Thursday, May 12, 2016

Embracing our Inner Children

Our different emotional states are just like our children. We have different memories and we also have our varied desires and fears. Often we prefer one state over the other, like happiness over sadness, joy over anxiety, ecstasy over anger. Thus, we have opinions about how they should behave; that is, we have our expectations of how life should be.

We punish "our children" when they don’t meet our expectation.  We may also block them out when they are cranky. So we never question the way we are treating our children until one day one or two of them make a big fuss and throw us into turmoil. It is only then that we stop everything and wonder what is really going on beneath the surface.

It is then when we finally realize that we have always been treating our kids differently according to our own preference and not love. It is at that special moment when we finally realize we have been abusing some of our kids. We always shut them up whenever they tried to talk; we always ask them to stay in their room whenever they wanted to share time with us; we always scolded them no matter what they wanted to express.

Everything that ever happened to us is sacred, just as our children are. Every inner state, anxiety, sadness or anger is there for a reason. Own it, accept it, love it, and then meet life wholeheartedly. See for yourself how all your children can make you proud. 

 By Christian and Su Zhen 

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