Recently I was having a session with a very well renowned and loved Esoteric practitioner about healing my need to have children. I have always carried a need to have a child, which has not come from a true impulse, but from needing someone to love. That was until I came across Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, who reminded me what true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents. And that love starts with our self, not needing another to love you or needing another for you to love. Need is not love. And this is something I am learning to live again.
So I am at that age, where the world, with its many expectations, pictures, beliefs and ideals we have been ‘sold’, and bought into, may I hasten to add, from the day we are born tells a woman she should have kids by the time she reaches a certain age. You know in your late thirties where many women panic and their body clock, or head, I should rightly say, starts ticking to the wrong time, of ‘I won’t be able to have kids soon’, and for some, devastation and a ravaging need kicks in, as many of us believe we are not complete as a woman without children; that we have failed or something is wrong with us. None of this is true. But we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already bring as a woman.
These many ideals and expectations, I, and the world had chosen to place on myself, were impacting on my relationships, and putting unseen pressures and expectations onto myself, my body and my partners, big time. For example, even though unsaid, many of the times, there was a need in me thinking, will he be the one, even on a very first date, will this be the relationship, the person, the man who I have kids with? Can you imagine and feel the pressure this person would feel even when not physically with me, to have to live up to stereotypes, pictures, expectations and ideals that are not true, and putting a pressure and demand on them – not to mention myself and my body – that is not love in my book.
I am then trying to build and have loving relationships with all this heavy unseen stuff hanging around. Not to mention the thoughts that would come into my head, of well if they don’t want kids, do I end the relationship? Thank goodness, these thoughts are no longer chosen and ruling me.
So in all truth, was I truly meeting my partners and seeing them for who they are as a person, how truly lovely they are, and all that they bring, or was I seeing them in some areas of our relationship as someone to fill my needs?
You wonder why many people back off from relationships, but believe me the feeling of need in a relationship, anywhere in fact, is horrible, and something I am working on. But also living from all these expectations, ideals and beliefs is not allowing us to truly connect to other people, to feel who they really are, to build loving relationships with them, or ourselves.
When it came to my body, these expectations, pictures and ideals I had chosen to accept, created such an intense pressure on me to be a biological mum. It felt like a heaviness in my body which I carried around with me for a very long time. It’s only now that it’s gone, that I can feel the true extent of this; with an incredible lightness and so much more space and joy in my body and a freedom in my movements and steps.
This is what everyone is now feeling, from my partner, strangers in the street, to kids at school. It has had an effect on all of my life. I don’t need to say anything; people can feel how I live.
I also feel there has been a pressure taken off my female organs – my ovaries, uterus, and my breasts – they feel more like part of my body than they ever have done. Not just ‘something’ that is there to simply ‘make kids’, and also there is a lightness and a change to my abdomen area. Honestly, the feeling of joy I can now feel again is immense.
This has not only come about from my letting go of the need to be a biological mum, but it is more to do with appreciating and valuing what I already bring and live. I hadn’t been valuing or giving myself credit for this.
The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do. I am already living this and have been for years, with all the children in my life. I have a natural rapport, and a mothering and parenting energy with children and teenagers that I hold them in, but I actually hadn’t stopped to appreciate and give myself credit for this – the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many. The truth is, we don’t have to physically have children of our own to be in that energy and to live it, and that can be equally felt and lived for men too as a fathering energy or expression.
It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.
That is not saying I wouldn’t, if it was a true and correct choice I would; but first and foremost, mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy or quality we all can offer, live and hold others in, no matter whether we have biological children or not.
By Gyl Rae Teacher, 39, Scotland
Further Reading:
Mothering beyond our children
Mothering – the essence of true nurturing
Motherless mothers – finding our way back to wholeness and love
Appreciating ourselves for all that we are and reflect to others is a beautiful and Divine offering for all children – young and old.
This can be applied to anything in life. If need comes before truth then if that need gets met it won’t be true. I learnt that the hard way when believing that I needed to have a boyfriend. None of it worked.
Learning to Love myself has always been the reason to not have children as finding Love and living it, was the only way to bring up a child and how different True Love is to what I though when I was asking the love question years ago and I am now finding parenting me is also a great reason in re-learning to Truly Love again.
Some great points here, as women, do we look for a partner and appreciate their qualities first or is there an underlying feeling, need or urgency of ‘am I going to have children with him’, similarly I am sure men have the same feeling with women as well. I was pondering on this the other day, when I was younger in my body it just felt natural that at some point in my life I would be a mum. This didn’t happen but now as I work with and support many young people I can see how actually there is more of a natural ease with this, working with many young people, rather than having my own and probably focusing to some point all my energy on either one or more children. This of course doesn’t brush to one side all the mothers in the world who also work with and support other children and young people but I think for me the saying that sums up really well what I feel is ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Meaning we should all be working together and reflecting a responsibility, love and holding to and for our younger generation so that they in turn can be all that they truly are. And looking at our current situation it is clear to see that there is an awful lot of work to be done here!
In truth mothering is a nurturing energy, it really has nothing to do with blood.
“But we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already ”
I am saddened by the fact there are so so many gorgeous women out there who have no idea how utterly amazing they are.
Wow, Anonymous, that certainly isn’t a statement we hear very often, “….there are so so many gorgeous women out there who have no idea how utterly amazing they are.” As women the message is usually that we are not enough – not pretty enough, not smart enough, not domestic enough, not tough enough, not loving enough, not sexy enough…the list goes on. Reading your comment sort of stopped me in my tracks and I began to wonder not only why we as women don’t know how utterly amazing we are, but what it will take to change this message of ‘not being enough’ that feels almost inbred from the time we are born. And the answer that comes to me is by reflection. Each woman returning to her inner sacredness who then brings this sacredness out into the world in her every movement is offering a reflection of how women can be in this world knowing how utterly amazing they are.
How lovely to feel the lightness in your body after letting go of the imposed ideals and beliefs, ‘When it came to my body, these expectations, pictures and ideals I had chosen to accept, created such an intense pressure on me to be a biological mum. It felt like a heaviness in my body which I carried around with me for a very long time. It’s only now that it’s gone, that I can feel the true extent of this’.
As I get older, I can see how so many beliefs that we have been raised with, have had such a hugely detrimental impact on many people, and one of them is the belief that all women are here to have babies, and if they don’t what’s wrong with them? It is a huge pressure which I have seen several women I know take on as they tried over and over again to get pregnant, with the sense of failure almost overwhelming them at times. So, I can really feel how the understanding you have come to has released this pressure and liberated you from the impact of this deleterious belief, and that to me, feels amazing
Appreciating ourselves and what we bring to others and to life situations is huge – valuing ourselves and allowing our self worth to blossom – giving ourselves space, this all contributes to a strong foundation and a greater capacity to hold others in love whether we are biological parents or not.
Needing biological children and a partner is such a big thing for women, and we are influenced from young that this is what life is about however I agree that the issue of our completeness as a woman is not a question of what we do or don’t have or desire, but of our own personal relationships with ourselves on a day to day basis.
We do not realise how modeled we are by the models of society that adopted such ideals we end up thinking are our truth when the body is revealing to us the very opposite.
All to often ladies have children to fill a need they have not met themselves, I know myself I have thought about having children when I am feeling down, sad or lonely . If I have a child it needs to be for true purpose and real love, not just to feel an emptiness.
Beautiful to read Gyl how you’ve let go of the many expectations you were carrying about your role in life and worth as a woman, and are living with more joy and vitality as a result. Life is amazing when we let go of the expectations and ideals and follow our inner impulses, with no conditions.
As women whether we have given birth or not, we are still responsible for all the children around us. I think a massive downfall to society at the moment is we see it as just the parents job to raise children so we tend to step right back rather than seeing it takes a whole community to raise a child.
When I ponder what it means to feel complete or whole it seems more to do with how much I am bringing myself fully to life rather than based on the different roles I might play.
Thank you for sharing so honestly on such an emotive topic and it feels like you have now given you and your body the freedom to explore what feels true for you by releasing these heavy expectations that so often hold us back from joyfully living life.
‘true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents.’ so different to the needy love that we as humans consider love to be. You love me, I love you back, but no sign of us loving ourselves first.
‘Needy’ love feels horrible, whereas true love is just gorgeous, they are worlds apart.
‘true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents.’ but is extremely powerful!
All the time we think we need someone to love first, before we can be fulfilled we are missing out at looking at our own relationship with our self and the love for oneself.
We can place pressures on ourselves in so many different ways… And this of course is one that is endemic on one level
We cannot underestimate the amazing amount we can bring to children in our lives without having to have our own children – being role models of love, responsibility and commitment outside of their parents is so powerful because they get different reflections of how love can be expressed
Absolutely they say it takes a community to raise a child so being able to offer a different reflection is crucial.
When you understand what true Love is you can’t avoid the fact that almost all of what we think parenting and relationships is, is based on a huge lie.
It is fascinating to feel what Gyl has shared about the pressure being taken off her female parts after she healed the need to have children. Under this same logic, just imagine what pressures we are placing on all kinds of other internal organs when we hold onto all the ideals and beliefs about what it means or should look like to be a father, good student, successful business person, acclaimed artist, famous actor, winning athlete, etc., etc. Whenever we live from a standpoint of not accepting and appreciating our inner Divine essence first, the pressure and damage to our insides must be enormous.
So true and no wonder that we have an ever increasing amount of illness and disease when so many of us are constantly putting extraordinary amounts of pressure on ourselves to live up to a variety of warped expectations.
A beautiful appreciation of the mothering energy and love that you share with children of any age.
Teachers can be so influential to children growing up. I know there are some in my life that, without even knowing it have supported me big time. I have also met grownups that I knew as children that have told me how supportive and caring I was in their lives all those years ago, reminding me of situations that I had completely forgotten about. We all have a nurturing mothering quality and its beautiful when we can appreciate this in ourselves whether we have children or not.
There is a freedom you offer when you remind us we do not ‘need’ to have children simply because we are female.
The crazy thing is that we seek an identity we think will fulfil us and give us the love we are missing. Yet, all the while we are not accepting or appreciatiing the love we already are within, as if we did the drive to impose our ‘neediness’ on others, including children, becomes non-existent. If we instead deeply cherish who we already are within we then bring the blessing of this fullness to anyone and every child we are in a relationship with. Our mothering qualities are not limited to having our own children, but rather are that which can be shared with all as a reflection and confirmation of the truth of who every child is.
Gyl, this is a really important topic to talk about because there is such a lot of pressure for women to have children. It is rarely considered an option for a woman to not have a child by choice and so this article will be very inspiring and confirming for many women I am sure. This is so true; ‘we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already bring as a woman.’
It’s very needed to bring back the love, to truly re-turn to what Mothering is, and that does not mean to be a biological mum. It is freeing because we know that much of what is being shared about mothering is limited and often far away from the truth. Based on pictures, ideals and beliefs, but not actually the truth of ones heart. That is we all naturally are parents in many ways, we need to come back to a true understanding — feeling inside of our bodies what this means.
Up until recently I used to feel very uncomfortable around children. I thought that because I haven’t physically had a child myself that I was not allowed to have any say when it came to parenting the children in my life. This is being broken down and makes sense as when I was growing up everyone was a role model not just mum and dad.
I love what you share about parenting being a quality we can all offer regardless of having our own biological children or not. To open up what parenting is can release us from fixed ideals and beliefs that we feel stuck with.
The appreciation of what we bring is the core from which we can then choose the ability to have or not have children.
Women have so much to offer, much more than being a parent; the same goes for men. When we offer ourselves a caring and nurturing approach to living, we will automatically be that to everyone we meet; children and adults alike.
There is something about feeling gorgeous that just fills every part of the body with brilliance and delight.
So, there is no need… just beauty and grace.
” I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.” This is gorgeous Gyl, nothing beats following our true purpose and for some that will be to have children and for others it will be to have none, neither way is better than another.
This is something I am choosing to continually bring and deepen into my life, appreciation, and more appreciation-so important for all of us, ‘we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are’.
It was interesting for me to just read your sentence: “These many ideals and expectations, I, and the world had chosen to place on myself, were impacting on my relationships, and putting unseen pressures and expectations onto myself, my body and my partners, big time….” because I have never wanted to or considered having children this life and have never felt one iota of pressure or expectation about that from myself or anyone else. I even ended up marrying a man who felt exactly the same way and this is very natural and true for us. Perhaps the world can only place expectations on us if we accept them or take them on. Maybe if we have no opening there it does not touch us.
As women we can put a huge pressure on ourselves to have children. This can lead to huge disappointment and years of medical intervention for some. I don’t have children and have observed for a long time the discomfort of other women when asked do I have children? It’s also the topic of a lot of conversation with women. Part of our identification perhaps. Personally I love hearing about the stories parents have about their children as I still learn so much.
Thank you, Gyl, for the reminder that mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy first and foremost. After my son was born, I witnessed, and at times indulged in, a parenting world that was so caught up in being seen to do, say and have the right thing – so much so that the truth of parenting seemed to get buried and lost. The doing, saying and having the right thing was to the exclusion of the children themselves who can actually teach us so much about what it is to be a true parent if only we could stop, surrender and embrace the grace that is being offered.
I have recently watched a dear friend become a mother to two children through a new relationship – everything about nurturing is offered to all when we make the connection about love and allowing the other to be and grow into their natural potential
It is great to be reminded what true love is, ‘ Serge Benhayon, who reminded me what true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents.’
It is only when we are living from ideals and believes that we can put these kind of pressures on ourselves and the people around us.
I can so relate to this, being in my mid thirties I can feel all of this and also just having ended a relationship it was like a big process in letting go of the picture of a particular type of family that I would like, it was like I need to let go of these pictures more to fully embrace everything I already have in my life which is totally full of everything I love and cherish.
I am a biological mother, but I also feel like I can support any child that comes my way, and I would not treat them as less or more than my own children. I love that many of my friends care for my children as thier own, it is lovely for them to have lots of support and and love in the world.
True mothering is a quality of holding others that allows them to be just as they are and that quality is not only held within all women but men equally so. This is something I am only just discovering which shows that no matter if we have children or not we are always there to support everyone via our movements, showing how it takes a village to raise a child and that we each have a role to play in how every child today will grow within their own lives.
‘mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do.’
I agree, Gyl, we are all parents of so many children without being their biological parents. We have a beautiful responsibility to make sure the next generation that is growing up can be all of the amazingness they are by living that ourselves.
Expectations in any form destroy relationships, including the one with ourselves and yet they are often unseen or just accepted as being the way to be. The body is then held in constant tension, hardening ourselves against the disappointment we so often feel as a result.
It is exquisite just how liberating and fulfilling it is at the same time, to connect and surrender to the embrace of our true love within. As it is a place of truth where one can feel and know all the love of the universe.
This was a beautiful blog to read Gyl that highlighted to me the fact that women are women and they are all equal regardless if they have biological, adopted, step or no children.
Your blog makes it obvious to me that in letting go of the need to be a mother you are able to offer the world a reflection of true mothering. This is a great blessing to all men, women and children that know you.
There is so much pressure on women and men to be and do something in life. But where are these pressures coming from? Who makes them? It certainly isn’t God or our high Heavenly selves that want desired goals to be reached at the expense of our connection to our inner truth… so what makes us put more value on the images, goals and roles we play?
‘ The truth is, we don’t have to physically have children of our own to be in that energy and to live it, and that can be equally felt and lived for men too as a fathering energy or expression.’ So true Gyl and hugely important to bring this understanding fully into our lives and not get caught up in any ideals about nuclear families… etc….
This has not only come about from my letting go of the need to be a biological mum, but it is more to do with appreciating and valuing what I already bring and live. I hadn’t been valuing or giving myself credit for this. Yes, this is a great point Gyl as most mums that I meet daily, do not hold this appreciation of themselves and are stuck in the mother role and this not only affects their own self worth as a woman but also affects how they are with their children. Children can feel when their parents aren’t bringing all of themselves and they act up because under the influence of the mother role, guilt and obligation come into play.
In a world where there are so many children that need real role models and mother energy, why is it we feel we all have to have our own? I have seven children but only two of them are biologically mine, the rest I consider my children equally to the ones that I birthed. When I volunteer at the primary school my kids attend, I fall in love with all the students, I mean I seriously feel so close to them. I say, good on you for breaking through the “having to have a baby to feel complete consciousness that seems to affect so many women”.
‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’. So true Gyl and we all can benefit from this true expression – parents alike – as many of us are not in true parenting energy , but are parenting from ideals and beliefs..
The female body does not demand to have a child, it is our ideals and beliefs that provide this straitjacket.
That’s it Gabriele. If I listen to my body, there’s no pressure, expectation or even acceptance by not having a child. It’s just natural to simply be who I am, responding to life and enjoying each and every opportunity to express myself without any preconceived pictures about what a woman should be or do.
Beautiful Gabriele, the female body ‘only’ asks us to move in stillness.
Well said and when we reflect that this is not a way in which we all choose to live, there is nothing but a reflection to others that the ideas and beliefs are just that and no more.
What a straitjacket it is, Gabriele!
There are so many ways in which we can deny the love we are and can feel in a relationship. Having ideals and beliefs about how it should be feels like one of them, if we are super focused on wanting to have a child we are not taking ourselves deeper in the love of the relationship we are in and not letting the love from the other person in either.
The pressure must be very intense , even so the relationship that lasted maybe for many many years break up and the woman decides to leave the relationship, because the man does not want kids. The phenomenom is, that these women do find a new partner very quick and do get pregnant very fast after the splitting up. I don´t want to generalize, but it feels like the man is just a box ticker and a fulfiller of the expectation how the woman wants to live her life. Doesn´t feel very true have a child in these cases.
Mothering energy is naturally within us with or without having a child. As a woman who never had children when I first connected with this fact I found it very powerful and very freeing because on a daily basis I experience my mothering energy and how gorgeous it is.
It is great to read Gyl, that you could let go of all the pictures and beliefs we get taught from young on. And started being a gift for every child/ teenager and also adult again – because when you meet them, you are not reflecting, what almost everyone carries in their bodies to a certain amount, instead you are offering your quality and space to allow the other person to be.
Gyl, it is very beautiful to read about how important it is that as women we appreciate ourselves and value ourselves and what we bring, I can feel how we so often do not do this.
I get very inspired by parents who aren’t imposing on their children, so that the children can be themselves and build a very solid knowing of what that is for them at such a young age.
The fathering or mothering energy you feel from non-biological parent feels incredibly safe and precious. The world would feel very different if this was our approach to raising children.
When we view children as ‘our own’ and parent from protection we hold children back from their evolution. There is a saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and in many countries communities come together to parent the children in the village which feels like a far more solid start to life that the limited parenting of two adults.
Thank you Gyl, it is truly empowering to know that we can offer a fatherly or motherly energy to others without having to have children of our own, that it is first our relationship with self and the quality of our movements that allows another the opportunity to be themselves and the inspiration to always be more of the love of who they are.
It’s a miss match we have going on as we champion that we are all free to make whatever choices we want and yet we have unreal expectations out there on people and in this case women. To say we are free to do whatever we choose and then to have a very very real pressure on women to have children and if they don’t they are somehow almost a second class citizen is a blight on what we call living. You can say there are those that don’t believe or have this but if it’s real like this for any woman then it’s something we all aren’t clear of. A person is person first, well before they do anything and this base level care and respect needs to be first grounded back in all of us. So no matter the choice or perceived choice we see people before anything else. Articles like this are hugely important for us to break down how we are and how we have been and to see that behind every thought there is an outplay of an action. Collectively we need to keep growing our awareness on what is actually running around in our heads.
I am reaching deeper levels of sadness in my body, and some of this comes from identifying with the regret about not having children. It is an opportunity for me to accept myself more deeply than I have ever done before and welcome so much more love in to my body.
Letting go of the judgement, that it is better with or without a child, is super important. What if some women should get children and some not- because what they have to live in a way of purpose does or does not include children?! There can´t be any judgement and with this comes no regret.
Freeing ourselves of the expectations and pictures of the world about us and what we have taken on is extremely liberating, and a way forward to connecting with our own true selves
We can’t have children just to make other people happy. The impulse to have them has to come from deep within us, otherwise we are just giving ourselves away to someone else’s ideal.
I love how you bust open the fact you weren’t meeting the men for themselves. We spend so much time in our lives not just being with the other person.
It;s great to break this idea of need in love – there is such an investment in need – and yet this only makes love about ticking boxes and not a beholding.
The expectations that we have taken on from our society and our culture can be crippling to the extreme. What is so very needed is for true values of livingness , awareness, and reconnection to start to be the norm… And then our societies will be supporting us to be who we truly are and to be doing what we actually need to be doing.
I love children, but I’m clear that being a mother in this life is not for me. It feels great to have that clarity and own it.
Gyl, I have felt the absolute truth of this; ‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’, I really love being with children and adore them in the same way that I do my biological son, I used to have the idea that I could only really love my own child, but I have now felt that this is not true, that I can have that same connection and bond with all children.
Yes me too, I remember someone saying your love will grow when you have more children and wondering how that could possibly be. Yet what I realised is that underneath our pictures of what we think life should look like there is this well of love that is immense, bottomless, it is all encompassing because it is who we are, what we are made of and where we are from. It is our pictures of who we think family is or what a mother is that reduces what we know to being about biology.
There is a lot of pressure on women to become a mother. I know i certainly felt it when I was younger and for the most part just assumed that I would become a mother at some point in my life. I then married someone who has children, always with the view of still having my own, but the complexities and busyness of having three step children, there didn’t ever feel there was space for another child. I am since divorced, but still carry on a fantastic relationship with the children, whom I love very much. As that is what I brought to them, love and they gave me that in return.
I appreciate the clarity of your comment: “mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy or quality we all can offer, live and hold others in, no matter whether we have biological children or not”. This shows our need to be a biological parent or having our own children to look after is a picture which we have bought into and want to confirm. It is nothing truly to do with parenting itself.
We can choose to offer parenting to ‘any’ and ‘every’ one. This is not dependent on age or circumstance and it is certainly not limited by biological ties.
We place so many expectations on ourselves, if we made a choice to observe how each day we fall into a habit, stress or mood because of expectation we would perceive we have to fulfil we would be shocked, be it work, family, friends, our roles etc and so much more, do we need to live a life to live up to expectations or be ourselves?
‘Need is not love’ Just these four words spell it all. That feeling of need is one that diminishes us straight away, so where dd it come from? And how is it that I stepped away from all the love that is to let this idea of need in? Do I even ‘need’ to ask ? Could I not stop, breathe very gently and connect to my body and start again with me in full?
Having children was something I always wanted, but one day I realised that what I had attached to that was that I would be worthy and my life would have purpose if I was a Mum. Now I realise worth and purpose are not about any one aspect of life, but are a way of being that initiates from within.
So true Gyl, Love has to start with self-first or being self Loving so that we are,” not needing another to love you or needing another for you to love.” For me the road to self Love starts with being gentle with myself, and this was achieved initially from deepening myself with the Gentle Breath Meditation. To go to Love from the total disregard was too big a leap so the starting place for most of us is being at-least gentle.
For more on the Gentle Breath Meditation go to;
GENTLE BREATH MEDITATION
http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=gentle+breath+meditation
It’s great reading what everyone has shared as it shows us that when we are impacted and taken by societies views of how life should be, what we should and should not do we end up feeling incomplete when the opposite is true. I never appreciated that all the love in the world was inside me should I choose to connect and grew up seeking that from outside and in relationships. Today that is different, remarkably different, and therefore I can completely relate to not needing to be a biological mum in a world where that is seen as a key “achievement”.
I love the title as it exposes how we are women first and foremost without any agenda. To give birth to a child and raise it in a way that it can become a responsible member of society is a choice and not to have it for personal needs or to maintain the numbers of population in society.
I think the unseen pressures and forces at play when dating, especially after a certain age for a women must be super intense for the men as they can feel all these needs for life to be certain way and fit a certain picture, I do not envy them. So great that this has been written about and shown how it can be different.
When we are operating from our needs and expectations in a mother or father role, we are basically wearing that cap and not bringing all of us to the relationship. If we just bring ourselves, we are able to meet children as equals and in this everyone can truly parent a child and help to guide and hear them from a place of equality and love.
Sure Shirley-Ann, we are all parents in energy and in that are all equal and the same.
It is interesting to consider that mothering and fathering is an energy in you that you can live with and in that do not need to be a biological father or mum and is actually only a concept of the mind. What is being presented in this blog seems so simple but has a great impact on our societies as a whole as it presents something completely different. Instead of a role you have to play, being a father or mother, it is a way of being and living that comes in place and will alleviate the burden these roles have on mankind.
We all have a part to play in the raising of our children in our communities. Children watch everything, not just their parents, “what kind of adult will I be…?” No need to give birth, conceive a biological baby to know right and wrong, love and truth, we have lost our lived expression of community, we all have a responsibility for our children regardless of our positions, roles and relationships.
I agree, Samantha, just by living our own life we set an example for every child (young or old) and even just looking into one another eyes in the supermarket can make the difference.
Indeed we are capable of bringing the nurturing and care of mothering and fathering energy to others without necessarily having our own children.
‘Mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do.’ I felt this was a super important point that needs to be expressed again and again until we all gets it and live this truth.
Gyl, this is beautiful, ‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’, this helps me to appreciate that I am a mother to many children that I meet in my local community and that it is not only my son that I can bring this mothering energy to, it is very beautiful to feel that we all can mother children and each other – this feels very loving and caring and supportive for all.
I had a conversation with a neighbour of mine yesterday who asked when I was going to have children, I told him that me and my husband were really happy as we are and are not planning to have children, he was quite shocked and re asked 3 times before telling me I was selfish for not having them! I calmly and lovingly told him that it is in fact selfish to have children just to fill an empty need or to have them just to tick a box, (which is what many people do) I don’t think he got it as he was still in shock but I definitely left him with food for thought.
For many women it is not even questioned if they truly want to have children. It is simply something that they presume they will have at some point and many women can go into the desperation of not having a child as the so called biological clock ticks away. Society feeds this and you could say across the board that it is expected women will have children. If they don’t, they are asked why. Of course we need women to have children as if everyone stopped – well that would be interesting! I love when women in truth follow their own path and whether that involves kids or not is irrelevant.
‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids,’ How beautiful Gyl… and so we all are.
‘I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do,’ such a powerful and true statement Gyl and to embrace and live this truth would be particularly healing for many women. To expose all these false ideals, beliefs and pictures that are so entrenched in our society around women and mothering is a great conversation to be starting as there are many women who have felt this pressure or made to feel less because they haven’t chosen to be a mother. This is a brilliant article showing how harmful these false pictures and ideals etc have had on many women and the responsibility we can all bring to share this with other women and to appreciate and value all the beautiful qualities we bring not for what we ‘do’ or become, but for being our true selves.
I have had kids this life and was super over invested in them at the outset. I love the truth that I am developing my understanding of that we are all parenting all the time; all responsible for all children and all setting the foundations for what is to come in future generations.
Yes Gyl, it bears repeating that the ideas we have about Love have nothing to do with the truth. When you consider how many of us walk about every day thinking false thoughts, is it any wonder these beliefs continue on, for every step that we take leaves an imprint for the next person who comes along. When you look at it this way we are all contributing to thick forest or landscape of ideals. It takes clear presence and awareness to choose to cut through these branches and roots of half-truths and lies. We should bear this in mind as we take our next step in life.
It is time we truly valued the essence of a woman and what that actually brings to the world in all expressions from every woman just being who they are, rather than only valuing what women do or produce in the form of children.
I am very much appreciating my female organs are way more than what they have been scientifically reduced to: the function of child bearing. Even a woman who has 4 children will have only utilised the function of her female organs for 4 x 9 months plus breast feeding time (if she chooses). And if she lives to 70 that’s a mere 0.1% of her life. The female organs are energy centres that hold so much more than just what physical science has discovered, which is yes, amazing. But how to not appreciate the sacredness and nurturing they can offer is by reducing them to the function, amazing though it is, of procreation.
So appreciate being reminded that the female organs are energy centres that hold so much more than just what physical science has discovered, Karin. For a woman who lives to 70, only having utilised the function of her female organs for a mere 0.1% of her life if she has 4 children is such an eye opener! It’s a bit like the manipulation that has gone in to ‘sexualising’ a woman’s breasts – reducing them as such keeps a woman from truly connecting to her breasts and feeling their nurturing quality.
For many years I lived my life with such ideals and beliefs of wanting to be a father, the pressure that I felt was huge and I was willing to compromise so much of me in order to achieve my goal, letting go of this image has allowed me to understand that i don’t need to have children of my own to be a father but it is a way of being within myself and my willingness to connect, care and inspire otheers that makes me a father to many around me.
True responsibilty in parenting is yet to be known in our society – this discussion is much needed.
“And that love starts with our self”, this is so true Gyl, and our starting point is with at-least being gentle, then we can start to explore self-love, which will open us to reconnecting to Love. For most Students who start on the road to Love, the very beginning, is with the Gentle Breath Meditation. So parenting definitely starts with self, and it is never to late to take those first baby steps, on our return to Love.
Gyl to bring this topic up and to start to discuss it is truly amazing, its deeply inspiring and it is something, like many other topics, need to be discussed from a point of truth. We grow up in society and are taught that we need to confirm to certain ideals of how we should live, these vary from one place to the next, and in that we loose the truth of so much. I love how you are starting to restore truth and real responsibility back to parenting.
It is great to share how women have children to feel complete – this is certainly something I have witnessed, but it seems more like an outside pressure than an honouring of our bodies. This blog looks to break the illusion that women have to be mums – because, in fact, we can be mothers to so many people. We leave education to schools when really we all have a role in raising children and reflecting to them responsibility in our movements – biological parents or not.
When we bring our need into a moment, we corrupt the natural magic that is available for the moment to be one of evolution and expansion.
Women can carry the heart ache of not having kids in their hearts right up until death and beyond.
I love children and I love watching other women being mothers, but have never wanted to be a mother myself. I am no less a woman for this.
It is crazy how many of us base our entire lives on ideals and beliefs, as opposed to honouring what is true for ourselves and our bodies.
Gyl, this feels so true; ‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids’, I can feel how as women we have so much pressure on us to have our own children, as if we are incomplete if we do not. And so it is great that you have come to the truth that we do not need children to complete us, it feels that appreciating and valuing what we already bring to life is key.
Finding a way to stay as a Loving humble being, around the fact that it was okay to not have children when society loads us with so many insecurities around who they feel we should be, was almost impossible. I could find no one who could explain Love and I asked hundred of people because of my insecurity around not having children and making the excuse that I had to know Love to have a child I felt lost. When Love was introduced by Serge Benhayon I started to understand about why no one else could expand on Love but could only give an appraisal from what they had lived. Serge lives Love, so I started to understand why no one else could bring an understanding about Love and having children because we were all basically having the same insecurity problems just seeing them through our different coloured glasses.
This article speaks to me of how much everyone can learn from each other, regardless of blood lines or Marriages. as a one humanity we are a global community of people, and so there is a lot here to share and give to one another.
Re-learning what love truly is an absolute blessing to all. Serge Benhayon’s teachings support lovingly honouring and holding ourselves, and then we can share this equally with others. No more waiting for someone to bring it to us with proof that it is what we are seeking to fill our own needs.
How we relate our body is so important, asking ourselves are we complete if we do not make babies is important for most women, most of us do get caught in the story we are lacking if that has not happened in our lives. This is also true concerning what we think sexy is, strong is, fit is, beautiful is, pictures and ideas of what our bodies should be like and doing really inhibit us from truly enjoying being in them and expressing from them.
When we’re set on an image of how life ‘should’ be or what roles we should have e.g. a mum or dad, then we actually miss out on the appreciation of a) what it means to be a woman/man without these roles and b) how we can parent children in our communities and the responsibility we still have, plus the different opportunities we have.
Once we understand what true parenting is we open ourselves to the world and life becomes
all embracing.
There’s a huge difference in being personally invested in having children and expressing mothering energy which is universal.
‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do.’ So true Gyl, parenting is not about ownership – but parenting , and we all parent
Serge Benhayon was the first person in my adult life who reminded me of the needless, holding, joyful love I knew as a child. Through his reflection and confirmation of what I knew as a child, I have been able to completely redefine what love means. It doesn’t need to do anything, be deserving or owning. It just is, and is the grandest thing in life.
When it was clear we couldn’t have children there was in my case a bit of regret but it was surprisingly small.
I love that the children I have as a mother, are also building real meaningful relationships with other women and men in their lives. We can all be parents regardless of being a biological parent or not. It is about holding another in love, appreciating and respecting them. There are times when the wisdom of love comes from my children’s mouth and I feel held and yes parented, it is a way of being rather than just a role or blood defined right.
