes way beyond the act of sex, which is just one small aspect of sexuality), and all the non-child-rearing aspects of my woman-ness I endeavoured to hold as equally important parts of me as my ability to be a mother. I decided I would embrace the new expression, AND maintain what I already had developed as a woman without a child. This is something I can't forget or lose sight of, even at this early stage. It's not to act on it all at once, no, but rather to keep it in my awareness and bring it in (in moments) when the time comes. This is how I tend to my relationship with myself so that it does not fall on Celest to be anything FOR me, but to rather become her OWN woman, where, when she is older, her and I will be equals, and she may even surpass me in many ways. This is the main reason why Celest will know me as Kim, and not 'mom'. I do not want to impose roles or a hierarchy onto our relationship. I do not want her to be bound to me or feel she needs to do or be something she is not because of me or our relationship.

In the video, Peterson explains that if we immerse ourselves too completely into the nurturing nature of the mother, where that becomes our ONLY role, that we can end up essentially destroying our children. I posit that we would destroy ourselves in the process as well. For the child, the mother has condensed all of herself into this one role and one purpose of protecting and nurturing an infant,  when the child displays signs of autonomy and independence, it becomes a threat to the mother, as it threatens her role, purpose and self-definition. In order to protect this, she will do everything for her child. She is keeping her child as an 'infant', which Peterson describes as raising 'old infants', and how that is an 'ugly' thing (both for the parents and the child). For example, think of an adult temper tantrum, an emotionally unstable adult lashing out: this is an adult infant - he cannot function in the real world, cannot create functional relationships, cannot support himself through the challenges of life, and can actually be dangerous.

Within this, the mother has also undermined herself - with all the 'best intentions' in the world, the mother becomes the epitomy of self-interest, which becomes a subtle and undetectable toxicity -  the child is used to her benefit to fulfill her role, her purpose, her fulfillment and sense of herself, mostly emotionally. She may even replace having a man in her life with having her child remain with her - instead of having kept the relationship with her child practical, as physical actions, and kept her emotional well-being as her own responsibility. In this, the woman can feel purposeless without her child. She can miss out on developing new partnerships, or neglect her current partnership and allow it to deteriorate and fall apart. She can lose parts of her expression she once had, becoming a less dynamic version of herself, and so much more.

In the end, we have to remember that our children do not belong to us, they are their own beings. Our job is to guide and teach them so that they do not need us anymore. Our job is to render ourselves obsolete, so that what is left is an actual equal relationship between two beings. There is no 'need' or dependency, but rather two complete beings together in this life.

The good news that I have learned from my own experience is that there is a lot of 'wiggle room' in terms of too-lateness. It's never really too late to learn, it just becomes more difficult as habits and expectations take root. There is then also more emotional reactions to manage and work through and it takes more time to integrate. But it's ok, there is no such thing as a 'perfect' parent, but there is a perfecting parent, so the point is to never give up. 

Selling my Soul for Money

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sell myself out to for money.  

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become different characters and to portray myself as something in order to make money and secure a job. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to trust myself and develop my self-expression, but rather spent my time and effort on developing myself as a character to make money.  

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think and believe that no one would hire me or pay me in a job if I remain Who I Am. 

I forgive myself for not accepting myself as Who I Am.  

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to Trust myself. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to contort myself into whatever the boss or company wanted me to be in order to secure my job above others, wherein I lose myself into that contorted version of me, instead of stepping into a character in awareness only when necessary, wherein I can then step out of it as soon as I no longer need to be in the position and role of making money at a job.  

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want and desire a sense of control over my ability to make money, and to use manipulation by selling myself as Life in order to invest into myself as a character to make money. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into morality about going into characters in order to make money, wherein I think and believe that I have to actually be and become that character within the belief that it is then ‘real’, and so I can tell myself I am not actually manipulating for money.  

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become jaded for money. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge others that remained Who They Are as ‘weak’ for not being able to go into a character for money, within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as weak as Who I Am, and to judge myself as ‘strong’ when I am playing a role or character. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my fellow man while pursuing my own survival and self-interest.  

I forgive myself that I have accepted ad allowed myself to fake confidence for money, instead of developing REAL self-confidence which is built slowly over time through doing REAL things.  

I am not All that Matters

 I (as consciousness) FORGIVE (as gifting myself release, understanding, letting go of the belief that this is who I am) MY- (as my personalities and characters) SELF (as my beingness innocence). 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to move on my own points before fully considering the position and location of another, taking as many moments as is necessary to place myself in their shoes, to consider their life, their understanding, to see the best in them and then to walk my point in consideration of them, as I would like to be considered. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to move on a point without taking full self-responsibility , relying on others to do certain things or be certain ways or to be more prepared to ‘receive’ me and my points, as if everyone should understand me first in order that I may walk a point, within the justification and belief that I will be better, more able and more capable ‘only then’ to be able to give in return, thus receiving before giving, when in fact it is about giving first. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fixate on that which I want, that which I need, that which I desire, wherein I develop ‘tunnel vision’ and see only what want/need/desire as if I can only live, only be complete and fulfilled ‘then’/’when I have it’, not allowing myself to take a step back, to remember myself and Who I Am as complete and fulfilled as I am already, to really take a moment to assess if the want/need/desire is real, is practical, is best for myself and all involved. 

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to stop, breathe, check and make sure my self-interest is considering all involved, and within this, I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to drop, let go of, release myself from my self-interested points that consider only me, myself and I when I can see it is not best for all involved. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the justification and excuse that I ‘need’ something/certain conditions/certain considerations/etc... in order to ‘be ok’ when I am in an energetic point, without applying self-honesty as to whether that something/certain conditions/certain considerations are best for me in the long term, best for others in my environment, or absolutely necessary – checking first to see if I can SUPPORT MYSELF FIRST within the principle of SELF-RESPONSIBILITY. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be and become blinded by self-interest. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place myself above the group. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to do what is best for me at the expense of others. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sacrifice myself for the sake of others – abandoning myself within the belief that I am a ‘lost cause’ anyways, I cannot change but THEY can, THEY still have a chance, destroying myself as an ‘easy way out’ of self-responsibility and the tough work of self-change, thinking and believing that I am ‘doing good’ and ‘walking my process’ as a point of self-sacrifice, within and as self-righteousness, not seeing and realizing the abdication of self-responsibility, the self-defeat and the giving up inherent in such an action as self-sacrifice, like martyrdom, as Jesus has done, ‘hoping’ people/situations/problems and issues will ‘sort themselves out’, without first self-perfecting and then sticking around to see it all through, to walk with, to guide, to support as I have been supported, to be my BEST Self in order to walk with others as me. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think and believe that a situation is ‘too much’ for me to handle, instead of seeing and realizing that it is only a lack of self-honesty and self-responsibility in establishing a strong ‘Who I Am’ that can cut through the emotional bodies to see a path forward in support of myself and others in my world. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing, to fear missing out, and to have that fear intoxicate me to not be able to see not only that which I am depriving others of, but also the consequences of my actions, which when born from fear, are not best for myself nor all involved. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to not see my value, to not recognize my needs and express them, to put them on the table along with everyone else's needs in order that all needs may be addressed, which then creates purpose and direction as ‘the meeting of needs’ so that needs can be sorted so that all individuals involved can move forwards to the next ‘higher’ purpose and direction, rather than remaining stuck in the base most step of meeting basic needs. 

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ‘shut down’ and ‘draw blanks’ when I am confronted with a new point in someone else, where I think and believe I need to first understand everything of the point in all dimensions and have it explained to me with how it functions and examples- to where I experience it as though someone is speaking an altogether different language