Journey to a New Life

I watched two of the little mermaid movies recently with Cesar, and watching it again for the first time in a very looong time opened up a cool dimension for myself.

Watching it and being a parent - well, watching it and being both someone's child and a parent to a child -- I was paying particular attention to the relationship between the little mermaid and her father while watching.

It was mostly the third movie, which was actually made after the first one but tells the story of the little mermaid when she was even more little that gave me some food for thought.

In this movie they show how Ariel's mother died, and how this broke her father, Triton, his heart. Her parents had a "special connection" which revolved around music and after the mother dies Triton bans all music: no one is allowed to make music or even sing. Then the movie fastforwards to ten years later, where Ariel and her sisters are older. Ariel is an expressive girl but the Kingdom is ruled my monotone routines where any form of fun, laughter or enjoyment set her father off in a fit of rage -- telling her to 'behave'. Stuff happends, and Ariel finds out about some underground music/dancing club and then before your know it so does Triton.

He of course blows up and gets freaking angry -- at which point the little mermaid basically has got "enough" of it and tells him 'what's what'.

I was going "Wow, she's brave!"

And then in the movie something happens.

He gets it.

And he changes his behaviour.

Cause while I was watching the movie and the ten years went by, I was think "Woah, ten years went by and nothing changed? No-one went up to him and questioned what he is doing? And now they are still living the same shitty life?"

And then it dawned to me:

"Shit, I did the exact same thing".

Growing up, my dad had a lot of anger issues and as a result I molded myself to be small and invisible to prevent any type of triggers going off to which my dad could blow. It is quite fascinating, because even the face of Ariel's father and how his face looks when he gets angry is quite similar to that of my own father.

And I did the same as in the movie. I did not once question his anger. I accepted and allowed it. I saw it as 'his right' to be angry and to not be questioned for it.

So instead of 10 years, I lived under the same monotone and miserable conditions for 18 years -- assuming that questioning my dad, or making it a point of telling him that this is not cool would result in my total oblitiration. While all the while, someone questioning him and telling him 'what's what' could have been exactly THE THING that would have snapped him out of it, so we could ALL move on and have some fun in life.

So that one decision, as the acceptance and allowance of anger within another, and so within me = determined my whole life.

Because, what is anger?
Fascinatingly enough, around the same time as watching the movie I went through my own little bout of anger and so had a nice opportunity to really look at what it is all about.

So anger -- when I looked at it, being in it -- I saw that the anger and the intensity of my anger was actually a measurement/reflection to the extent that I wasted potential, that I did not take responsibility for something or things that are in my response ability.
And more I do not actively take responsibility for things in my life, the angrier I get.
Then, anger gets used as a safety net. Everyone knows what the presence of anger feels like and how it is sooo very tempting to not 'step into' that net and set it off. And that's exactly what angry people are counting on. They count on you being afraid of this energy they are resonating, so that you would not question them and their actions, so that they can continue not changing, so that they can continue abdicating responsibility.

So while anger is this big WOOOOOOOAAAHHHH energy -- behind it hides a small person who's too afraid to take responsibility and take the steps they need to take to sort out the things in their life that are causing the anger. Meaning -- there's things playing out in their life which are undesirable, BUT which they have the power to change. Anger comes in, when that power is not being used but left to waste and then just goes towards powering their anger.

So what I have been pushing myself to do when I come into contact with someone who is in a state of anger, is to not focus on the energy of anger which is intimidating (and is what I have feared all my life), but to look at what it represents and the underlying point causing it. And what I've realised is that I cannot direct an angry person by focusing and directign the anger, as the anger is not really the point. The point is the responsibility which was abdicated. And if I can put my finger on it and show the person exactly what they abdicated and how -- then the anger simply disappears.

And man, have I really been wondering what my life could have looked like if I had realised this one simple thing.... Aaah the regret

In my previous blog I laid out how one within compromise will start to develop a specific ‘give and take’ relationship with one’s child of one allows to indulge in a pattern where you decide to hold on to ‘what you want to do’ and consequently will not direct your child or give your child attention when the moment for it presents itself. Being aware that you are robbing the child direction it needs, one enters a cycle of feeling guilty which you will then seek to relief by ‘giving back’ to your child, but where this ‘giving back’ is not what is required of in a moment, and where you allow the child to hold on to ‘what he/she wants to do’, just as you had granted yourself this permission.