It’s interesting all the pictures, expectations we put on another to be the one, or to be our soul mate, and to live happily every after with. I also fell for the fairy tale kind of love that doesn’t have conflict and everyone is really happy, but in reality relationships don’t just happen like that, it takes work to build the respect and decency as the foundation on which to move forward. Often it felt like I wanted instant results and demonstrative examples of someone loving me – now that I realise that I have to love myself first, my expectations on my partner have reduced drastically.
All my life I have felt that I would have children and I was very close but things did not work out. I see that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to have things perfect instead of just being myself which is one of the reasons things changed. Reflecting back we put so much pressure on ourselves for things to happen we lose ourselves in the process. Sure having children is an amazing experience but it is not one that should change us – I know it is important when we choose to bring children into the world we have 1st dealt with our stuff to be the best of our ability so can then raise children free of all the imposition life throws at you. Then having children is a natural process not out of need or anything like that.
What you have shared James rings true, as we learn to re-parent our-self so that we understand the boundaries that allow us to set a living example, then as a parent we are never dictating but sharing from our lived Love.
It is important to understand that mainstream society is designed to make the majority of people feel inadequate, in one way or another. The problem is we buy into the lie. One belief is that of family and children as something only shared between members of a biological family. There is an expression the ‘nuclear’ family. When we connect to the truth of family we see it as much more, it’s universal with all other human beings being equal part of our one family. With this understanding, we can never feel a sense of lack because we are part of something much bigger and there is much we can contribute in all areas of our lives.
If we have chosen to not have relationships out of need and we find ourselves either needing or being needed our bodies soon tell us what is happening, or that there is something to pay attention to, if we have not already realised it ourselves.
It has been a revelation for me, a woman who has not given birth to her own children, but worked and supported children and families for decades, to accept my own worth and contribution to mothering energy. However, if this quality remains unacknowledged or expressed out of need, it loses potency and value. Much more powerful to fully claim and express our beholding energy to all we meet. Supporting others in the aged care community is a beautiful example of this and has healing quality to it. We can re-claim our true worth and life at any age.
That is true. When we go into need we do not use what we have and if we do, not to its full potential.
Without the steady and loving reflection Serge Benhayon shares with us, we remain in a sea of inner confusion, creating stories from nothing. We make much of what isn’t true and overlook our true worth. Your new found appreciation of your mothering energy as teacher, friend, and human being is as you say there for all to feel. First, it is for each one of u to to feel this in ourselves.
‘mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’ This is the essence Gyl and when we accept this, all other expectations and impositions we place on ourselves, simply dissolve.
A beautiful sharing Gyl and brings a real understanding and appreciation for ourselves and all we bring innately and our choices with this . ” it is appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.”
For too long women have jumped to the current societal ideals and beliefs around a woman’s worth and in many respects her ‘place’ in the home. Thank goodness we are starting to bust the myth that a woman needs to have children to be worthy in some way. Mothering is not something reserved for women, nor for those who have borne children themselves, but is an activity anyone can exercise and express towards any child, or any person for that matter.
Wow! Jenny this is so true and needs to be shared on a wide scale so that we can all get a greater perspective of what the truth is.
I know so many parents stay together thinking it is best for the children but in my experience the children know what is going on and end up with more hurts than any percieved ones the parents may have had. I have seen many cases where parents have separated and now have a much more loving relationship with their children and with each other. Living in a ‘family’ which is not based on love is really hard as it goes against everything we innately know.
What really hurts is the refusal to honour the true flow which everyone can feel. It is not about looking like a neat little ideal family package but responding to what is supportive of the whole – and that will always be choosing truth over any images and wishful compromises. I too know people who have parents who are harmoniously separated, it is as if they embrace it as a bonus, 2 sets of caring parents instead of 1! And I also know those within a ‘one parent family’ who relates to many other adults as their parent too and do not feel any lack. Our ideal of family needs a serious re-assessment.
Amazing Gyl, the power of what we can bring in all relationships is truly extraordinary, even relationships which we don’t consider are close to us like children of friends, nieces, nephews, etc than the potential of parenting can be in all of these relationships and more – and we are always a reflection of love and truth wherever we go.
Being without a child is a complete blessing for everyone who I connect to for I feel that there have never been any favourites so I had not become as judgmental about others.
Working in obstetrics I am always struck by the automatic way people have children without consideration for the fact that they have a choice… it is like a wave of expectation overrides their awareness that they do have a choice. I have huge respect for those people that step off this wave and actually consider carefully what makes sense for them.
A very important point Matilda – having children is in fact a choice. How many women (and men) are truly honouring that?
Our minds will always side with the ideals and beliefs around motherhood and mothering unless we allow the body to instead speak and be heard.
Parenting is not an exclusive skill for parents to children, but can be from children to parents, teachers to children, work colleagues to work colleagues and friends to friends. Parenting is about supporting others to be all that they are and this can be done in any relationship… even self with self!
We are all returning to a way of being where we don’t need to be anything because we actively know that we are everything already.
It seems fairly common to have a child out of a need to love someone, or to be needed and loved in return. No one really talks about it, acknowledges it or even considered how harmful that could be to a child. When a child is parented out of need, the expectations on the child are huge and very imposing. What a large, heavy weight to grow up with.
I really felt the pressure we put on ourselves and the expectation to have children that is there from the moment we are born female, yet I had never clocked the imposition on our bodies. What you have shared will no doubt percolate a bit more for me but thank you for sharing. As you say, there is no question that, if we can see beyond this imposition, that we are a parent to many children in our lives and that, in itself, is actually very needed.
Living to fulfill images and expectations, such as for women to be complete is by being a mother or for men to be the provider, garnered during childhood is like wearing blinkers.
In connecting more and more to my body I do experience that everything that I do from my mind is against that what my body is telling me and is the cause of that continuous tension I know to have in my body for whole my adult life. Therefore when we go back to the subject of having children or not our body will be too the best guide to go to and to listen what our body has to tell us about having children in this life or not. We are all different and have other task and roles to fulfill in our lives and therefore, there is no you should do this or that, the way our mind is dictating life, but just that what is needed from the body instead. And that could be very different to what our mind has on it sleeve.
I have ended up not having children but in my experience that is no impediment to being truly of service to humanity. There are many ways to do that though it is extremely impressive how many young people are ready to have children and are amazing parents.
That’s another good point prompted here Christoph – that it doesn’t necessarily mean age makes you a great parent, or even ready to be a parent. It really is about listening to what feels true by putting aside the assumptions and generalized stories we are reflected from what we see (and grow up seeing) around us.
The thinking that we need to love or be loved by another is a false idea of what love it in the first place and is often the reason we have children. Need is not love.
We think we love our children when we are having them to fill a need in us. Holding this expectation of another to love us in a way that we are not prepared to love ourselves is not only using the other it is a rejection of the love that we are and the love that they are..
Ive often thought how awful it must be to feel pressured or have ideals or beliefs surrounding having children, one of the biggest decisions we should make. People have children for many different reasons, but it should never be out of need or to fill a hole.
I agree. I was one of the ones that blindly followed with social expectation. No regrets – I have learnt so much about love alongside my children – but I know my relationship with them would have been very different if I had actually given consideration to what I was undertaking and that I always have a choice.
I find often the most effective parents are not biological, they can feel what is needed for the child’s development without the often unpleasant dynamics of need and emotionally loaded parenting that can at times come from biological parents.
I agree. But there is also much to learn from biological parenting in that any of these dynamics are an opportunity for us (the parents) to re-parent ourselves and evolve out of these old hurts.
So true, Otto. From the moment my son was born 17+ years ago, I was very conscious of his arrival being an opportunity to re-parent myself in the process of parenting him. It wasn’t always easy, un-learning the way I was parented and at the same time feeling into what was needed in the moment. The process continues, is ever evolving and much healing has taken place. A beautiful opportunity to as you say, “evolve out of these old hurts.”
I am a parent. However, every day as a teacher I get to feel how I use the same parenting energy with children I am with. So it’s definitely not about whether we physically give birth but the quality and care we share.
“Need is not love.” How correct you are, Gyl, and how indeed we are fooled into believing it is.
Yes our society has very much fallen for the emotional version of love which is based on need, expectations and conditions.
There is such a strong pressure that comes with parenting or being seen to be a parent. I wonder what that pressure exerts on our ways when it actually comes to having children, or in some cases not. It feels very damaging that we expect things to be a set way.
I’ve been witnessing many people who are having children because they are either told they need to or because they think it is the answer to their relationship problems, along the way they have complications and whilst there are many reasons for these to happen I think we do have to ask ourselves as a society why we put so much pressure on having kids making someone more than someone that does not and also the stigma of not having kids. More importantly how amazing would it be to deeply celebrate us for us.
Yes, it makes sense – we can very much have children the wrong way and it hurts both parents and children but we are able to make big changes at any time during that process. That we are capable of and we have that choice which I find very heartening.
This blog raises a great point: how women use men to satisfy their (created) need to become an image they have said yes to in the name of becoming complete as if completeness had something to do with anything/anyone besides you and your eventual inward journey of development.
It is very freeing to realise that we do not have to be restricted by whether we have children or not, our ability to parent is really about meeting everyone as an equal and never allowing one another or our selves to be less than the hugely dignified beings we are.
I am not of the age to have children and I certainly have felt the pressure of this choice when I was younger. But my body still has a response I did not expect when my partner mentioned having children in one of our conversations. I allowed myself to feel and acknowledged every feeling from my body and realized how having children is such an innate belief a woman has taken up in her life. When I truly allowed myself to feel and not judge any of those feelings, I am able to appreciate myself deeper. What has changed is I did not need to change anything in my life but just to honour every single feeling, this way there is no pressure put on myself and on the relationship.
The true role of a ‘parent’ is to reflect the truth of who we are to a child and to not get in the way of this reflection by imposing the many ideals, beliefs and images we were saturated by when we were a child when our parents and the adults around us did not live true to their inner-most self. This is true love and this is all that is needed to parent children whether they are biologically ‘ours’ or not.
Gosh, these four words “need is not love” have the potential to completely change our relationships.
And love is about being.
Ariana when we come to that understanding that it is not about fitting but living the truth of what we feel, it is very freeing in our body and a true sense of joy within.
Thank you Gyl its so wonderful to read the truth about a woman’s ” need to have children ” and ” need is not love “. I see so many children whose parents are like this . They put a burden of need on children which children are forced to feed , so so terrible .
“It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.” Appreciating and valuing what we bring and who we are does away with the need to be or do something to feel complete, I remember wanting to have a child to have someone to love, it was out of a need for I had no true love for myself back then.
The truth is, we all know that we come from a stupendous Oneness in which we are all the equal sparks of the one light and love of God. But because we do not yet collectively live anywhere near this Brotherhood here on Earth, it is our deepest hurt to be separated from this and thus it is our deepest yearning to reunite with each other in this way again. It is this yearning, when not addressed for what it is, that can set us up to form bonds of attachments we then call ‘relationships’ and seek to surround ourselves with ‘family’ out of a need to ‘belong’ to a group and not feel lonely, no matter if the group was formed in separation to the love we are and not with this love as a founding principle on which we learn to evolve back to the stupendous love we have withdrawn from expressing collectively together.
“And that love starts with our self, not needing another to love you or needing another for you to love. Need is not love.”
This would have a profound effect if it was front page news all around the world – this truth is so needed to support humanity to return to the depth and connection of love we all innately know ourselves to be.
Thanks for sharing Gyl – i am a new mum, but it wasn’t really planned. And from the other side what I will say is that the more I let go of wanting to be a mum, the more easily things flow. I realise I am no good at being the iconic mum who bakes things and is always there at every moment – that just does not work for me. The more I am just me – the more I connect with my daughter and I am fast discovering that she isn’t interested in the woman who bakes her cakes or fusses over her – all she wants to do is look into my eyes and know that I am fully there with her.
I don’t think you are alone Gyl in wanting a child for untrue reasons. I would say a big percentage of women want a child just because that’s what you do when you grow up and fall in love. I would also say a lot of women want children to fill a need, to love and be loved. These motives are a far cry from what true parenting should be about – supporting a child to grow up in the fullness of who they are.
Gyl I can complete resonate with what you share ” It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.” My journey to having children has been similar. But now I am aware I bring so much more than just being a biological mum, I brought amazing settlement in my body and space, to allow me to truly share the mothering energy with everything and everyone.
I know many men who have found being a father extremely challenging. And one of the pressures that has made this even more acute is this notion that “its the best thing that can ever happen to us”. We need to really break this down, so that men and women both feel free to choose the path that is most honouring of where they are at.
Do we even have a right to ‘want’ to ‘have’ children. Is that expression not perhaps the very first seed of ill parenting and the false pillars of family? It’s a big topic to start to un-pick, but well worth it if we are to move toward true brotherhood and if we are to start to bring up and nurture the world’s children to know the everything that they already are and to live free from the false consciounesses that so many of us have aligned to for so long.
Fascinating insight into the impact that ideals, pictures, beliefs can have on the human body and that when we let go, we feel lighter.
I’ve found too that any need in our relationships is what keeps us from the true relationship that could be. When we address our own dependent needs and stop serving the same in others we can begin to unravel that relationship and start to re-imprint it with an honest and more loving way with each other.
I love close communities where everyone knows each other, supports and plays their part in the bigger picture, and as you’ve shared Gyl by being a part of kids’ lives, even if it’s being a neighbour or seeing them at the supermarket, we naturally take on the responsibility of role modelling and connecting with them.
I often feel as though I’m waiting to get past the age where women are expected to have kids so that I can sort of get it out of the way without actively having to make a decision about it. It’s easier to be single than to be in a relationship and unpick the decision around whether to have children or not… but in that there’s a hiding and a picture – that deciding whether to have children is a difficult mental calculation rather than a letting go and an allowing of a true choice to be made, based on where both partners are and whether having children will support both to evolve by offering a different reflection of how children can be raised.
I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders when I finally decided that I wasn’t going to have children. I had always known that children were not really for me in this life, but in the back of my mind I thought that it would probably happen anyway. It was wonderful when I finally claimed it for myself that I was choosing to not have children. A glorious sense of empowerment and freedom.
The need that many men and women feel to be parents puts enormous pressure on the child. Any need comes with expectation and it comes about from the person feeling a ‘lack’ within themselves, which they then look for someone, in this case, the child, to fill, but that can never happen as what is missing is the person choosing to firstly connect with themselves. This may go a long way to explaining why children are increasingly suffering from mental disorders at an alarmingly young age.
Parenting energy is also available within us to offer to other adults, and to ourselves.
Oh yes, oh yes. Having children of my own has invited me to totally re-parent myself. I didn’t need children to do this and we can easily do it without – but it did reflect certain things to me that I could have avoided with having children in my life. It’s one of the things that I most deeply appreciate about them.
I did become a biological mum, and I did start a family because I felt I was leaving it quite late and didn’t want to leave it any longer, however I still had pictures around family size and my expectations…reality turned out a very different story, – but it was exactly what was needed.
Love comes through us for everybody, the moment we think we can direct it to a select few we are ensnared in one of the biggest lies currently known and practiced by man.
Yes, Gyl, we don’t need to be anybody’s anything to have value in the world, because we are all in essence made of love and are from love.
What you are sharing here Gyl offers a huge liberation to women. We don’t realise how deeply entrenched and incarcerating the roles are and the notions of what it is to be a woman – to be married, to have kids, to have a career etc. In all these roles we have forgotten to simply be – and just as importantly we have forgotten that mothering is innate within us as women, and that we have the natural ability to hold this quality regardless of whether we have children or not. In fact, it hurts us deeply as women to hold the true mothering quality back – because it is very much what we are naturally here to bring.
The physical need for children can be very strong but what I have come to realise is it is all the ideals and pictures that you are want to meet and full that is pulling you towards the need for children. When you start to break down, question and really connect to yourself and where you are the children aspect of your life fades away. You are never free so to speak from it because it is everywhere the underlying belief that to be a Woman you need to have children, but when you connect to the innate sacredness within then if that becomes an expression great equally so if it does not this is awesome too.
Imagine we lived life not by what we needed or wanted but by choosing to evolve and truly step forward and constantly be learning and growing, then small life details such as if we have children or not or if we get married or not or what job we have would not dominate our lives, because our focus would be firmly on what we need to evolve, rather than what we need to satisfy us.
