I remember the exact moment that it happened. My partner, our 15-year-old son and I were going down a very long escalator on the underground in Prague when my son put his arms around my shoulders from behind. A simple, and for many, everyday act that would not and did not stand out to anyone else on that escalator, but an act that every cell of my body registered and one that made me feel like singing from the rooftops.
Touch between my son and I was rare and I’d like to say that it was more on his side than mine, but that wouldn’t be true. Now I appreciate that what I am describing might sound all very normal, considering that my son is a teenager but our relationship had been troubling me for a while, particularly because I have come to understand that relationships are like mirrors and that when we look into them, the reflection that we are shown is actually of ourselves. Given this immutable fact, I had been pondering for a while what it was that I was being shown about myself, through the reflection of my relationship with my son.
It is not always easy to be honest; often the things that we are shown about ourselves aren’t pretty but what I have found is that if I resist the urge to go into self-critique and choose instead to understand that what is being presented is an opportunity for great change, then it makes the process much easier. In fact, I have now come to a place where I actively seek the reflection that relationships offer, as I deeply appreciate the opportunity that the power of reflection provides.
For the first five years of my son’s life I spent a lot of time with him, playing with him, taking him to the park, reading to him and being very conscious of the way that I parented him. I made a point of praising him a lot and often told him how special he was. I was naturally a very playful Mum and I worked hard to not show my frustration or anger. When I say anger, it was not a boiling over, ‘in your face’ kind of an anger, but more of a deeply buried one. I just about managed to keep a lid on my frustration and anger by dedicating myself to a strenuous exercise routine, peppered with a liberal sprinkling of all night partying. Had I chosen to acknowledge those deeply buried feelings, then this would have been the first vital steps needed in dealing with them but alas, I chose to bury them instead.
I had fairly set ideas about what I thought ‘being a good Mum’ was and I lived out those ideas pretty convincingly. I held the belief that I was a great Mum and my friends and family backed me up in that belief. At the time, I didn’t doubt that I was a deeply loving Mum and that my partner and I were bringing up our son in the best possible way.
However, what I have come to feel in recent years is that the pictures that we hold about certain things are so commanding that they superimpose themselves over the top of the underlying truth. My belief that I was a great Mum impacted on my ability to feel where I was really at. In hindsight, I can now see that there were many indicators that demonstrated very clearly exactly where I was at. One such indicator was that whenever our son was sick, it was my partner who would sit and hold him for hours on end, because the underlying tension that I lived with constantly made it nigh on impossible for me to sit and do what I perceived as ‘nothing’. I had a driving need to continually ‘get on and do something’ and it was this drive that kept me in perpetual motion.
The other major thing that I was unable to feel was my absolute exhaustion, an exhaustion that I hauled around with me from day to day and one that formed a rather shabby base for everything that I did. Knowing that children, like the rest of us, can feel everything that is going on in another person’s body as well as their own, I couldn’t help but ask myself “What had I been truly communicating for all of those years?” This question became key and was brought up one day by an amazing esoteric healing practitioner. She asked me to consider what was I truly communicating with my body when I stood outside my son’s door and, from my hard, contracted body, squeezed out the words “Come out of your room darling and spend some time with your Dad and I.” Great question and the answer revealed much. What I realised is that what I had been communicating with my body was worlds apart from what I had been communicating with my mouth. And what is crucial to understand is what we communicate with our bodies is what is felt by another.
This revelation prompted me to get brutally honest with myself about what I was communicating, not only with my son but with everybody else. What I realised is that what I expressed with my mouth was often very different to what I expressed with my body. This revelation, albeit simple, has been a life changing one for me, as it has enabled me to begin to bring real change to not only my relationship with my son but to all of my relationships, simply by getting honest about what it is that I am feeling in my body.
When I am aware that my body feels like it’s wanting to pull away from my partner or my son in an attempt to ‘get on with something else,’ I try – to the best of my ability – to physically relax it, and although at times this feels quite mechanical, what I’m finding is that it’s leading to great change. Yesterday, whilst on my way to the shop, I bumped into my son coming back from school and he instinctively put his arms out for a hug and my response was to surrender my whole body into his arms.
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
Learning to be in Relationship without Pictures
My Father and His Reflection
From being a good mother to true mothering
87 Comments
We are saturated in the many ideals and beliefs about what it is to be family and how to raise a family. If we stop for a moment to consider how abusive we can be within our family, then surely something is amiss. More abuse takes place within the family than anywhere else the statistics on domestic abuse and violence bear this out.
We know all this but still we continue with our olds ways. So I have to question where do we get our intelligence from when we know that something is dreadfully wrong when we can be so abusive and violent to those we say we love the most – our family.
Brave and brilliant. Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. Reading this article has gently invited me to be open and honest with myself when I approach my children and everyone actually; bringing awareness to my intentions and/or underlying agenda.
‘Underlying agenda’ that’s such a powerful thing to be aware of because we’re all so good at pretending and making out that our intentions are ‘honourable’ but when we allow ourselves to dig a little deeper there’s often something quite putrid about what we’re doing.
That ‘underlying’ agenda is very powerful, because someone can be as ‘nice as apple pie ‘to your face, but underneath that ‘niceness’ can be the putridness you describe so well Alexis. And we have all experienced this pretence.
