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Soul Loss and Parenting
Soul Loss and Parenting
For a background understanding of Soul Loss and Soul Retrieval, read our "Soul Retrieval" page.
When a person is suffering from quite severe soul loss, they are effectively shut out of their own inner world, causing them to be dissociated. They are literally missing parts of themselves. These parts of themselves have not ceased to exist, but the connection has been broken and needs to be repaired.
When one or more parents in a family suffer from soul loss this, in turn, makes other people in close relationship to them feel lost and alone and can lead to, or highlight, soul loss in the other. This is very common in families and relationships. When a person experiences severe soul loss, (I speak about severe soul loss as I believe that just about everybody has more of themselves to reawaken) a part of them is dying inside. Relationships and life situations will be slowly grinding to a halt because the person will be experiencing less and less vitality and life force. When a person suffers soul loss, one or more of their chakras will be weak and not operating at the optimum level of functionality. Soul loss leads to a lack of energy and vitality in itself can lead to many other problems such as addictions, exhaustion and physical ailments.
When somebody experiences severe soul loss, they are severely disconnected from their own vitality, joy, passions, confidence and general drive. Instead of seeing this as a symptom and a pointer that emotional, energetic and spiritual healing or counseling is needed, most people just tend to feel guilty and ashamed and aim to hide their lack of spark by surrounding themselves with people who do appear to be full of energy and vitality, or drinking alcohol, eating unhealthy food or taking legal or illegal drugs to help fill the gap.
When a child grows up in a family where the parent or parents are very out of themselves, which, as I’ve mentioned earlier, may manifest through various unhealthy behaviours or addictions, the child or children will themselves be very susceptible to soul loss. The parent’s lack of emotional, energetic and spiritual connection to themselves will manifest in their relationship to varying degrees and can make strong and healthy bonding with their children very difficult, if not impossible. The good news is that if, at any age or stage, a parent does come back to themselves through therapy, healing, soul retrieval or possibly a crises that provokes a wake up call, they can repair the disconnection with their child or children.
Children need sustained emotional connection for their survival, growth and sanity and will seek it and see it wherever it is available and will be drawn to where there is even the hope of it. Fairytales and imaginative play are very important to kids and in fact to people of all ages through myths and films. Deep inside we need to feel hope that we will eventually get the love, approval, affection, fun, happiness and bonding that we need. Every fairytale or film that has a happy ending gives us hope.
Teenagers often find it through their peer groups or romantic relationships, they can find it in their music and dance and it can literally bring a part of them back to life. But if the parents are disconnected emotionally from each other, themselves and their teenager, the teenager will tend to loose their new found sense of self while at home. There’s no place for them to anchor themselves. When a child or teenager at home feels lifeless, lethargic, powerless, heartless and lacking in motivation, it is generally symptomatic of disconnection in their close family relationships. To keep the connection to soul within relationships, the communication needs to be from the heart, their needs to be love and kindness in the air. Relationships need to be based on integrity and connected to the truth of the feelings of those concerned. Any incongruences between the truth and what’s actually spoken causes confusion and disconnection. There needs to be an honoring of emotional growth and each person’s inherent wisdom. Connection with a child or teenager means connecting with what’s important to them and honoring that.
What about when a parent believes that they have very good connection and communication with their older child or teenager, but child still seems disconnected, unhappy or frustrated?
Many areas of this book may give some clues to the answer here, but just check that you are actually feeling and maintaining a strong emotional and energetic connection as well as communicating and spending time. Where is your headspace and feeling sense? Are you actually letting yourself feel as well as hear what your child is telling you and are you reading between the lines and giving them permission to expose their deeper more fragile feelings? If a parent listens and then gives advice in a preaching fashion, as opposed to having an open discussion where the child’s feelings, beliefs and opinions are sought and validated, this generally shuts down the connection and reinforces the feelings of powerlessness within the child.
Parents may care for their kids by feeding them, driving them places, looking after the house and clothes, taking an interest in their activities, but kids know whether or not a parent is actually emotionally and energetically connected to them on any particular day of the week.
