What to tell your kids about suffering and injustice in the world
For this article I have drawn on the teachings of Byron Katie and Esther hicks. I pass them on to you here with gratitude.
What do we tell our children about black slavery or the holocaust, or the suffering and injustice felt by homosexuals and others?
These are important topics, things that we want changed. But how do we address these subjects without making our children feel bad and powerless?
Do we really think that we need to make our children feel bad about things that happened and often are still happening just as our parents passed down to us the same old stories that they were told as children by their own parents?
These stories have nothing to do with your child and her inner being. They are a burden for her to carry. Socialisation is a process in which we learn what we are meant to feel bad about.
Surely, if all we do is go about feeling bad and pointing fingers of blame then we as human beings have learned nothing, and the victims died in vain.
How do we pass on this legacy while still empowering our children?
Change
We need to teach our children about change, its meaning and identity.
This is how change happens:
When you see injustice you ask for something different. When you ask for it, it is given. When you stop pushing against the opposition, what you ask for comes.
But when you ask for others to do something different and see them not being willing to do it, then you hold yourself apart from the very change that you asked for.
Change in the world is slow. It takes time for the resistant people to die and for more non-resistant ones to be born.
But you can be the change that you want to see in the world.
You can be free right now from the bondage of discomfort and struggle. All you need to do is to live it as if it is different.
There are many who were born into a minority group, or in one way or another have experienced suffering and injustice. These people have a magnificent vision as a result of what they have lived. They were born to live and give birth to a great dream.
It is not enough to stay in the 'poor me' mindset, for you are being called to a greater vision and a better dream for mankind.
When you travel your path towards your vision, if you look back to check to see if others are following along with you as you think they should, then you defy your own dream, tearing yourself apart from the vision and blaming them.
Live the dream.
Own a vision for the way life can be on this planet. See a time when people can live with one another in a variety of personalities, genders and races.
See yourself as not being separate from others. Care about life, wellbeing, upliftment, joy. Both for yourself and for others.
Live the dream. Be it and don't look for evidence that doesn't support it.
Others do not have to think what you think in order for you to think it.
People do not have to be what you want them to be in order for you to be it.
You are free to live your dream.
You are free to be as you choose to be.
Regardless of others.
Live in alignment with the dream. The world does not need to come into alignment with you. Allow diversity of thinking. Allow others to think different thoughts from you. Just let it be. You can be the one who allows diversity, difference, opposition.
This is the true definition of peace.
War and Peace
We are at war when we go against reality. We are at peace when we flow with reality.
War and peace begin and end with the individual. We cannot end war on a national level.
All our sad stories of how we as a race or gender have been wronged only help to perpetuate what we believe about one another. Once we begin to question those thoughts then we get a little closer to reality and to ending the war.
Never expect people to be other than what they are. They are just doing their job. Maybe their job is to be a bigot or prejudiced. Maybe they do their job very well. But you can be the model for loving and accepting them just as they are. You can be the one that can change to accomodate the other. After all, that's what you expect from them!
Empowerment
Being angry and going against reality means being at war with it.
And thus the dream dies...
So let us empower our children to dream their dreams even in the face of an injust reality.
Let them know the following:
If you discover amongst suffering and injustice that things can be better than they are, if you have a vision of how life could be somehow bigger and brighter, then give your undivided attention to that dream.
Uplift yourself and distract yourself from what is by holding the vision of what is coming.
Practise everyday staying in vibrational alignment with the dream.
Do not allow yourself to be binded by the reality of what is.
Choose to be progressive and move beyond.
When we stop trying to get others to agree with our dreams, when we dream them ourselves and come into alignment with who we really are, the resources of the universe come into alignment with us and all our dreams are answered.
What do we tell our children about black slavery or the holocaust, or the suffering and injustice felt by homosexuals and others?
These are important topics, things that we want changed. But how do we address these subjects without making our children feel bad and powerless?
Do we really think that we need to make our children feel bad about things that happened and often are still happening just as our parents passed down to us the same old stories that they were told as children by their own parents?
These stories have nothing to do with your child and her inner being. They are a burden for her to carry. Socialisation is a process in which we learn what we are meant to feel bad about.
Surely, if all we do is go about feeling bad and pointing fingers of blame then we as human beings have learned nothing, and the victims died in vain.
How do we pass on this legacy while still empowering our children?
Change
We need to teach our children about change, its meaning and identity.
This is how change happens:
When you see injustice you ask for something different. When you ask for it, it is given. When you stop pushing against the opposition, what you ask for comes.
But when you ask for others to do something different and see them not being willing to do it, then you hold yourself apart from the very change that you asked for.
Change in the world is slow. It takes time for the resistant people to die and for more non-resistant ones to be born.
But you can be the change that you want to see in the world.
You can be free right now from the bondage of discomfort and struggle. All you need to do is to live it as if it is different.
There are many who were born into a minority group, or in one way or another have experienced suffering and injustice. These people have a magnificent vision as a result of what they have lived. They were born to live and give birth to a great dream.
It is not enough to stay in the 'poor me' mindset, for you are being called to a greater vision and a better dream for mankind.
When you travel your path towards your vision, if you look back to check to see if others are following along with you as you think they should, then you defy your own dream, tearing yourself apart from the vision and blaming them.
Live the dream.
Own a vision for the way life can be on this planet. See a time when people can live with one another in a variety of personalities, genders and races.
See yourself as not being separate from others. Care about life, wellbeing, upliftment, joy. Both for yourself and for others.
Live the dream. Be it and don't look for evidence that doesn't support it.
Others do not have to think what you think in order for you to think it.
People do not have to be what you want them to be in order for you to be it.
You are free to live your dream.
You are free to be as you choose to be.
Regardless of others.
Live in alignment with the dream. The world does not need to come into alignment with you. Allow diversity of thinking. Allow others to think different thoughts from you. Just let it be. You can be the one who allows diversity, difference, opposition.
This is the true definition of peace.
War and Peace
We are at war when we go against reality. We are at peace when we flow with reality.
War and peace begin and end with the individual. We cannot end war on a national level.
All our sad stories of how we as a race or gender have been wronged only help to perpetuate what we believe about one another. Once we begin to question those thoughts then we get a little closer to reality and to ending the war.
Never expect people to be other than what they are. They are just doing their job. Maybe their job is to be a bigot or prejudiced. Maybe they do their job very well. But you can be the model for loving and accepting them just as they are. You can be the one that can change to accomodate the other. After all, that's what you expect from them!
Empowerment
Being angry and going against reality means being at war with it.
And thus the dream dies...
So let us empower our children to dream their dreams even in the face of an injust reality.
Let them know the following:
If you discover amongst suffering and injustice that things can be better than they are, if you have a vision of how life could be somehow bigger and brighter, then give your undivided attention to that dream.
Uplift yourself and distract yourself from what is by holding the vision of what is coming.
Practise everyday staying in vibrational alignment with the dream.
Do not allow yourself to be binded by the reality of what is.
Choose to be progressive and move beyond.
When we stop trying to get others to agree with our dreams, when we dream them ourselves and come into alignment with who we really are, the resources of the universe come into alignment with us and all our dreams are answered.