All ‘relationships are like mirrors’ and it is something we all eventually get to understand and thus live in a way that only reflects True-Love so our words match our movements so we can evolve and live in a deeper reflective-ness for everyone to feel.
At a young age we are communicating with our mouth as this is the only movement that is open to us and thus the reflection of the lived energy of the people around us is super important and align our body to the Soul opens us to also expressing and moving in the non-imposing-love / True-Love we all innately are.
Words are movements, it’s not possible to move our limbs in a way that is divine and not speak in a way that is equally divine.
‘At a young age we are communicating with our mouth as this is the only movement that is open to us’, Greg I don’t agree, our mouths are part of our whole bodies and therefore if we’re able to communicate with our mouths then we’re able to communicate with our whole bodies. And even if we can’t communicate with our mouths then we can still communicate with our bodies. Every movement or even non movement is communication.
This I feel is true
‘However, what I have come to feel in recent years is that the pictures that we hold about certain things are so commanding that they superimpose themselves over the top of the underlying truth. ‘
It feels to me that from young we live inside a pressure cooker of ideals, beliefs, which crush us by the sheer weight of them so that the truth of who we are is hidden under this crushing weight. From my own experience it takes dedication to step from underneath this weight and view life from a different angle one that allows the truth to just be.
The way of living that is accepted in society is one where we accept superficiality. Where there are many rules and constructs of how we behave that we have agreed on will express our kindness, politeness and love. Yet these are not the true virtues of these words. Like love does not mean giving a gift or saying ‘I love you’ but we have made it so, love is a vibration and when we don’t live in that vibration there cannot ever be true love. So too for kindness and politeness and any other word we like to use.
Two vibrations, both that have their origins in love but one that has been bastardised beyond recognition. Politeness, manners, our accepted version of ‘love’, kindness etc all come from the tampered with vibration and it is that tampered with vibration that has set up life as we currently know it. We’re living in a way that is so incredibly reduced that it bears no resemblance to it’s true or original form. It’s time to choose our way out of this farce of a life and to return to the truth of who we all are. I am absolutely committed to supporting humanity to return and I’m here for the long haul.
…’what I expressed with my mouth was often very different to what I expressed with my body.’ This is so common in our society, it is of great value when our children get a true reflection of their parents. This will give them a reference point to go to and trust what they feel when starting to widen their world when they get older.
Yes. And when adults are open to the reflection from children the learning is rich and the relationships nourishing.
Reflection is everywhere, we’re living in a hall of mirrors without consciously knowing it.
Annelies, It’s very difficult to give a true reflection to our children when we are riddled with ideals and beliefs ourselves. I remember years ago a father encouraging his son to drink alcohol because it was a rite of passage into manhood. The young man didn’t want to drink beer because it didn’t taste very nice and so the beer was mixed with Lemonade to make a Shandy. The father had been waiting all those years when his son was growing up to be able to take him down the pub to discuss manly things and to drink beer together. We are led and encouraged to believe this is normal and part of life. It’s only these last 20 plus years that humanity has been actively shown that there is a different way to live having tried this other way to live for myself and there is certainly no perfection I could not go back to my old habits which were self abusive which by reflection encouraged others to be self abusive too.
When parenting, there has to a consistency with the boundaries we set and then there is a responsibility to live what we are sharing and thus treat everyone with at-least decency and respect and this has to be starting with the self.
“what we communicate with our bodies is what is felt by another.” Far more than what our words say the bodies communication is far more honest when we take notice.
To me Anonymous you have summed up human life – “what I have come to feel in recent years is that the pictures that we hold about certain things are so commanding that they superimpose themselves over the top of the underlying truth.”
We are all from a young age encouraged to take on the pictures about how life should be that we are saturated with them. It used to be that we didn’t see that we are living in a false reality until we were much older and then in our old age we realise that the life we led wasn’t it. I feel that this has changed and people are now realising much earlier in their lives that something is not right and are checking out of it much sooner.
Exhaustion effects us far more then just physically – emotionally everything in our lives feels hard work when we are exhausted.
I agree SLC, being tired, run down or exhausted often leads to more emotion and more drama than when we’re feeling energised and vital. We’re much more likely to feel hard done by, frustrated, angry, pissed off, annoyed and sad when we’re tired and then feeling those emotions drains the body even more and it can then be a rather vicious cycle that feels impossible to get out of.
‘It is not always easy to be honest; often the things that we are shown about ourselves aren’t pretty’ true, but if we are willing to go there as you say without critique or judgement of ourselves but instead a deep love and care then the things that we do or think etc that are not that pretty can easily be shifted and cleared. It is all but a choice ✨
We will do everything we can to avoid the fact that the energy we live in is felt and naturally communicates everything. No amount of doing can mask the truth. The sooner we accept this fact the sooner we can choose to live in a clearer, more honest way. We fool no one , we are a parent of a life that’s health is based on the quality of how we move.
This is such a great blog to read because it shows us all what can happen if we make small but subtle choices. And the rewards that can be gained which in this case is a deeper relationship with yourself, your son, Husband and actually the whole world as we can all feel energy all the time even when we say we cannot.