If we listen to our kids, they do try and put us back on track all the time if we let them express their true feelings. Adults may shut down and give up on having their deeper emotional needs met, but because of a child’s dependency on adults, they always deeply feel these needs. They may not know what’s going on emotionally, but they certainly feel it strongly and they certainly express it in one way or another. My kid will always be quick to tell if I’m being “mean” to him. I could easily cop out and insist that the boundaries, requests, complaints, etc are all valid and that he just needs to accept them and tow the line, but the truth is that he doesn’t accuse me of being mean because of the requests (for food, films, toys, friends, etc) that I’m denying or the boundaries I’m setting. When he accuses me of being mean, it’s because my heart is shut down to him in that particular moment, day or week and I’m being hard towards him. This hardness comes through in the tone of my voice, in the way that I look at him and the general feeling between us.
Kids try to get through to us that we’re being hard on them in lots of ways, generally through their obvious discontentment and frustration. When we’re disconnected from our own inner world (i.e. how we really feel), we will inevitably disconnect from our children, which causes them to loose their grounding and disconnect from their own vitality. Children try to tell us all the time in every way possible. If we, as a society, could learn to view children’s out of balance behaviour as a mirror of the disconnection, hence dysfunction, in their close relationships, they we would change our focus from punishing to repairing. Kids never need punishment. Adults may have a need to punish the child, but it is never what a child needs. In my opinion, it never has a healthy effect on the child. If you don’t believe me, just put yourself in the child’s shoes. That’s all we ever have to do to get back in touch with what the child really needs.
What does my child really need?
Asking the question; “what does my child really need?” is a much healthier question that leads towards the healthiest answer, as opposed to “what should I do in this situation?”. The first question draws our attention into what is really going on with my child at this moment in time. The second question draws our attention to wondering what we’re supposed to do, what are the rules and the expectations of others, what would my mum or that book recommend in this situation. All those questions are too abstract and are a search for a formula as opposed to seeking the answer directly from how you and your child are in this particular moment. Unfortunately, on the whole, our education in school and in life in general has not taught us to trust our inner knowing, to follow our heart and what feels right. The message that the “experts”, the “authority figures” have all the answers and we don’t and we need to learn from others what to do. Then, we become parents and we’re expected to just follow our instincts and know exactly what to do. But, it’s not that simple. Getting back to our natural maternal and parental instincts and trusting and believing in ourselves as parents is a journey and that journey can be a challenging one. But a journey that’s so worth taking.
Kids are people just like us. I believe that we need to come back to seeing children in this way. We too often treat them like these foreign, unmanageable, untrainable, wild little things that we just can’t understand and are impossible to please. And this is the reality for many parents much of the time. However, I strongly believe that when a parent feels like this, it is a sure symptom that they’ve lost touch with their child. It’s the inevitably outcome when we’ve been either asking, “what should I be doing here?” instead of “what’s needed”. It’s also the inevitable outcome when we unconsciously just do what our parents did without really questioning whether it’s “what’s needed” to meet the needs of the family or not.
For a period of time, before moving to New Zealand, I participated in a series of intensive training camps with Native American earth wisdom teachers from the US. I learned a lot through that training and, for me, the most powerful thing about it was that it reinforced what I already knew deep down inside, what I believe people know deep down inside. They taught us about an ancient system, which maps a picture of balance and harmony for is groups of people operating together as a family or community. Their system was based on the medicine wheel. They taught that balance can only be achieved when all voices in the group are heard and honored. To me they really highlighted a huge contrast between their philosophy and the messages in our society in general where voices are honored according to their status. Of course, even during this training there was greater respect and weight given to the teachers but they constantly demonstrated to us that they gave equal respect to every voice. They showed no disapproval or pressure towards the person or people who appeared to be defiant, controversial or oppositional.
They constantly asked the questions, “what’s needed?”, “what are the needs of the group?”.
Quality one on one time with your child.
Personally, I believe that spending quality one on one time with your child is usually the medicine that’s needed when things become chaotic or out of balance. Spending a whole day of quality one on one time with a child that is child focused will invariably bring a parent back in touch with their child at least a couple of inches back in that general direction. The parent slows down the pace, puts the rest of the world aside and gains a valuable little perspective of life through the eyes of their child. When their child is creating a huge story around a particular flower or stick and a parent really stops to listen and become involved, it’s always a reminder of the child’s innocence and goodness and beauty. It’s always amazing to remember that children are such children, that they can be so filled with happiness and excitement one minute and so distraught the next because their little project fell asunder when their whole world, their whole focus was totally and utterly absorbed by that particular flower or stick and then it broke or blew away. How beautiful!
I could give endless examples (as I’m sure you also could) of how the relationship between parent and child can transform when kids are given quality time. My son is nine and he still becomes incredibly excited when I tell him we’re going to have some one on one time. It still amazes me that, given the choice, he will choose to have one on one time with me over having a friend over to play, which he always wants.