Meg its with that understanding, by choosing to evolve we can free ourselves from ideals and beliefs. When we start to do this in truth space expands our life beautifully and starts to unfold for the true purpose. What then comes along, whether it is marriage, children etc, is for a true purpose for all. This can only start to happen when we let go of the needs in our body for us.
“It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.” This is something that is very rare to come to, its incredible that you have reached this point of settlement and have worked to heal what was behind the need to have children, more so it is a reflection to everyone to heal and be content in oneself as therefore if we do or do not have children the quality we do that in is one of truth and not one of need.
Gyl, this is really interesting; ‘the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many’, I can feel how amazing it is for children when there are adults who treat them as they would their own biological children; with the same level of adoration, love and care, this is very beautiful to see and can make a huge difference to children’s lives – allowing them to be held in love. I can feel from reading this how we all have an important part to play in children’s lives as mothers, fathers and grandparents whether the children are biologically ours or not.
Understanding what love is, and is not, is key in being able to unpack this Gyl… thank you for such honesty and insight, it is a very supportive article for any woman struggling with whether or not to have children.
If true love is an emanation then, then it is not restricted to one action such as having your own biological child.
We all have responsibility to be a part of the lives of the children around us and impart our lived wisdom – this is what it means to be a parent, rather than just being isolated to biology.
And it’s needed from all adults towards all children. Any child an adult comes into contact with is an opportunity to shed this quality and not let blood defined boundaries limit us.
Gyl, this is a brilliant realisation to have
“I have a natural rapport, and a mothering and parenting energy with children and teenagers that I hold them in, but I actually hadn’t stopped to appreciate and give myself credit for this – the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many. The truth is, we don’t have to physically have children of our own to be in that energy and to live it, and that can be equally felt and lived for men too as a fathering energy or expression.”
And fantastic that you went there and picked apart all the false ideals and beliefs that surround women and having children and you are now able to appreciate that you have such an important role to play to everyone you meet not just the children.
Yes, Gyl. I too no longer need to be defined as someone’s mother, partner, daughter etc but feel that I can be intimate and the best of friends with anyone, even complete strangers!
I am very fortunate to have amazing women around me, some of whom are mothers and some of whom are not. What they’ve reflected to me is that being a woman is something we naturally are. It’s not an accolade awarded at the birth of a child!
This mark of failure for not having ones own children is something I can sometimes detect with women who have adopted because they were unable to conceive. The ‘failure’ to want to have children but have been physically unable to, or even just the fact of not having children, can be met with sympathy. It’s a response I got a lot when working in schools where not having children over a certain age was unusual. I used to be a little unnerved, was I missing out on fundamental life experiences I couldn’t do without? Not at all. Honouring myself in a woman’s body is what connects me to all the qualities of being female and the mothering energy that may be called for in a situation is not dependant on whether I have children or not.
‘You wonder why many people back off from relationships…’ Is it possible that we also back off from relationships, not only because we can feel need but also because relationships intensify the things we have not chosen to deal with due to the fact that these are now a part of someone else’s life too.
Imagine if we could come to a child not bringing any pictures or imposing ideals, beliefs and expectations, and just be ourselves in all our love, how absolutely divine that would be for the child, to have the space and holding to be themselves in truth. If this were a consistent thing, surely it would build a solid and open foundation within the child that would support them through their younger years and into adulthood.
The love that starts with Self becomes the ability to observe and not absorb life, which gives us the ability to actually offer love.
When we take on images and pictures of how society says we should be we disconnect from our innate inner beauty, wisdom and harmony through which we know without a doubt what is true for us or not.
‘When it came to my body, these expectations, pictures and ideals I had chosen to accept, created such an intense pressure on me to be a biological mum.’ and this is far from a healthy way to be, and yet we perpetuate this kind of pressure in society and even worse on young people as they grow up.
Cultural beliefs can get in the way of true parenting, where the Grandparents are the head of the household and what they say goes, and the parents feel they don’t have a say and must follow traditions or old ways that Grandparents want as they aren’t able to speak truth and rock the proverbial boat. We don’t have a solid foundation within ourselves when this happens to honour and speak truth no matter what.
Very powerful and great to share, as i’m sure that many women experience this – the need to have children, but where does that need come from. As the woman values herself, as Gyl so beautifully states ‘It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live,’ is connected too, then a greater understanding is offered to us and what this need is really about.
Having just become a grand-parent within the Esoteric community and this is because of the way our true family works. Our deepening relationships are bigger than blood relatives as I have never had children for I could never find true Love. So back to my grandchild who is less than a year old and has been shown loving discipline by both parents and the baby responds in the most amazing ways to the boundaries it has been set.
So the way we talk in every interaction in life either shows the love we are, which is devoid of what has been coined as baby talk. Could it be the decency and respect we show in life especially to young babies is the way to introduce a true purpose to them and if this is true how would this humble way of being as a away of living then be felt and observed as a reflection to others in society? Treating everyone with the most humble decency and respect is a very none-imposing way to live and feels completely natural. And if this talk is walked would that be felt by the baby and other so it is not felt as an imposition, and thus the same reflection will be returned to us because of how we are with them? So what would come with an arrogance of self indulgence, which is the opposite of decency, respect, true purpose and Love would this be felt as an imposition, so little or no respect is returned?
I chose not to have children, and I do not miss it one bit. I do not feel a lack because I don’t have them – in fact I feel quite the opposite as my life is so full. It’s not that I don’t love them, it’s just that I have chosen to live life without having them in my life. It’s purely a choice.
Not needing to be a biological mum is a big shift away from our ideals and beliefs about what it means to being a woman.
Like donkeys with the proverbial carrot hung out in front of our face, we spend our lives constantly chasing dreams that are out of our reach. Not only that but these ‘visions’ we seek pale in comparison to the true beauty we have already underneath. Your words inspire me Gyl to call off the pursuit, and see what is naturally inside of me.
What a beautiful understanding of who we are with an appreciation of this that is way greater than any ideals beliefs and pictures out there . And yes “mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy or quality we all can offer, live and hold others in, no matter whether we have biological children or not.” what a difference the knowing and living of this
will make to us all.
When we are connected to ourselves are we not parents to everyone? Allowing and supporting all we meet to become all they are
As long as we only are concerned about attaining our inner picture of a perfect family and what that may look like regarding being a mother or father without considering that we can be that to every child we come in contact, this will stop humanity from accepting the fact that we are all indeed one big family and need to act in a way that is in accordance to and honouring of that. This can bring us all together in many ways.
There is something special I feel in the approach of parenting as the person you are, without any imposition on the child you raise. Children observe and learn from what they see much more than what they hear, so it makes sense that anyone can parent by the simple act of their movements and that perhaps we don’t always appreciate how much we parent anytime we are around children.
I love the understanding that we all parents, whether we have children or not. If we all accepted this truth then it would be much easier for those who do have children to get the much-needed support that is required to raise a child.
This is so true Elizabeth – instead of mistrust true community support would be possible.
Yes, roles confine us. Love is limitless.
This is such a wonderful article and so apt for all women and men – everyone! I love the description of how the children topic can impact relationships – not least with our own biological organs. I feel like celebrating my organs for the qualities they bring energetically and actually I’ve begun this process almost unconsciously. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I realised, this is my life and it doesn’t include having biological children which a few years back was a grief for something I thought I’d lost because so many times I’ve been told I’ll not experience what it’s really like being a woman unless I was a mother. Now that’s quite a belief system to break through!
Pretty crazy to be told that you’ll never know what it’s like to be a woman unless you have children!! This idea in the world that being a woman = having children carries a lot of weight and force but it’s just not true.
We can be seemingly controlled by certain needs or wants in life – such as what Gyl has presented here about the ‘want’ that we often have as women to have children. Sometimes this (having children) can be a true impulse in the sense of something that we feel is in line with the flow of our life and is indeed the next step for us to grow and evolve by expanding the family, but more often than not, I have found that when a want or a need seems to take over, it is something that comes with a sense or feeling of emotions or insatiability and in this case it is often not in line with the true flow of life. There are times when we can push to have something happen, or go against what a partner feels (and hence not respect their choices), or insist with IVF etc etc, and in such times we, and with all due respect to those who have experienced this, it is super important to first explore the insistency behind the push to have a child. As women we are so good at wanting children or being there to look after children, but when it comes to looking after ourselves and loving ourselves up, we struggle – so could it be that the call to have more children could come from a denial of the inner child within us that is calling to be nurtured rather than it being a call to have another child? Something worth pondering on…
Love is our natural expression we are designed to having loving relationships with everyone, but when we think this is limited to a life partner, and we don’t have one we are somehow lacking, we have missed the point.
Similarly parenting energy is a natural expression, we are capable of supporting one another to bring out a greater value, regardless of the age of either party. And when we choose to reduce this to being a biological mum or dad, we have put the lid on the incredible potential such fruitful relationships actually offer.
Many women put their need before their truth and enter into relationships that are not truly loving, rather an arrangement where they can get their needs met.
Perhaps one way to put it is that we can always be parenting, even those who are our age or older, we are always offering and the other, regardless of their age, can choose to accept or not accept. There are extra physical items to be done for children but would the offering of love, truth and understanding be different?
A beautiful real raw example of that which many women are experiencing/feeling and or going through. Hence your way of looking at it, is profound and might offer that to another woman which she is actually searching. Ending the lack of confidence, lack of self-worth that we can feel when we have certain needs not fulfilled. Hence this blog is actually not about having children only, but about the truth behind our images, needs and ideals – that teach us so much more than we thought. We are beautiful women – lets first start honouring that and the effect & parenting we naturally are having on people of all ages, ofcourse including children.
Recently I had a great interaction with a young child – I sat there and in that moment I decided I would talk to them the way I would talk to my own children, rather than having a meaningless conversation about movies I made it real life and something to learn from as I would if I had kids. We dont have to have our own biological children to be able to parent – not just those younger but anyone, passing on wisdom and lived experiance with love and care.
Yes Rebecca, we tend to assosciate parenting as only being something we can do if we have our own children, whereas true parenting is actually about treating everyone in a way that is deeply loving, as you say passing on wisdom, and that living with a true responsibiltiy for themselves inspires others to do the same. Plus, there is no age limit to true parenting.
So true, when Love is a part of the respect and decency we bring to others no matter what the relationship or age true wisdom is transparently shared.
I love this Rebecca. So much joy and playfulness in this.
I grew up in a time where women were expected to get married and have children at a young age and I did, having three children by the time of my 26th birthday. I can see now that I got lost in being a wife and in mothering for many years until in my early 30’s I suddenly realised that I didn’t know who I was anymore; I was someone’s wife and the children’s mother, but who was I? It has taken a long time to figure that one out but the woman I have discovered is rather wonderful and I know that had I got to know her before I got married I would have never had to experience that ‘who am I’ moment.
I feel you are doing well asking these questions in your early 30s. I asked them earlier but I got my answer completely wrong so there are dangers in that approach as well.
To many times the choice to have children comes from a need, a desire to fill the emptiness and sometimes just to fulfil society’s expectations. Having children on those grounds does not allow us to evolve and instead see what is truly needed.
If we give into external pressures to have children, are we not living someone else’s expectations?
It is such a strong belief about children and how we are only parents if we have children of our own. I personally don’t have children but my niece, my team at work, other children are always on my radar and where I can I will always support and share the wisdom that I know.
I agree, we can be role models and parent with care and love regardless of whether we have children or not, if more of us chose to live in a responsible way, then we would see a real change for the better in our society.
Spot on Samantha, we are role models no matter whether we like it or not, and hence we are parents too all of the time whether we like it or not – as essentially with anyone around us we have the potential to share our qualities for them to learn from.
Parenting in a way so that the baby is able to understand from a very young age that it has boundaries and you share with it from day one so this is then accepted as normal. This is a level of Love that is also not restricted by age as it is never to late to set true boundaries and this comes from our Loving expression, which we lived.
“who reminded me what true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents. ” Yes this stood out for me too, that love is a beholding quality and that we can not in truth love someone, we can only hold them in our love, and to be able to do this we have to love ourselves too.
Mothering/fathering is an energy we all possess within ourselves, and the more we let go of those limiting beliefs that tell us that we need children of our own to experience this the more space we create to truly nurture and care for ourselves and others around us.
Yes we can be a mother or a father at any age for ourself and for others, no matter what age they are and if we limit this expression to any one person we all miss out.
This is very true….”But we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already bring as a woman.” we think we need to do something or have something to be something…in truth we are more than enough when we allow ourselves to ‘be’ who we are.
This is a great subject to talk about and one that affects many women but is rarely spoken about. I am a mum but I know many who are not and who have had a roller coaster ride of emotions along with all the beliefs around having to be a mum or missing out because they haven’t given birth.
It’s interesting just how powerful these ideals and beliefs can be in family’s – especially when concerning having children. It seems many people can have an investment in others having children for their own reasons.
It is a travesty that in so many ways we find ourselves living according to some rules, expectations, ideals and beliefs, instead of being open to discover and unfold our true expression and allow the grace of that to enrich the world.
A well written Blog thankyou dearly Gyl for expressing it. The moment we enter relationships or simply undertake life’s activities, can can do it in the pressure or expectation that the world demands of us , or with the knowing that what we have inside is already everything – and the purpose of life is to express this through whatever means – it comes out In mothering, in fathering and has a multidimensionality to it rather than the flat knowledge meeting knowledge approach which keeps our lives looking in check – we work out problems and dilemmas but don’t truly evolve if have deeper relationships.
Each moment that I am not with me I can feel how I want children to give me recognition or acceptance. Empty choices (non-loving choices) are the foundation on which illness and disease can blossom. Whether we like it or not. Choosing to have a child will never fill any need truly up. Thank you Gyl for your dedication to yourself to let go of the picture that put so much pressure on you. A true inspiration and as I read in other comments, such an inspiring and wise article that it would be super loving if this would be part of our educational system.
This is an amazing lesson to come to Gyl and certainly not an easy one. But it describes a common behaviour with nearly all of us and that is attachment. To have attachments to things playing out in the way we desire and need come from an emptiness of not feeling full of ourselves from within. We then try and fill it up with the outside which is where attachments come from.
“will he be the one, even on a very first date, will this be the relationship, the person, the man who I have kids with?” This is not the first time I have heard this from other women Gyl, it must be so common (due to those commonly fed and digested images and ideals), I have to admit, I’ve even caught myself thinking this on behalf of another woman!
Great you have shared this Gyl. Society has manipulated women around the role of being a mum for century’s when the truth has been all along that we are all mothers every moment we choose bring our tender, nurturing and loving way to others.
‘Can you imagine and feel the pressure this person would feel even when not physically with me, to have to live up to stereotypes, pictures, expectations and ideals that are not true, and putting a pressure and demand on them – not to mention myself and my body’, so very true, Gyl. Any expectation feels pretty awful to be on the receiving end of, it’s like an unspoken demand that’s being made of you, and you’re not being met and appreciated for all that you already are.
Thank you, Gyl. I am loving the reminder of what it is to live with true love, for ourselves and for others. If we lived in this way it would not only solve all our relationship issues, but also deepen them to another level entirely.
It’s a beautiful moment when you realise that you do not need to choose to have children. A huge weight is lifted. It’s very liberating.
” I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.” what an incredible stage to come to, to appreciate this is quite amazing as so many times in life we are seeking something to make us complete, having kids is a big one to let go of and feel enough self worth that you are complete in yourself. A great reflection for us all.
Agreed, a great reflection for us all and a rare one. There are so few people who are complete in and with themselves. People who can genuinely say that they are not completed by their partner, their job, their kids, their car, their dog etc
Many women carry the feeling that they are not complete unless they have children, but this puts a lot of pressure on the children to fulfill their mother’s dreams, hopes and wishes. When we learn to value ourselves first and that we are women before we are mothers, we are less likely to load our children with this pressure and they can grow up being themselves without the ideals and beliefs that can be in some families very oppressive.
Its a bit like lacing a drink with poison and then hoping that the recipient does not notice. Leaves rather a bad taste in any relationship…
It feels pretty fantastic when we connect to that fathering (or mothering) energy and it becomes available to all. Its what allows you to have a family of hundreds as you break through this miasma of ‘family’ and realise that everyone is open to connection and all kids are open to a bit of true parenting when its on offer.
As a male who never had any children when I was feeling into this fact, that to me in my 30s the answer was always, if I have no understanding of what Love is and no one who I asked could tell me what true Love was all about then how could I bring up a child unless I knew how to Love myself.