What I found quite interesting here as well, is how one will use past moments/periods of where things were hectic and where the parent went ‘the extra mile’ to justify why it is okay to hold on and want to have ‘personal’/’me-time’ because “look at all those things I did for you” and “I spent so much time on you, why can’t you just give me a break right now”,… where the parent draws on ‘fairness’ to justify their desires and their behaviour of pursuing it.

So the whole design of it is actually quite clever. Because you find yourself in a situation that is disproportionate, you have to put substantially more time in your child than you do towards yourself or anything else – which is just an outflow of the design of children/babies and the dependency that comes with it; it’s not like they ‘chose’ to deliberately take in a lot of your time. And then you have the parent who makes the deliberate decision to try and go ‘against’ the design and ‘capture’ a bigger margin of time/energy to go towards themselves which necessarily creates an imbalance which they constantly have to counteract by trading with the child/children by giving them things they want and desire so that at least things are ‘fair’ in terms of each one being allowed their indulgences.

So within all of this, what I found is important to realise is that: yes = things are not fair. Sometimes in life you’re on the end where things are really good for you and other times you’re on the end where things suck ass. The thing is that you can’t allow the design and structure of things determine ‘who you are’ and ‘what you’re going to do’. Say you really want to have a unicorn. Yet, by the design of things, we don’t have unicorns on Earth – what are you going to do now? Throw a tantrum? Be spiteful at horses for not having horns? Get yourself a horse and force a horn unto its forehead with God knows what consequence? I know – it’s a farfetched example, but it does very clearly show how ridiculous it is to try and get something which by design is just impossible. We can try having a unicorn by taking a horse and forcing a horn on its head, but we cannot do it without creating consequences, by creating ripple effects through trying to force something to exist – which goes the same for wanting and demanding some form of ‘fairness’ within your parenting reality to and with your child. You cannot manipulate and force your ideal/desire unto reality/your children without them being adversely affected by it. Because you are making real sacrifices to attain something unreal.

In the first few months with Cesar there had been moments where I found myself with a lot of inner conflict and where I couldn’t’ see straight as to ‘why am I experiencing myself this way’ because I was so ‘in it’. I would then make use of Osho Zen cards to do a reading and fascinatingly enough, the card which represents the issue would be the same one over and over again when I had that same experience which was: ‘the dream’ – and the solution was each time to ‘let go of the dream’. Where I was, without being much aware of it – holding on to certain expectations, hoping for things to go a certain way and where reality was not going the way I was expecting/hoping it to go. The nature of taking care of him at that stage was very intense and took a toll on my body – and I would hope/expect him to sleep a bit more or if he had started sleeping more, to ‘keep up’ with this pattern so that I didn’t have to spend as much time and energy in actively soothing him (as he was very uncomfortable back then considering the acid reflux and colic and needed constant ‘intervention’ to alleviate the pain/discomfort for him). So when I got to the point of walking him and bouncing him around for the so many-eth time at night – I would be going ‘pffffft’ and a build-up of energy would start to emerge. This was because I was hoping/expecting for this ‘not to happen’. So when I finally got the point and embraced that things were tough and weren’t going to change – (or maybe they were going to, but that would still be irrelevant), where I realised that I was only making things worse for myself by holding to a ‘dream’, as I am constantly contrasting what is happening to this dream and within doing so make reality look more dull while making the dream look more colourful; the only thing that is going to give me peace is just to be here in every moment, to take every moment as it comes without any expectation. And sure enough, I was more content than ever before and could move myself with ease and would actually explore more ways of assisting Cesar which I previously wouldn’t have even thought about. Because previously, I was so busy ‘suffering’ and just being in ‘automatic’ that such an option would’ve just totally slipped me by.

So this is how I’ve seen the role of Fairness play a point within parenting and being a mother and how it can turn parenting sour if one allows fairness to move oneself instead of self moving self for the sake of what’s best for all, and how dropping Fairness in a simple point such as not expecting things to go a certain way can go a long way.

I’ve written now two series (paranoia and fairness) on what I’ve identified as ‘problem areas’ within parenting which become apparent very early on in the parenting stage, and would like for the next series to take on solution/correction dimensions as we’ve now seen and understood the problem and so can transform our movement within and towards corrections to establish a new parenting paradigm as Principled Parenting.