It’s easy to think that we’re giving our kids heaps of attention because we’re spending lots of time together and we are giving them attention and communication all the time, but the difference is headspace. The difference is also about giving ourselves over to their world for that time and for more than a half an hour at bedtime. It actually takes time to shift our headspace and energies over to them completely. As I write this, my kids are milling around and I respond to them as they ask me questions or listen as they tell me whatever it is they want to tell me. This is all fine and healthy, I’m happy and managing to do what I want to do, even if it’s just a short burst, and they’re happy enough amusing themselves in various ways, but it just can’t be compared with giving either one of them my full undivided attention for a sustained length of time over a whole morning, afternoon, day or weekend.
During one on one time, the child becomes the centre of our worlds for that short time and they thrive on it, they need it. Doesn’t everyone need it? Somebody once said to me that giving a person you’re full undivided attention and interest is the most valuable thing you can give a person and I actually really agreed with that. It’s one of those statements that I’ve always remembered and have often thought about over the years. We meet up with friends, acquaintances and relatives and chat to people all the time, but two people giving each other their full undivided attention and interest is absolute gold in relationships. It’s in these moments that the bond deepens and the experience can be incredibly profound and can unleash huge joy and love. I inevitably experience these moments when I have one on one time with either of my kids and I know these times are equally rich for them.
I completely believe in our ability as human beings, and especially as mothers, to be attuned to our innate knowing and wisdom. I believe that there is always a voice inside us that whispers the truth to us, a voice that carries our natural wisdom of what’s needed to bring balance back to our close relationships. However, there may also be the voice of the “inner critic”, our internalized parent voice instructing us to show those kids whose boss or accusing you of being a useless parent. You may deep inside know what’s needed, but just feel too guilty and powerless to have the energy to do what’s needed. You may know that change is needed, but may not know how to change things because it looks too scary because it will bring up such painful feelings from your own childhood or you may not have the backup and support from your family or community that you need.
This book is offered as a journey of empowerment. It offers you support, understanding, kindness and a bigger perspective to allow you to acknowledge all the feelings that need to be faced on the journey of change. This book will support you as you perhaps face the fear that arises when you courageously communicate or take actions according to your inner knowing that may appear to be in conflict with the different parenting approaches of family or friends or your culture in general. This book will guide you to reach down into the light of inner knowing and wisdom within.
Today, I believe we are blessed with a richness of books available on the subject of positive parenting and personally, I’ve benefited hugely from some of these books. Certain books have been my support and validation when it seemed like everybody around me were doing it differently and I, at times, felt like I was barely holding on to the strength in my own convictions that I needed to stay on track or come back on track when I was way off. There have been many times when a part of me can see that I’m disconnected with my kids and that’s why they’re fighting, not listening to me, not co-operating, etc, but then there’s another part of me that’s genuinely blaming them and thinking that the problem is just that they have it too easy! At the back of my mind, I know that I need to sit down and do some work on it, do some writing, read one of the books that take me back on track, talk it out with somebody or get in touch with what my frustration is really about deep inside. Inevitably, when I do, the issues with the kids transform, their behaviour transforms overnight. My kids remind me once again that they can sustain balance through just about anything when mum is solid, calm and warm hearted towards them.
But to parent from the heart in the way that we as parents want and need to, we need to feel calm and confident, we need clarity and the courage and conviction to do it our way when it’s not necessarily the norm within our family or community, we need to have the emotional support and backup ourselves. We need to not be over stressed, stretched, scared and lacking in a sense of security and belonging ourselves. Hence the journey.
I can’t, nor would I want, to promise my readers that reading this book will instantly transform your family and your parenting into instant harmony and you’ll live happily ever after. I believe that every book a person reads that promises that this approach will solve their problems forever more if they can just follow this program is aimed at failure just in the very nature that it is prescribing success as a practically instantaneous result. Personally, I believe it’s much healthier to settle in for the long term on the journey of coming to peace with ourselves as parents, coming to peace with the shortcomings of our own childhood and coming to peace and harmony with all members of our family.
When we can accept that the journey is a long one, we can focus on every step along the way as a victory and a celebration in itself. We’re allowed to still have a list of issues the length of our arm that we want to work through, in fact the more aware and conscious we become on the path towards peace, the layers of denial of pretending to be the perfect happy family lift and the sheer reality sets in. This can be daunting, but sobering.
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