Serge Benhayon was, for me, the only person who introduced the understanding of what Love is all about.
On the way to Love, Serge Benhayon has shared with everyone the most humble way of living that brings a decency and respect to all he shares with us.
Such a beautiful article busting the pictures of being parent! It is an eye opener for the women in many cultures whose status and being woman in society relies on being able to have kids. I love the way you made it about the energy that we hold ourselves in and not the physicality. thank you for sharing!
Love this Gyl, if we all appreciated and lived this quality we all hold within, children would feel very held, loved and supported so much more in their every day. We all have an incredible amount to offer kids, the acceptance and appreciation of this would be an incredible gift to humanity.
Your blog brings up the pictures we hold that blood is what makes family. When this picture is lived we put a cap on love and measuring how and who we share it with. Stopping us from sharing what we offer with all equally.
Absolutely Kim I feel this is something gets us caught in the ideals and beliefs, where having our own is what makes a family, but this is not true, family is everyone not a selected few.
Many of these must do or have ideals and beliefs are locked up in the assumption that we only have one run at it – knowing this is not the case and that we live in a cycle of life frees this.
That’s great Gyl. I can relate to this being a 36 year old woman. I feel like I’ve let go of the expectation that I will have children of my own, and like you have realised that I have a very natural mothering energy and with the opportunity to be around so many of my friends children, I feel like I get the chance to express that side of myself whenever the moment presents itself. Even with children that I just meet. It’s great to get past the need factor and just appreciate that whatever the outcome, everything is as it’s meant to be.
It is really lovely to hear about how settled you now feel in your body, Gyl, without the tension or pressure of any pictures about being anything but your glorious self.
I agree Janet, such a beautiful support and inspiration Gyl offers other women by claiming herself in this true way.
‘It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body, where I am actually now able to fully claim my choice that I don’t need to physically have a child to feel complete.’ – Beuatiful Gyl, if we as women learnt to truly appreciate all that we already are, it would guarantee our self worth as well as a true understanding that we are already complete just the way we are.
It is not unusual that women in their late thirties and today also early forties want to become a mother for very ‘questionable’ reasons in the sense of needing it for their own emotional desire and picture. This often relates to a desperation and sadness or emptiness in the woman and also comes with a lack of consideration for the partner and child to be. Honesty as presented here in this blog is truly key to set oneself and everyone involved free of the imposing picture and need.
Absolutely, getting caught up in those ideals, beliefs and pictures that most of us hold around how we want our lives to pan out, and how we think we need it to pan out so that we fit in and don’t feel there is something wrong with us if we choose another way, or our way doesn’t look like another’s. Love doesn’t need any pictures, or anything at all, it is complete within itself and is everything.
I have always felt there was a mercenary element in some starts of relationships, something I never quite understood but had to deal with. However, wanting to have children seems to be quite a reasonable wish to have.
Having gone through the process of child-birth twice, and even though I only had 2 hour deliveries and no drugs, I found it to be an intense experience which left my body not quite the same as before birth. I am not saying that holding a little babe in your arms isn’t very beautiful, but we can relate with other people’s children without needing to experience all that the body goes through to birth a baby.
‘I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’ – Living authoritatively and responsibly, knowing that you are a role model for everyone around you is a natural way to parent!
Gyl, this is really beautiful and feels very true; ‘mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy or quality we all can offer, live and hold others in, no matter whether we have biological children or not.’ Working with children I can feel how I can live this mothering energy with all the children I meet and that it is not true or loving to only live this mothering quality with my biological son.
Gyl your sharing is so important for both women and men worldwide, if we appreciated and understood the fact that we are all parents all the time it would take a huge pressure off the need to have children and in that the quality of parenting would be one of what is true and not one of need.
So much of what we do as humans comes from a need or ideals and beliefs, when it is time we re-wrote the rule book and the only rule is true love.
I used to think I wouldn’t feel complete if I didn’t have children and then interestingly enough, after having a family, that feeling of emptiness and not good enough didn’t disappear until I started to understand what true love is. I started to discard all the false ideals and beliefs I adopted and started living more connected to love. This process of healing is thanks to the amazing teachings from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, continuously inspiring me.
Yes, nothing heals the emptiness except truth and love. It can take a while to realise.
Needs and their projections can be super harmful to those who are naive to it.
It is a different perspective to most to live in the ‘energy’ of being a mother or father. It is a solution and a simple way of being compared to all other known and other not so aware behaviours we live that keep us from connecting to what and who we are already within.
What stood out was you recognising the pressure that was taken off your female organs. This highlights how much we drive ourselves when we are in need and is no wonder these parts of our body end up with the diseases that women are encountering more and more. To live in true connection with our body which leads to making choices are then true for our body is certainly the way to go for true joy and vitality. Thank you Gyl – a valuable blog for many.
It’s interesting, Gyl, how you have felt the difference in your female organs since letting go the need to be a biological mum, and to consider what other false beliefs we hold onto that create tension in the body.
Agree Janet, tensions and blocks that make our bodies heavy and our bones, joints and organs ache.
Yes Susan and we are constantly fed images and pictures, ideals and beliefs from society that tell us how life should be which are often very different as you say to the truth we can actually feel is right for us in our bodies.
Whenever we have pictures or expectations or needs in our heads about how things should be or need to be, it creates a pressure in a relationship that can be felt in the body.
So true Andrew. How much illness and disease is likely to be connected to this dynamic alone.
Gyl is beautiful to start to appreciate “The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids” , as knowing what you do and how you connect with so many children it really highlights the importance of being open to appreciate that we are always a mum and a dad regardless of having kids or not ourself, we always hold that responsibility.
Appreciation is like a medication and done in truth it certainly is healing. So appreciating us as women is a way to accept our amazingness as beings expressing our femaleness independent of being biological mothers or not .
I can relate to what you’ve shared Gyl, letting go of expectations from society and from ourselves frees us up and supports us to appreciate who we are and feel the joy from within. It is inspiring to know and to appreciate that we are already enough just the way we are.
Yes Gyl, the quality of love and inspiration we can bring to one another does not need to have a badge or title.
The true harm of such ideals and beliefs is revealed when you can see the turmoil they create when they are not released in this way.
I have a friend who for his own personal reason doesn’t want to have kids, and his relationships always break down due to his partners having the expectation his mind will change even though he has been up front from the start. I’m not sure what it means but it certainly shows the strain there can be when the potential to have children is raised in a relationship and how important it is to clock how we feel about our desire to raise a child..
From reading this blog, I now realise, that one of the greatest gifts my father presented to me in my early twenties, was him alerting me to be aware of the pressure from the expectations of society, friends or family about having children, and to never give into this, if it did not feel true to me to do so, and to honour that, no matter what others may have to say about it.
“You know in your late thirties where many women panic and their body clock, or head, I should rightly say, starts ticking to the wrong time, of ‘I won’t be able to have kids soon’, and for some, devastation and a ravaging need kicks in, as many of us believe we are not complete as a woman without children.” Thank goodness this never happened to me. I watched all my friends pop off and get married and have children, all following suit-however, this ‘routine’ or familiar, expected ‘route’, never felt true to me. I am a teacher and all the children in my care are loved and cared for as my own. This always felt so natural to me.
You reveal the personal agendas that can so easily slip into our partner relationships, but highlight here also how awareness of them, can free us up to joyfully embrace all that we bring to any relationship.
“Need is not love.” There is so much to explore about these 4 words and seemingly insignificant sentence but it is the basis on which all true relationships are built.
This blog flips many of us women right out of those roles we have sought in order to get the love that we crave from others. But rather than coming from an emanation from within we seek it from without.
The ideals, beliefs and pictures we have around how things ‘should be’ in our lives, are heavy burdens to carry.
I am starting to honor the feeling that I have always felt when someone is loving me from a sense of need.
It has been easy to accept this form of not true love in the past, because that has been my experience of love mostly. I was settling for less.
Because of my recent choices of wanting to know the real truth, I have been discarding all the stuff I took on so I did not have to feel the fact that I was settling for less.
Now I am committed to calling out anything that does not feel right. That is not love.
It is how I was as as child.
This is all I need to do to truly make a difference in the world.
I am in the most beautiful, honouring loving relationship with my husband, we talk about having children and we know for sure if we ever decide to have children it would be because of true purpose rather than out of any form of need.
All the things we accept or tolerate just so we can fit in and feel like we are normal and not stand out, or rock the proverbial boat. All the while, going against what we may otherwise truly feel to please another, or the world’s ideals of what it means to be a mother and be a complete woman. It’s such an illusion.
A great expose’ Gyl of the very real and vast difference between need and love.
It is so great to read one woman willing to be so open on a topic that can be considered taboo. Not wanting to have children has always been a big moment of truth I never shared in my 30’s as I knew the ridicule and judgement that would come from many even though I found parenting and nurturing children so easily. There is much here to ponder on the idea that having a child is the only way you can be seen to be the true parent and all other relationships are of not the same standing. Could this be the reason why our communities are falling apart and many families are thinking that they have to go it alone?
I can imagine how hard it would be to attempt to grow and develop a new relationship under the weights both the man and woman can bring to the table – expectations not just around children but all the other ideals we take on and try to live up too – from the first date we are already ticking off our check list and trying to pigeon hole the relationship into the pictures of the future we have built up
Well said Rebecca! What an accurate description of how we diminish the potential of relationships through these means.
I enjoy my mothering qualities as much as my fathering ones and so I do in everyone else; it is indeed a quality lived, emanated and expressed, not a gender thing.
That’s a great point Alex, true mothering quality is a quality we live and this is a choice all equally have, regardless of gender or whether or not we have given birth to our own children.
I find it is actually fine to start a relationship with heavy stuff hanging around, provided we are honest and deal with issues as they come up. We are not perfect and when getting together with a childless woman in her mid-30s to early 40s it would be expected to be a major issue by most men.
Through building a bedrock of self love we are able to wisely observe our behaviours and clock when & if a choice comes from need. I am reminded of the words of a wise Renaissance man; “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself”.
There must be so many reasons why people have children that are not even recognised. It’s seen as just the thing that you do. How wonderful it would be to stop and consider and make a true choice to have a child rather than from a place of automatic.
This is true Rebecca how the reasons why we want children are not recognised. Could this be because we are so far away from ourselves that so many behaviours and choices are accepted as normal?
Gyl I am very much shocked how much pressure some women have to get pregnant. Even though I am a woman I did not feel this pressure in myself as I never wanted to be a mother. Even when I was I child I played that I went out to earn the money. It is important to share what happens in a women body if the pressure of getting pregnant is there so that other women can feel and choose a different way. Thank you so much for not holding back to share all of your experiences as they are very helpful to understand it in full.
“So in all truth, was I truly meeting my partners and seeing them for who they are as a person, how truly lovely they are, and all that they bring, or was I seeing them in some areas of our relationship as someone to fill my needs?”
What a question to be asking yourself! And if many people answered in truth as well, my guess is there would be a lot of looking to someone to fill their needs. I know I have done that with partners in the past.
Indeed, the true answer would be a big ouch for most of us.
A very beautiful sharing Gyl. What a wonderful realisation and awareness you have come to in that parenting is first and foremost an energetic quality. A quality that we can all hold irrespective of the biological relationship. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and your wisdom.
Shirley, that is very true.
There is an enormous pressure we put on ourselves as women, especially around our biological clock and the need to have children. One of the first questions people ask about another, is do you have any children. I am asked this all the time and I used to justify it by saying ‘no but I have step -children?’ because I didn’t want to feel there was something wrong with me. Sometimes we are given the grace not to have children, that it is not our time, and that there are other things we need to focus on or to heal. In my early 30’s I made a choice not to have children as I felt I there was too much of myself that did not feel right, and this would hold me back from being a loving and supportive mother and this was the time to work on me.
It’s true that we are all parents whether we have our own children or not. Every encounter we have with a child will in effect be of a parenting capacity.
This is powerful to hold and remember for all children and if we all did this more often imagine how children would flourish.
Gosh just this sentence…”need is not love” would change the world if we all truly understood its meaning.
It never occurred to me before Gyl, how the uterus, ovaries and cervix would feel burdened by this urgent need to bear children. As I read it my body felt the impact. How many women feel that need and become obsessive and go to fertility clinics, not willing to adopt but wanting to bear the baby themselves.. It has much to do with the feeling in the body that can be misinterpreted as you describe. But imagine how, if a woman is undergoing fertility treatment and frequently it does not work and they try several times, the desperation they talk about, the single point outcome. What you share expands our understanding of the energy of motherhood, and the all embracing feeling in the whole of the body replaces any personal agenda, and there is no need to be supplied with love from others, we are full and complete. This blog would be healing for so many women.
Even at thought I am only 20 I have already felt the pressures to have children – when I say that I am not interested in having children I am met with the ‘you’ll feel different when your older’ and ‘you can’t know that’ and ‘you’ll change your mind’ – no one is interested in why I dont feel to have children, if it is right for me.
Need is felt from miles away, and to a child can be particularly unhealthy if they take it on.
I also feel there has been a pressure taken off my female organs – my ovaries, uterus, and my breasts – they feel more like part of my body than they ever have done. This makes so much sense Gyl if we are hold something under the intention of only giving us something there is no true appreciation or connection to that body part and therefore no honouring of it. Which would be a tension when the need is not fulfilled.
As you say both mothering and fathering are energetic expressions and therefore can be expressed equally by both men and woman.
It is interesting how you write now that the pressure has been removed you can feel just how big the pressure was. I too have noticed in many areas how often only when something that was weighing us down is removed do we feel just how heavy it was. It can be quite exposing to see what we accepted as “normal” and didn’t choose to be aware of the extent of the imposition.
What a beautiful and honest exposing of ideas and beliefs and how they affect and rule our lives and the freedom and understanding that comes from truly seeing them for what they are . The real appreciation and love for ourselves and all we bring seems to shine out here and is an inspiration for us all.
I totally get what you are saying Gyl, the unspoken underlying children question when you are going into relationships used to always be there. Both men and women have it as we are spoon feed that this is what we need to be doing. Letting go of this ideal and belief has changed my life, my relationship with myself and with men also.
I know from a young age that I wanted to be a father – and thus at a young age I had created an image. Was it a need at that early age? Possibly not, but it very well can be. While we have hopes for the future, we are still living in the present – this is an interesting lesson for me.
Gyl, your honesty and openness on another taboo topic is inspiring. You offer so much to others in this piece – whether it is people relating to your experience, be inspired by it or simply using it to begin talking about how they feel. Very cool.
As adults we all have so much wisdom to offer any child or another adult for that matter. Our true parenting skills need to be shared and utilised whether we have our own children or not.
This is such a hugely empowered position to be in and something that happens when we let go of beliefs and ideals.
My (biological) daughters have many beautiful and powerful female role models in their lives, who have consistently inspired and nurtured them. This feels like such a blessing, and as it should be, and now they in turn bring that support and mothering energy to others.
That is gorgeous Janet. We are so much richer when we open our hearts to receive the love and inspiration from everyone in our lives and also we open ourselves to provide the same for others.
There was a time where large families were needed to work and support the family. Progress marches on, and life becomes the; Wife, Husband and 1.8 children at the end of the last Century. The 21st Century, you may own a car and live in a big city, but you don’t need to drive. Being able to have children is now a choice. Some will still hold to old values and beliefs that if you have a car, you must drive it! If you feel you need to drive, you can always borrow a friends car and still treat it with love, just as if was yours.
Love what you are suggesting here Steve. Indeed, we are all parents, equally of all of us.
Your blog Gyl shows to me once again that while we are already everything we would ever want to be from within, we are in the need of having these fulfilled from the outside instead. Us not connecting with these inner qualities but instead buying in the images that are presented to us by society we put a lock on this door to our inner qualities which makes us to have these to be fulfilled from the outer instead. How tiring this is Not that strange that so many people live in exhausted and depleted bodies because of their strive to fullfillment from the outside in while this only can be done from the inside out.
I too held myself as a lesser woman because I have not had a child. However, the esoteric healing modalities have empowered me to realise this belief and deeply heal it. My worth as a woman does not hinge on motherhood it naturally arises from my deeply innate nurturing qualities that I can now express with everyone in my life, regardless of age, gender or nationality. This is a worth we are all entitled to know and re-connect to, biological mother or not.
How we are with ourselves sets a firm foundation for all other relationships. how we are with ourselves is strongly felt by children so our responsibility here is huge and a great opportunity for learning from reflection and evolution all round.
I know it’s a big part of any women’s life when she decides whether to have children or not. Most women do not see it as a choice. If you can have them you do, unless your body is unable to conceive. It’s very rare that a woman actually makes a choice not to have children. This is a choice I actively made in my late thirties. I knew it didn’t feel right for me, so claimed it. It felt so much more true than staying with the indecision.
Yesterday I came across a video on the web that had clips of young children’s comments. One of them was a toddler crying her eyes out saying “But I don’t want to have children” while her father was trying to console her by saying it’s okay you don’t have to have any children! I was staggered, by the reflection of how deeply and early we can feel these pressures. Also if we let ourselves feel, how well we can actually tell that they are an imposition.
When we ‘need something’ we are in effect confirming to ourselves we are not enough – what a true antidote to this imagined lack Gyl; “appreciating and valuing what I already bring and live. I hadn’t been valuing or giving myself credit for this.”
Many of us do not consider why we are having children, we just have them because we think that is ‘just what you do, you get married and have kids’. We need to expose this belief system and question whether having a child is what is actually needed.
“Children – not Needing to be a Biological Mum” – living life without neediness is so empowering to allow what is natural, to be.
When we bring our needs into any relationship, it muddies the waters, we have expectations our partners are unlikely to meet. Any need is likely to be simply a lack of our own connection within ourselves, and therefore it is only us who can satisfy it. Any neediness we bring puts pressure on our partners to be something other than who they naturally are and that creates dysfunction and misery.
I also feel there has been a pressure taken off my female organs – my ovaries, uterus, and my breasts – they feel more like part of my body than they ever have done. This makes so much sense Gyl if we hold something under the intention of only giving us something there is no true appreciation or connection to that body part and therefore no honouring of it. Which would be a tension when the need is not fulfilled.
I can relate to your blog Gyl, I had the same feeling towards finding a partner when I was single. What I realise now is that when I am loving and appreciating who I am I don’t feel the need to have certain relationships in my life to make me feel complete because I am already complete. I find we can easily fool ourselves in thinking we need this or that to feel full but our fullness can only come from within, from building a loving relationship with ourselves and appreciating that we are all already full.
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If, as women we are feeling a ‘need’ to have children to feel complete, I am realising how children come into this world, already loaded with expectations, even before they are born. That creates enormous pressure and a lot to live up to.
“the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many.” Very true Gyl and I completely agree. This sentence is such a powerful insight into how we loose sight of what we truly bring to all the children (and adults) in our lives because we have got stuck on the belief that we have to actually bear a child in order to be a mum. Breaking free of this consciousness is HUGE and when we do it brings an incredible lightness to bear in the true appreciation that mothering energy is a quality that is inherent in a woman’s body whether she has had a child or not, it is naturally part of us.
This article has made me stop and consider why I chose to have children, and in this to look at what underlying needs or agenda was I serving? Which begins a spin in my head of self-doubt and judgement. But then, when I come back to appreciation – for all that I am and have contributed, i can see that the children are not what has made me who I am and never could they. being a woman is an experience all of its own, so no matter whether children are ours or not, and whether we experience the intensity of biological motherhood or not, the journey of a woman back to herself is precious and unique to her.
I have felt this as a man also – when I was younger I always felt one day I would have children but as I have got a little older I can feel that the it may not be the purpose of my life to have children this time around. I love kids but don’t feel any need to have them.
This is so awesome to hear and read. We need all expressions of men in the world…men who have children and men who don’t. Those that don’t can bring a totally different flavour to the equation – both for children but also in enabling those men who feel the ideals and coercions into having kids, seeing that reflection and then beginning to feel free from such shackles.
Beautiful Gyl and what a process to share with the world. For so many women this is such a challenging time of life. I am a single mother in may mid thirties and I get asked a lot if I want more children and what would happen if I met a man who either did or didn’t want children. They are genuine questions to ponder and I don’t at all mind being asked, but at this age it can be such focus.
It can be devastating when we have lived our lives based on pictures from a young age to learn that these pictures are not true.
Great article Gyl, and I really liked the clarification, “Need is not love”. Need creates such an expectation of others. It can be felt as you say which then creates a resistance in the one we have an expectation of so in fact we are pushing people away instead of allowing them to be. I have been on both sides of this many times myself and it is wonderful now to be able to discern the difference between them and address any need that may arise as it still sometimes does.
“I also feel there has been a pressure taken off my female organs – my ovaries, uterus, and my breasts – they feel more like part of my body than they ever have done.” This is huge considering how many women are suffering from diseases like endometriosis, irregular periods, cervical cancer, polycystic ovary syndrome etc. It makes me wonder how much our ideals and believes do contribute to this illnesses and how letting go of them can have a healing effect together with western medicine?
The need is where we get all caught in the drama, and wanted to be loved. It such a cycle to get caught in and the pressure we put ourselves to try and have a child.
“The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids, as I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do. I am already living this and have been for years, with all the children in my life. I have a natural rapport, and a mothering and parenting energy with children and teenagers that I hold them in, but I actually hadn’t stopped to appreciate and give myself credit for this – the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many.” Absolutely resonate with what you share Gyl I have too experienced the same. But now I can completely appreciate the mothering energy I bring and have been bringing.
This statement alone ‘Love is not need’ changes everything – so much of our lives and our ideas of love and expectations of it comes from the belief that it is about need – needing someone, needing attention, desiring someone, needing comfort and affection, needing another to fulfil you and make you complete. If we take all those things away, we are left with the responsibility to first and foremost fulfil ourselves, love ourselves, give ourselves care and affection so that when we are with another we need nothing and are therefor free to truly behold them and express love, and accept that expression of love in return
Great to read you write about this Gyl, often so much hangs on the pictures around motherhood, because we start to believe they are true. However what you share is that mothering is something we offer as a quality of being with children, it is not exclusive and it does not suddenly come about from the physical act of having a baby.
It would be of huge benefit for us to look closely at any and all of our needs, however great or small, as a need of any kind is an arrow pointing to something about us that is disharmonious. If we soothe the need by temporarily filling it then that gaping hole will reappear somewhere else further down the track. Much better to fill all holes with us and eradicate needs forever.
It’s really wonderful, Gyl, that you are appreciating and claiming the powerful role you play in the lives of hundreds of children, as an example for all of what true mothering is.
This is expressed in such a lovely, tender way. Nothing to add all said here. Truth expressed and lived by you. I can feel this deep inner freedom that you’ve come back to. Truly inspiring and so amazing the whole world should read this
As soon as we have a need, we can be tricked as to what is and is not, True.
Yes, parenting is a quality we all carry, not something you miraculously acquire when you have a child ‘of your own’, so it is great to talk about this and value the contribution we all make, and the responsibility we all have, to all the children we interact with.
Absolutely and nor is it a right that we just then have, as soon as our children are born. I know that I have to earn the right to call myself a father of three children and it is a daily commitment. If I’m not stepping up to that plate, then I’m not, in the true sense of the word, their father.
Gyl, the space that dissolving the belief has left you with feels cavernous and the sense of freedom that you now have feels limitless, a glorious sharing indeed.
I too have gone through the same process, do I really want to have children or was it the pressure from society, family and the like that made me feel the way that I did. It was a combination I later found out. With the support of Universal Medicine practitioners, I was able to feel more deeply what it meant for me and healed whatever was there to be healed, so that I could feel empowered in who I was with or without children.
It feels like it would be enormously healing for everyone, including all the unborn children, for us all to clear whatever baggage, ideals and beliefs, we are carrying so we feel empowered in ourselves irrespective of whether we then choose to have children or not. Allowing us all the freedom to lovingly offer ‘parenting’ to all children, unencumbered, whether they are biologically ours or not.
To live by a ‘body clock’ is a huge distraction and pressure. It’s impossible to enjoy life in full if you’re constantly working to a stopwatch, where our ‘youth’, beauty and vibrance is due to run out imminently and we have to fulfil our duty to become a mother before it does.
And who set the time on this clock anyway??!!
As you say we do not have to be a biological or foster parent to have or be in mothering or fathering energy but can instead of being this with 1 or 2 children or young people be it with everyone we meet. It is all of our responsibility to bring up the younger generations through how we are living and expressing each moment. What you share here is really important ‘it is more to do with appreciating and valuing what I already bring and live. I hadn’t been valuing or giving myself credit for this.’ To truly value and appreciate ourselves for all that we are not either being or not being a certain role! This is something I am still learning. I am also learning that true mothering and fathering energy has zero emotion in it but absolute love.
Love what you say here Vicky about it being our responsibility to bring up the younger generation – and that’s how I feel about others with my son. To be loved, supported and held by more than just his mum and dad is hugely important in his upbringing. Just as we’re all teachers in the world, we’re also all mums and dads.
Lovely to feel the joy in your appreciation of what you bring and lightness and spaciousness that offers not just you but everyone you are in relationship with. Such a contrast to the heaviness that is imposed on us by the images we grow up with of how our lives should pan out and when we don’t fulfil one aspect e.g. having a biological child then we put ourselves under the debilitating pressure of feeling a failure. Thank you for exposing how much everyone loses out when we are consumed by a neediness to do anything in our life rather than connecting to what we already bring and deeply appreciating that.
I used to offer Reflexology, and I used to see large numbers of women in their late thirties who were trying to conceive. The thing I noticed about all of them was how desperate they were to have a child. The desperation was palpable, and the want to have a child was at the forefront of everything, all consuming and not allowing them to think straight or value any other part of their life. Often it would be the pressures of family that had driven them to be in this position, but often too would be their own feeling of worthlessness if they did not become a mother. So much is exposed through this. As women there is so much more to us than this.
‘I have always carried a need to have a child, which has not come from a true impulse, but from wanting someone to love in the way I was not loved’. It it also true that some women, because of early childhood experiences, reject becoming a parent fearing they may repeat behaviours inflicted on themselves. Both positions are false because they rely on images in our head and false ideals and beliefs. If women simply felt what is true for them and chose from there it would relieve the pressure they place on themselves.
Yes, Elizabeth, this is true. Like you I don’t have children of my own but have supported parents and their children and it’s been a true blessing.
“So in all truth, was I truly meeting my partners and seeing them for who they are as a person, how truly lovely they are, and all that they bring, or was I seeing them in some areas of our relationship as someone to fill my needs?” What a fabulous question Gyl and one that I can benefit from asking myself.
Gyl you have exposed and laid bare a destructive belief that eats away at not only millions of women but millions of couples. This is a very important topic indeed as the behaviours and emotions of many are tangled up in this erroneous belief. Your writing offers people a way out of the illusion by supporting them to step into the light of truth.
Absolutely Alexis, it’s a topic that is hugely accessible to women world wide, this is what Women’s magazines could be offering and inspiring – real people, real honesty and purpose. http://www.wilmagazine.com
“I also feel there has been a pressure taken off my female organs – my ovaries, uterus, and my breasts – they feel more like part of my body than they ever have done” – fascinating Gyl, and also fascinating just how much ideals, beliefs, desires, pictures can all sit there taking residency in replacement and freeness of sole, self-ownership (!!)
Very true Gyl – settlement and completion in the body gives the space for whatever is needed to be done – whether that is to physically give birth to a child or not.
Just reading some comments and really appreciating that I do parent other children, be they kids who play on my street just yesterday and this morning I stopped boys from ‘play fighting’ there was nothing in me that treated these children different to my own child, I felt the responsibility to parent them equally. Very cool when you stop and feel what it would be like if everyone felt the same responsibly for a ‘strangers’ child as we are all one brotherhood, these family ties are simply manifestations of erroneous ideas of separation.
Thankyou Gyl for your words. There is a great strength that comes from knowing that who you are is enormously more than enough.
Yes Shami, thank you for highlighting this. We are all already enough but our society doesn’t support us to know, live and celebrate this. This blog and the comments here confirms that we are and in truth we know this to be true when we connect to our hearts there is no doubt that we are all already enough.
When you describe the intense need when meeting and dating someone you can feel why this way of being rarely works out for either party! Exhausting and so untrue but yet that is what is pretty much normal. It feels to me that we are run by images of how things should be more than we will admit.
I know from my own experience this way of being does not work. Having spent years not natural impulsed to have children of my own, in my thirties, I suddenly felt ‘time was running out’ and moved into a different energy stream that that told me I needed to have a child. It was very damaging for the relationship I was in at the time and me personally. In my case, nature stepped in and a hysterectomy abruptly ended this need. I felt immense relief after surgery, a weight taken off my shoulders: all the self imposed pressures simply melted away. I felt free.
And even after a hysterectomy we can still face family pressure and expectations, as I did. My mother expressed disappointment for me, perceived I was incomplete without a child of my own, said it was still possible and prayed for a miracle. Fortunately for me, because I fully accepted what happened, I understood where my mother was at, but not affected by it.
It is often not understood that a woman would choose not to have simply because that’s what felt most honouring and purposeful to them and because of the pictures and expectations imposed by ideals and beliefs.
Whether to have children or not has been a bit of a mystery to me. I don’t have children but don’t miss them – it has simply never happened and the opportunities I had didn’t feel right to pursue in my particular case.
Thank you for sharing this Gyl – what you say here resonates with me deeply. ‘… I have learnt that mothering and parenting, is an energy and expression first – way before it is about what you do’ – You are so spot on – it is an energy and expression first. If we hold onto the fact that we can only talk to our kids a certain way if they are our kids, then we miss out on delivering the truth to all kids. It is awesome to free yourself of the belief that a woman needs to have kids, and I love how you are a mother to so many kids just by the quality you live and express in.
Imposing needs on one another kills every intimacy and love that otherwise would have the chance to blossom. Many needs we are not even aware of but nevertheless they are constantly present in every interaction overlaying the true essence within that is already complete. Discarding the needs allows reconnecting to the inner essence as you describe and from there to relate with people genuinely.
This is an important blog that every woman should read. So many relationships must be led by these beliefs, and the pressure that is placed on the relationships to live up to this is immense.
Yes Rebecca’s is crazy how we women get caught in then and go into the motion without realising we evening doing that, as it such a norm out their. Until we really stop to clock what is going on.
For too many years, women have given their power away to waiting for ‘the one’, rather than claiming ‘I am the one’. It’s great to let go of the old ideals and beliefs and step into our true purpose, which may or may not involve having partners, children, families…no pictures.
Janet…this rings so true with me. For years I was waiting for that perfect partner to appear and when this didn’t materialise I was forced to look inward and reflect deeply on my need to fill a picture that was in itself false. In the past, I never fathomed it could be possible to be content living a life being single with no children and yet, I now know this is not only possible but also liberating too!
‘Not needing to be a mum’ offers us an opportunity to not be defined by role, but stay open and be in loving relationship with everyone we meet.
Gyl, i can relate to what you describe having not had children of my own. At the same time I treasure the many relationships I’ve had with children and can appreciate the support I gave them and their parents especially when they were young and during teenage years.
We are, after all just one large family, all 7.5 billion of us!
Being a guy I never felt the tinniest bit of pressure or need to have a child, or carry on the family name so to speak, as my siblings had all been good breeders so my wife and I got to choose when the time was right for us and we had a gorgeous little girl who does have the opportunity to be parented by more people than just us which is so great.
Kevin, this is beautiful.
Gyl, I can feel that if we as women appreciated ourselves for who we are and all that we bring and our amazing qualities then there would not be this ‘need’ to have children, we would have children if it felt right for us, not out of feeling less or incomplete if we don’t have them; ‘But we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already bring as a woman.’
Thank you Gyl, as I read your blog I was able to connect to and feel the most beautiful quality of mothering in my body.
When we are part of a family we all take the roles of supporting one another and what we have to offer our young and old. Being a parent or not is only in the print work. When we get caught in roles and expectations our ability to provide true inspiration is limited and the quality we live in is far from what we know is our true potential.
And allows for what is true and deeply natural to take place in its own space and time with the full honouring of everyone involved -starting with self.
‘mothering, fathering and parenting is an energy or quality we all can offer, live and hold others in, no matter whether we have biological children or not.’
This is a huge truth that society is as a whole is truly yet to accept. As you have shared there are many ideals and beliefs around mothering and fathering, the should dos the need to dos and the think we have to dos but these are all imposed and not from truth – yet one of the many things we have used to fill our own emptiness of not living the grand love that we each have within. Thank you for sharing Gyl.
There is a belief even if you have children that you cannot parent, mother or father a child that is not ‘yours’. For example, friends of your biological children, it’s like there is this invisible societal wall in between you as the adult and child or teenager, and you are not allowed to hold them in the same love and support as you do your own children. I have experienced stepping through this wall and enjoy many close and open relationships with other people’s children and treat them the same as my boys.
We nearly all grow up with the ideal and belief that the way to be truly fulfilled is by being a parent. This being imposed on us from when we are very young and then we often continue this behaviour by imposing these ideals and beliefs on others, this then puts us under an enormous pressure, which in fact generally relates to our need to fit in with what is seen as being ‘the normal’ and of which we may not even be aware, until we let go and instead begin to value ourselves by accepting and appreciating what we can bring with our own unique expression. “that love starts with our self, not needing another to love you or needing for you to love another. Need is not love.”
Interesting topical post Gyl, being a biological mother (or father) — what I took from this post is when you said about the fact that you have already (energetically) a mothering quality about you and it’s the word ‘parenting energy’ , its genderless quality which really resonated. We all have this true parenting quality when we let go of it only being about those we give birth to/or are our kids.. and hence the neediness to have kids to validate we have this quality. When we truly parent ourselves to begin with, the neediness to validate ‘parenting’ through another human body/child, goes.
‘many of us believe we are not complete as a woman without children’ …. yet, as a mother, the same lack of appreciation for ourselves as a woman can still exist. Yes, we tick the box as in we have our own children, but I know from experience, it is very easy to put everyone else first and before you know it, you don’t even know who you are anymore, other than the person who takes care of everyone else, other than themselves. In truth we are custodians of the precious bundles of joy who have chosen us as parents, there is no ownership there. We are all equally able to ‘parent’ and often children listen more to those who aren’t their ‘parents’.
We as women in society commonly put children and most people before ourselves. It is truly empowering to appreciate and love yourself as this is then the quality I have found is what gets brought to others. The deeper we self care then the deeper we care for others.
I am appreciating how this blog is allowing me to go to a new level of honesty with myself as a mother and as a woman. I realise how much time I have spent talking about my children. When I meet someone for the first time, conversation often revolves around children – maybe to gauge whether there is a common link somewhere, but what I am feeling is how convenient that can be, to talk about others rather than myself, also how exclusive it is, particularly if other people do not have any children. How much have I hidden behind my children, in conversation and in terms of appreciation. It feels like, until I met an amazing man called Serge Benhayon, I appreciated my children more than I appreciated myself.
Wow what a revelation Alison. Much can get hidden and imposed under the house of being a mother or father. I too have exposed much falseness around mothering over the years and as a direct result of the quality shared by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine presentations. A great blessing and reflection of true parenting.
The truth is, it really doesn’t matter whether a person is biologically related to us. I have received the most amazing mothering support from a woman who I have known for just over a year
This is worth talking about – the need to have children in order to fulfil an emptiness in one’s own life; and this can be the case for a man as much as for a woman.
I can relate to what you have shared here and that feeling of measuring someone up on the first date to see if they will be ‘the one’. In this you are living by all these pictures and ideals and as you share it imposes on the other and it doesn’t allow you to get to know each other and build a true relationship, instead the relationship is based on getting the pictures met.
I found this blog to be honest and confirming in regards to what it has been/is that our society has in the past placed as an imposing set of belief systems and ideals upon the young women of the world. Thank God and Serge Benhayon for exposing these myths. I drifted into motherhood for a couple of reasons – one being ‘that is what young women do’ – for that is their purpose on this planet, and the other would be that I was seeking for something to ‘love me and need me’ – unbeknownst really, but that was the truth as I look at it now after being a student of ‘The Way of The Livingness’ and garnering a better understanding of my behaviours and patterns in this life thus far. I loved this blog as it offers a clear, very re-freshing and inspiring perspective on the choices that we all have.
These ideals of what we think we need to be as a woman are deeply imbedded in us. I recently had another reminder that even thou I seemed fine with not having children, deep down there was still a little part of me that couldn’t quite accept that this was going to be reality. Once I clocked this then I was willing to feel how that had still had a hold over me.
An awesome sharing Gyl… how not only the physical pressure on our bodies of those ideals and beliefs are literally removed when we truly let go, but how the emotional, mental and psychological pressure is also removed – no wonder we feel so much lighter and more spacious!
What a beautiful awareness to be shared. This is truly lovely to read and feel, where appreciating what we already are as we are, dissolves the pictures of what we think we should be.
The more we allow ourselves to embrace our inner qualities which also include our natural mothering and fathering then we actively claim this with others. Just the other day I saw a man be so tenderly and carefully engaging to his step daughter that it was impossible to not see and feel the true fatherly quality he is sharing with her and the surrender and love she shared with him.
I always ‘wanted’ to have 3 children, but after having my first child, it never felt right to have more, though my body would have been fully capable and though a part of me still wanted to have more. I had to really sit with where this need was coming from and really learn to respect what was really there for me to embrace and understand. And part of this was a resistance of actually loving and caring for myself – as you mentioned in your blog Gyl, we often crave to give a chid the ‘love we never had’ but the crazy thing is that it is actually about giving this to yourself first and foremost, and then from there the ‘need; seems to evaporate!
So true Gyl – it’s gorgeous to look after children and often offering to look after the kids for a few hours can be such a huge support for full time parents!
The pressure for women to have children is an invisible one that is felt from day one, unlike the pity that is often expressed by those that do towards those that don’t which is clearly seen and felt when the question ‘do you have kids’ is answered as a ‘no’ when in your 40s and earlier. But a woman claimed in her choice will reflect to others that there is a choice and that parenting is not the sole reserve of those with children but a universal responsibility we all have.
The need to be a biological mum can blind us to the fact that we are already a ‘mum’ and have a responsibility to parent all kids. We can be such an important role model when we do not limit ourselves to blood relatives
Having an understanding and acceptance of reincarnation certainly supports the understanding that it is not everyone’s journey to have children every lifetime.
Gyl, this is an awesome blog that all women need to read, regardless of having had children or not. For the ‘need’ that you talk about is not necessarily ‘satisfied’ by the act of birthing one child – it can keep hounding you as a woman. I know of women who have had child after child and still have a feeling of incompleteness without another one. And I too have had the very familiar feeling that you talk about, the feeling of ‘needing’ to get pregnant or to have a child, and this is an imposition on ourselves as women as well as on our partners when it is not coming from a true impulse. Talking about this is super important, and this way we all can explore the many facets that are part of this scenario.
How strong and powerful are our ideals and beliefs that they can impact our bodies to this degree… and how strong and powerful are we without all these ideals and beliefs – when we truly value and appreciate ourselves and all that we bring.
This is so true and such an important point – that need is not love. In fact, it is our lack of love being expressed, the withholding of our own love that leads to the ‘need for love’ in the first place. Love is the essence of who we are and if we starve ourselves of openly expressing something that is so innate and natural to us, it makes sense that we will ‘go out’ searching for it elsewhere. And this is where the great illusion lies – in seeking outward for a love that lives within.
True mothering energy is the ability to hold another in a way that they surrender to the multi dimensional being that they innately are.To hold them in their essence and never any thing less. It does not matter if it is a child we have birthed or another child or friend or colleague we all have the responsibility to ‘mother’ others in the true sense
Pure gold Mary-Louise.
This is very beautiful Mary-Louise. As mothers we are always able to deepen our mothering qualities always and with everyone around. At times I find this easier to be with people not from blood, but all relationships are one relationship so when we truly deepen, holding ourselves in our own multi-dimensionality, this quality changes with everyone and no matter how another responds to us we are able to appreciate and deeply hold ourselves.
To truly arrive at a place in oneself where you can appreciate the beauty of yourself as a woman first before doing anything, or being identified by any role, including being a mother is confirming of the truth we are. This is a great article Gyl, and as you have found parenting is something we can do regardless, it is a quality of energy we can hold another in.
I used to feel a strong need to have children because I thought I would feel more fulfilled as a woman and as a person. But then, when I realised my desire for having children was not coming from a truth but rather an ideal and a picture of what I though life should be like the liberation I felt was amazing. I felt an absolute joy in the ‘not having my own children!’ but quickly came to the conclusion that I too am also a parent of all the children I come into contact with.
What we miss is a deeper love we can give to ourselves and to others. Living that there is no more need.
What a beautiful blog, we are all parents in our OWN right. It is so important to not put any belief before that which we truly are. Coming to terms with our ideals is supporting us immensely.
There is so much to disband about parenting and being a parent, I personally don’t have an attachment to being a parent but can feel the wonder it may hold. But more important I feel is to break down that narrow view that is common where we only want to parent our own child and nothing and no-one else matters. I love hearing stories of the old tenements of the 50s and 60s where families looked out for other kids, keeping an eye on one another children and essentially providing multiple parents for each child. We seem scared to parent children these days who are not our own for fear of a backlash, but that is something we badly need and would be of great value to the children growing up.
The expression ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ is well-known and this adds a gorgeous and profound element to this saying. You are so right – energetically we can all hold the quality of parenting – mothering and fathering energy – and when that comes without need, and in the essence of true love, what a village we will raise.
“…the acknowledgment that we are all parents regardless of whether we have our own biological children to take care of.”
This is a very important statement Michelle! I know that I held back for a long time to actually ‘parent’ the children around me, thinking that because I am not a mother, I am not really capable and shouldn’t interfere. So your statement is very empowering and very needed as well for all of us to take more responsibility in that sense.
I’ve heard many conversations where couples have been asked when they are going to have children, as if its a foregone conclusion. The expectation is very imposing. As you say Gyl, that mothering or fathering energy is available regardless of if we have our own children or not.
Thank you Gyl for your honest and personal sharing on how mothering is an energetic quality that everybody can develop whether they have biological children or not.
And on a personal account I have to add that we can even have mothering issues and over-mother people without having children, a pattern I had to overcome in myself.
It sounds like the expectations blind us to the fact that we are already are what we are trying and pushing to achieve.
Thank you Gyl – we all have equal responsibility to reflect truth and remember that we are always role models to children.
Completely agree that parenting is an energy and most are parenting from the energy of need. It is really insidious how we run our lives according to images of what we think it should be instead of appreciating what we have.
Gyl, the transparency and honesty with which you share yourself so openly is absolutely gorgeous. I feel I know you deeply even though I’ve never met you. And it’s amazing to consider that when we do share so openly the message is universal, it’s actually for everyone. So thank you for sharing from your fragility and preciousness – back to these same qualities in us all.
Women and girls receive constant messages that being a mother is an essential part of life. I feel this is changing but it’s a long way from honouring how incredible and precious a woman’s body is. If we were taught that mothering is about a quality of energy and not the ability to raise a child things would be very different.
Amazing how we project our ideals and beliefs to construct relationships with ourselves, and others alike. It takes much honesty and humbleness to go beyond our wants and needs and see for ourselves what is really going on.
Parenting, mothering, fathering is an energy we offer. Wow. Humanity has a tendency to go the other way – go after an image, never mind the quality, and we keep wondering why we are left feeling empty.
Beautiful Gyl, what you share makes so much sense in the context of having kids, but what I get from all you say is there’s no one or nothing that can replace the knowing of our own sweetness and grace. I can get sucked in to needing the world to confirm who I am, but then can come back and suddenly see there is no race or approval I have to seek. Suddenly it’s like the clouds in the sky have moved to the side and I can see clearly again – I am a truly awesome guy.
Like everything, the choice to have children holds a great responsibility and is no more or less important than any other part of our life.
So very very true Vicky, beautifully said.
I have witnessed this truth in observing a woman I know. She could not have children of her own, but she was a true ‘Mother’ to many children. Her ease and acceptance of and with her circumstances meant there was no barrier to the love she offered.
Pictures Pictures…. How much do they really feature in our lives?
Great question indeed Michael – how much!
Well said, Gyl. You are such a powerful role model to all the children you have relationships with and teach, which as you say is going to a whole other level now that you are starting to truly appreciate all that you bring – thank you.
What you share about parenting being an energy first, this is so true. I have three children of my own, yet I have a very close relationship with many of their friends. When my eldest son was away for six months a few of them invited themselves over for dinner as they missed coming around! Thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon, I now understand that the love that I am is to be shared with all of humanity, unreservedly so. Just because I am not blood relations with someone doesn’t mean I love them any less.
This would be a fantastic article to share more broadly smashing the ideals, beliefs and pictures society places on women and their ‘primary’ role. To not have a biological child feels like a silence affliction, something not to be talked about. Life is about bringing all that we are – the love we are and what is chosen after that does not change our beauty.
This is beautifully shared Gyl ! I also agree that it would be so wonderful if those women and men who have not fulfilled what they see as their biological expectations to read and heal through your sharing . Everyone has their own journey but I feel many would relate very much to your story.
Brilliant blog, Gyl, thank you – this is a much needed conversation to have started. To be honest, I don’t ever remember asking myself whether I actually wanted children or not. As a young girl, I just assumed that I would, at some stage. I’m not suggesting that I would have chosen differently and decided not to have children, however, I’m appreciating just acknowledging that it would have been more honouring of me to have at least allowed the space to ask the question of my self.
What you expose here Gyl is that we think that we need certain things in order to be someone. But we are already. And we have plenty to offer through the quality that we bring. And nothing we gain, have or possess is what defines our quality. Our quality is who we are and not what we have made it to be.
Beautiful article Gyl. ‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids’. This is so true true Gyl – the true energy of parenting that has no ‘need’ attached to it and does not require biology – this is extraordinary and a huge experience for all those kids to feel and may well be a refreshing contrast to what they regularly experience. When a teacher recognises and lives what you have laid down here, then those children are extremely fortunate.
Yes Lyndy, a teacher is the perfect example of this, the influence (parenting) that any adult has who spends time in the company of children. Sometimes it is in the little things, not accepting less from the child in standards of behaviour, or recognising talents, or simply just being a steady reflection for them to feel they can trust.
Great sharing Gyl and very much needed so much of the time we put pressure and emphasis on something outside of ourselves we miss out on appreciating ourselves and what we have right before us.
This is so true James, and what a burden to carry this looking outside of ourselves has proven to be. So much easier when we embrace ourselves in full.
It was very beautiful to read this, particularly the word settlement it felt very confirming of what you have shared ‘It is this – appreciating and valuing what I bring and already live, that has brought a huge amount of space and settlement in my body,’ So expectations, pictures and needs yep all lead to … unnecessary pressure! I too do not have children of my ‘own’. When I was younger I definitely thought I would have them and wanted them but through disregarding lifestyle choices this did not happen. There was a phase when I went through a sadness about this but this has passed however after reading your blog I do not feel I have claimed this fully for myself. So for me not to have children was not a choice more through circumstance this did not happen, however, I feel I no longer hold any of this in my body more an acceptance of my life up to this point and an acceptance of the love I am.
‘Needing’ others only pushes people away and creates a chasm where we are on our own. As we learn to love and appreciate who we are innately life begins to fall into place and we can then allow the space for others in our life.
So true Susan. ‘Needing’ another in our life puts so much unnecessary pressure on both parties, and is literally exhausting.
Yes the moment it is from need there is a perceived feeling of lacking or not being enough. When we truly connect to ourselves and live and feel this then the need is gone and whatever may develop can in its own right.
There are so many limiting beliefs grouped into this ‘need’.
1- Family is limited to your partner and biological children, which means by default that the rest of humanity is not your family. As long as you focus on your chosen little patch, that is okay, job done. You can ignore everyone else.
2. The loving parenting energy that runs through us has borders and can be boxed into a neat package of ‘my children’. But the fact is that we have relationships with all children in our lives and also as Rachel Hall commented above also with many adults that we may be naturally supporting with parenting energy.
3- And to make it more ridiculous we have also the added belief that a woman is not complete without ticking the box for the neat happy family picture. And if she is not a biological mum there is something wrong with them.
I love it when conversations, such as this one, start to unpick the crazy limitations humanity has been shackling itself with.
We are already everything we need to be. Appreciating this truth cuts all the pressures we unnecessarily place on ourselves.
Hear hear, just so!
Yearning to have a child undermines the experience we’ve been given to live fully as a woman, with all life brings to us and can result in many ‘lost’ years. Letting go of yearning and feeling we are less without children does indeed create a spaciousness within and deepens the love we have for ourselves.
I never had the need to have children or wanted to have them yet I have always loved them and could relate to them well. It’s interesting how this brings another lot of beliefs and expectations from the world. It’s great Gyl that you have felt and understood how you were approaching having children and made that shift to the lightness and joy you feel now bringing this to the children at school and everyone in your life.
It is true Gyl, there is so much pressure as women to grow up and have children, and as the clock ticks so to speak the comments and unsaid but felt comments get louder. It is huge to come to the understanding and feel the need behind women wanting to have children, and to clear that in yourself. I am sure the children you do come in contact with will be picking up on this.
When we start to connect to and express our natural innate nurturing qualities as the wise women we are, we start to feel, we are all mothers and fathers, and we are able to hold others and allow them the space to be where they are at, ( so no judging or imposing, just simply allowing), whether we actually have children or not. People can feel that acceptance.
I remember someone saying to me that she could feel a very mothering energy from me. It felt amazing to hear that and then to feel how true that was- I hadn’t thought about that before then. Something definitely changed in my understanding of what it was to parent, and suddenly I felt that I had complete access to a world that I thought I had been closed off to. Thank you for the reminder that this is an enormous thing for us all to appreciate.
‘Something definitely changed in my understanding of what it was to parent, and suddenly I felt that I had complete access to a world that I thought I had been closed off to.’ This is beautiful Simone and realising we are parents to all children can then become a joy-filled responsibility.
This is great Gyl, the way I feel about having children is that my life is going to be incredible whatever happens, the details of whether I have a partner, or whether I have children almost don’t matter because this is my life and it’s magnificent and nothing can change that.
Gorgeous, Meg, to feel you claiming and living in the glory of who you are and what you bring to the world.
All you have expressed Meg should be a subject at school. Imagine then what relationships would be like and the intent behind starting a relationship with anybody.
That’s true – I don’t remember relationships even being mentioned in school, apart from maybe briefly in sex ed… Everything I learnt about relationships came from what I observed and what I learnt from movies and books. It would have been amazing for someone in school to have explained that life is not solely about having a partner and that life is magnificent, and that you are magnificent whatever you choose.
When we think about where our education comes from when we are teenagers it is no wonder we get so lost. Movies, music videos, magazines and now the Internet and gaming, often sponsored by the music, alcohol and porn industries themselves are not the type of education that is ever going to teach us about what is true. These industries are invested in particular lifestyle choices and keeping that alive, rather than the best interest of children and adults everywhere.
Agree Meg. I can relate here. When I spent a good 5 years without a partner I was able to fully feel and claim my yumminess. This supported me to accept the next relationship from a true place, one that confirms and has space to deepen without confinement or accommodation of the yumminess at all.
Love your expression and you claiming yourself in full – awesome!
Beautifully said Meg.
Beautifully expressed Gyl. The realisations you are coming to are profound.
“…..true love is: an emanation, a beholding quality we all can choose to live, that we all come from, that doesn’t involve a need for doing things or buying presents. And that love starts with our self, not needing another to love you or needing another for you to love”.
A beautiful expression of what love truly is and offers.
Doing is something that is a big one in general. Being identified and recognised for what we do rather than the truth of who we are.
Yes so true, and the learning to appreciate and acknowledge our selves for who we are and not for what we do is important for everyone, and with that we can hold others and all the children in the same Light.
The expectation that a woman should have children is very damaging. Although I have not suffered from feeling that pressure because I do have children, I can relate to letting go of beliefs that weighed heavy on me, and the difference it made to how I felt in my body when I let them go.
And after we have our first child then there is still the expectation and pressure often from self or family about having a second one! How wonderful to be free of this, especially when we realise what it is and how we do not need to be caged by this!
There is indeed a huge pressure on women to have children in society to the extent that they are not considered complete in their life unless they have them, but women are not born mothers, they are born as who they are and all women bring a mothering or nurturing energy with them to everyone they are with. This is the part of womanhood that all women are actually missing the most in my opinion – the mothering, nurturing aspect of themselves and if they started to reconnect to this quality that is naturally occurring in all women then the endless drive to do things, including the drive to have kids, would not be necessary. That is not to say that they would stop having kids or that having kids is a bad thing, just the drive to have them to feel complete as a woman would not exist.
Debra I grew up and from very young all the girls around me were expected to be “mummies” it was what everything thought needed to happen, there was no real space or discussion about not being a mummy. How amazing would it be if we as the current generation reflected back to kids that its not about having kids but about following what you feel is the responsible and deeply loving thing to do, something that will be different from one person to the next.
Gyl, what you are sharing here is huge, as you say from when we are little it is expected by the world that we will have children and this pressure certainly builds as we get older, it is very lovely that you are valuing yourself and know all you bring to the world as you are and that you are already complete without having a child.
“These many ideals and expectations, I, and the world had chosen to place on myself, were impacting on my relationships, and putting unseen pressures and expectations onto myself, my body and my partners, big time” I too have done this. Although not verbalised, these pressures are felt because as Einstein said “everything is energy.” Realising I even had these pictures and ideals was a first step to dismantling them.
“But we don’t value or appreciate ourselves and our bodies enough, and all that we are and already bring as a woman.” So true Gyl. Appreciation is so important – for everyone. Condemnation is rife – of ourselves, in homes and schools. yet appreciating oneself is often seen as being ‘up one self’. Time to change this – to appreciate our qualities for who we are – not for what we do.
Yes Sue, as long as we think we need something outside of us to give us value, whether that is a child or a job or a partner, we are missing out big time on the beautiful quality that is unique to us and that only we can bring into the world.
There is so much to appreciate about ourselves yet we don’t want to know. We take on so many ideals and beliefs and hold on to them that it becomes impossible to have any appreciation towards ourselves and even when we do we can feel guilty and shame for feeling it only because it is not the norm to feel and express love towards ourselves. If we do it is seen as selfish or ‘who do we think we are’ but the appreciation we can feel towards ourselves doesn’t have to be openly expressed even if others are not choosing it as we can quietly live it without any fuss or drama in our lives.
That is often the way with a lot of what we know and appreciate, to “quietly live it without any fuss or drama in our lives.”
Thank you Gyl it is devastating to feel the imposition that we place on ourselves and others to be biological parents and how this impacts our bodies and all our relationships. Appreciating what we already bring and letting go of any need to fulfill the pictures that we have taken on is key to healing any neediness that prevents us from living the joy that we innately are and sharing that with everyone.
This is a great article Gyl, we do need to dismantle the ideals and beliefs around the need to have our own kids. By taking away the old pressures and ideals and beliefs about having children we can then make a true choice whether it is right for us to have them or not this time round.
Very true Kev. It’s all about quality.
Responsible to all children – so true, and when we embrace this fully there does not need to be a wanting as we can hold them all equally in the Light that they are.
We naturally carry the mothering energy, it is in every cell of a woman’s body all we have to do is let go of the false ideal of being a mother, which is we have to have children or we are not mothers. This is very deep rooted in us and everywhere you turn this is what is portrayed in magazines books and the media and between each other. When we understand and accept re-incarnation we will know that there are lives when we will be mothers, and lives when we will not. This life I made a choice not to have children but this does not make me less of a woman and does not mean I don’t have the mothering qualities. I have recently married and my husband has two beautiful grown up daughters, to me they are my daughters too, no less because I have not carried them in my body. Gyl, I love the fact that once you were able to accept what you bring and that you already are a mother to thousands of children that this released you to heal the burden you were carrying of not having children.
“the pictures of being the ‘biological’ mum stopped me appreciating the mum I already was to many” and when we appreciate that we have a responsibility to parent all children we realise that this starts with truly parenting ourselves with love so that we offer a reflection to how to live as a family with all.
Mary I agree we need to start with ” with truly parenting ourselves with love so that we offer a reflection to how to live as a family with all.” without the true reflection we are harming ourselves and others.
That is a very beautiful realisation you have come to Gyl, that parenting is first a quality and something we can do with all children and it is not about having a child of your own for yourself.
Beautiful Lieke, parenting is a quality not restricted to having a child of our own but offered to all humanity and all children.
I agree, Lieke …..
‘The truth is I am actually already a ‘mum’ to thousands of kids,’ …. yes you are, Gyl, and what an amazing gift that is.
Yes I love that too – it is a quality and not depending only on ones own children or other people, it is a beholding of everyone equally so.
Yes the ownership game is what often lead us in the ideals and beliefs of others that many not be true to us.
Interesting Gyl, as what I read in this blog today is that we are already naturally mums and fathers actually for all children in the world and, that we actually do not need to to be the biological parent at experience this quality of ourselves in this. What is then the behaviour that tries to convince us that we need to have children and make this pivotal in our lives? Could it be that in fact with this behaviour we are trying to fill a need or an emptiness and with that are avoiding to live that life we naturally already are?
Very true Nico , its very possible the need and desire to have children for men or women is to delay or to be used as a distraction or to cover up the imination of the true love of each person.
Well said Nico. And if we human beings were truly willing to take on our parenting responsibilities perhaps the children in this world wouldn’t have so many challenges to contend with.
The is a valid point as the choices we make to make responsibility a priority will then make parenting a priority – it’s as simple as that!
I agree Nico. Are we allowing outside pressures to dictate who we are that then take us away from connecting to and appreciating what is innate within us? When we realize that we are all parents all the time and always have been, we embrace a true quality of care, awareness and responsibility towards our selves and one another that deepens the quality of our societies immensely.
The concept of parenting being an energy first may be very unfamiliar to many people as generally it is accepted that what is seen is the truth. But what if the seen part of our world is not the full picture? As with many pictures that have been fulfilled we are still finding emptiness in our lives.
Parenting as being an energy first so goes against all the attachments and ideals but what if we never don’t parent? How we are with our friends, our families, regardless of age, relationship could be in the parenting energy of supporting another to be all of who they truly are. What a difference this would make – so often people including myself are too afraid to make a comment because it isn’t their perceived place to do so.
Learning to appreciate and to value ourselves as the most amazing beings that we naturally are has the power to heal so many beliefs that we are holding on to; beliefs that can be so very debilitating and very destructive to us and to any relationships in our lives. How liberating it must feel in your body, Gyl, to have healed the deeply ingrained need to have children and instead to embrace all the children that come into your life, no matter for how long.
Just so – truly connecting to our essence deeply and fully can only but support us in letting go of beliefs that we need something in particular to feel whole or complete.
Powerfully said Ingrid because what Gyl shares affects so many women. We are all deeply nurturing and our ability to share this quality with all we meet, child and adult alike does not have to be confined to motherhood alone, it is a very natural expression. Appreciating and expressing this is extremely important, we do not need a child of our own to give ourselves permission to express what is so innate within us.
My son is not biologically mine but I am not less of a mother or a parent to him as of course he is my son and I love hime dearly. The love and care I offer him is also to be shared and afforded to other children as is the level of discipline and respect that is required to ensure that children are raised to know who they are and what is and isn’t acceptable in this world.
I also run a business and employ staff – we often say we are like family – I see that I have a role in raising them and help them develop their potential too. Thus we can parent across the board irrespective of if that is our child or anothers or even an adult.
This is very practical and beautiful what you share here Rachel. If we allow ourselves to come from our heart and let go of the pictures we have we will find how deeply we care about everybody and how this wants to be shared and expressed with everybody and not just the selected few we call our loved/closed ones.
Yes, it’s really beautiful to let go of the traditional picture and ideal of what family is and surrender to the knowing that we are all a part of one very large family. As someone who has tended to hold back from people and relationships, I am loving dropping my guard and just being me with everyone, it’s far less complicated and there is a gorgeous flow in allowing myself to express whatever is there to share, to hold back takes so much more effort and it feels stifling.
And really if we truly took this false belief of not being a mother if you don’t give birth, a bit further then we could challenge it by saying fathers are great parents even though they technically don’t give birth. Yet their fatherly traits become awakened when they know a child needs caring for. And as in all people when another needs cared for we know how to deeply care and love.
This is brilliant Rachel. I have often seen you with your son and would never have thought you were not biologically his mother! You both feel so close and this is a true testament to the fact that it is about the connection and the quality of what you both share together that counts. The fact of being a biological mother or not matters little in this regard.
Very true. They are gorgeous together.
I like that sharing Rachel, we can parent adults too, and we can parent ourselves. In fact perhaps that is the model we should teach, that we are all parents and all the children, the forever student of life. A teenager is probably in a greater state of wellbeing if they have been taught the responsibility of parenting themselves. I have also seen how strongly young people respond to being given the responsibility to look after younger children in schools and at home. The thing that gets in the way of so much of this is the “blood family” ties we bind ourselves too that hold us back from experiencing the depth of parenting and parents that could be on offer.
This is beautiful Rachel – I have observed your relationship with your son and others – a powerful marker of true parenting with respect, equal-ness and humour
Amazing sharing Rachel – what you provide is a reflection to the world that biology is not everything. And I love how you are bringing this into your business in the sense that it is possible to be a mentor and role model to others in a non imposing way.
Now what if all business worked like this, where we had a mothering or fathering energy leading the ship, guiding and working with those aboard to steer the best course for everyone.
I like what you are saying here Rachel because the company I work with a has a huge client base across 110 different countries and for years now we have considered all the clients to be family and everyone is treated in this way with absolute respect and integrity.
Thats what I love about you Mary every-one is treated equally, like you would your own daughter.
Brilliant Rachel. You are breaking many of the ideals and beliefs around parenting. The truth is every adult biologically theirs or not is a reflection and has a responsibility for reflecting truth to any child. The nurturing mothering energy or deeply caring fathering energy is within us whether we have a child or not. Everyone has the inner potential and wisdom to be an amazing parent.
Absolutely Monica. And these standards are so needed especially today to set the love and responsibility of true parenting as some people often take having children for granted or that they own them but do not see as parents we are here to reflect love and responsibility of being all you are in life, contributing caringly to society.
Great sharing Rachel and how inspiring it is to raise people and help them to develop their potential.
So true Rachel, parenting is not just confined to raising a child, it is actually a quality that we can express all the time to who ever requires this support and guidance. It is not about ‘molly codling’ a person, but ensuring that they do know who they are and what is acceptable behaviour to enable us all to respect one another and ourselves.
Rachel great what you share and I absolutely agree, you don’t have to be a biological mother to parent. Like you I run a business and I bring the mothering energy to our business, working with all the staff. I love this part of my job, it comes naturally. I also bring the mothering energy to my nieces and nephew.
Our parenting comes from our knowing and when we hold this back to stop another from learning and growing then we are bound by ideals and beliefs rather than working from a true call to support all equally in our community.
A confirmation that true mother and fathering energy is not exclusive for those that are biologically ours but instead can be for all.
So awesome Rachel, we need more examples like you – family is based on love not blood.
This is beautiful to read and feel Rachel. Parenting across the board, not limited to if we have children but all children, adults.. and ourselves, bringing this to all areas of life as you have with your staff.
You make a great point about your business Rachel. Staff from happy successful companies often talk about feeling like they are part of a family.
The imposition that is put on women to have children either from society or ourselves is immense. To recognize this and choose to work through it rather than strive towards it regardless of it’s false foundation, is profound. This is something countless woman would benefit from reading and contemplating if being a mother is in fact a truth for them or based on something that may just need to be healed so that they can instead be a mother on global scale and not feel any less for not being a parent.
I agree Sam – sometimes the greatest impositions and expectations actually come from ourselves – our own ideas and pictures and standards we expect ourselves to live up to – they may have been created by what we see outside of us, but at the end of the day we are holding ourselves to ransom for not living up to them – so equally we have the power to let go and allow ourselves to just be.
Rebecca I agree we hold ourselves to ransom for not living up to ideas and pictures, we are our own enemy at times.
It would be wonderful Gyl if this article were shared very broadly – I’m sure there are many, many women who carry this burden and would relate to your story and might respond to the sense of liberation you bring! It’s also super-inspiring for those who may not have come to a full appreciation of the parenting they already do, without being a parent per se.
I agree too Victoria -I have quite a few friends that have so suffered through their need and hearing and feeling what has been shared can offer such depth and insights and potentially a healing in feeling in truth that we are enough.
Just the words not needing to be a biological mum’ would be a relief and refreshing for many women to even hear. It’s such a stigma that a woman needs to even have children and one that can cause many to feel pressured and not appreciate their womanly preciousness.
And that’s just looking at women. When we consider women and culture then there is a whole other can of worms to look at.
When a women’s biological clock starts ticking, it’s often so loud she can hear nothing else.
And is it actually a biologically clock that is ticking within a woman’s body or a need that is being filled which is based on the tick tock of the clock.