Journey to a New Life

Fidelis found an old recording that was done when a visitor came to the farm with her two very young daughters. In this discussion with Bernard and Sunette as Lifi and Veno they open up points about children and parenting. I will be transcribing the interview and share in parts here. The following is Part 2. To read Part 1, click here. Enjoy!

Fidelis found an old recording that was done when a visitor came to the farm with her two very young daughters. In this discussion with Bernard and Sunette as Lifi and Veno they open up points about children and parenting. I will be transcribing the interview and share in parts here. Enjoy!

Okay, so we’re going to discuss children, parenting and related matters.
Jozien has got some questions and Lifi and Veno are going to answer them and see who pops through. Okay, your first question

Jozien: My first question is that, what I experience here, Sunette told me about Zina and Loulou – where Zina would always want to play with the toy which other kids are playing with. It doesn’t make sense for me to say to her like “It’s not possible”, she wants to play with the same toy.
Then Sunette said to me that because she wants to experience the same thing as the other kid and that actually she wants to experience the ‘equality’ if you can call it that. And that’s something that I never even considered as a parent. Because the only thing I did was trying to tell her “This is not your toy” or “you have your own toys” and just not understanding what she was actually asking. Does that make sense?

Sunette: Yes, I can see what you are saying.
Situations with regards to that is still – for example yes, the child would for example see another child play with its toy and would and they would kind of be seeing in a self-experience way what the child is experiencing with the toy and they for themselves would like to discover that experience, from that perspective. But, what that is actually revealing is how the child still at that age, is interpreting that experience to be related to or linked to the toy. It’s not yet linked to an actual self-expression experience. Meaning that, ‘who I am’ is not determined according to a toy, or the experience of me is not determined according to a toy, or the expression of me is not determined according to the toy. It’s the basic design with regards to how children are related in relationship to or towards physical manifestations of this world. Where they themselves are linked to something or where their experience of themselves is linked to something. It’s not a natural self-expression, here. However, the other side of the coin, is two perspectives. There’s two manifestations, two experiences which are happening. But the prominent one is the one where they are still linking experience to the toy. Underneath that though, what is being experienced is that particular point of self-discovery from a certain perspective, where they see the child playing with a toy, they see that experience, that expression that the being is going through and they would like to discover that within themselves. But, what is happening with the mind integration, is that it’s being linked to the toy. Not to self.

Bernard: Let’s look at the side of the coin.

What must also be understood is that the whole design of Consciousness as it exists is one of inequality. And the fact that one child plays with the toy and the other one sees it, and now desires to play with it or to experience themselves already creates a separation and a form of competition and conflict. The conflict will then manifest normally between the parent and the child, and not between the child without the toy and the child with the toy. The child will then ask the parent for the toy. They’ll sometimes try and take the toy to experience it, but they will also eventually blame the parent for not having a toy. Because they don’t understand why what is in this world is not equally available for all. And that is then simplistically slowly but surely being integrated and also the parent participates in that extensively then saying “But it’s not yours” – it’s a form of ownership and a form of separation and a form of inequality that is being taught, because we are in a system with many things but nobody can afford to have all the things and give their children all the experiences with every single thing.

Sunette: And understand, the child doesn’t see it as “It is yours / It is mine”.

Bernard: That concept doesn’t exist yet.

To be continued

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

This is a continuation to my previous blog: Day 87: Forced Learning

Another dimension I have come across as a parent in relation to learning, is that of 'Let Babies be Babies'. Where on the one side you have people who are more inclined to 'force' their babies/children to learn; there's also the opposite attitude where people are more inclined to 'let babies be babies'.

On this extreme end, anything which has got anything to do with 'learning' is pushed aside: "Babies are meant to have fun and play, why bring in this tedious topic of 'learning'?" "They will do penty of learning when the time comes that they go to school, just let them be and just this time of just fun and play."
Fasinatingly enough, there's even a dimension that parents fear they will develop a 'smart baby/child' who will be judged by his peers and they'd prefer their child to be 'normal like the rest of them'.

In this case, there's a negative connotation to the word 'learning', and whatever one believes constitutes this learning. And because you yourself as a parent had a negative experience with learning, we rather want to push it away, avoid it and postpone it.
Thing is that babies and toddlers are learning all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whenever they observe something, hear, smell, taste, touch something - babies are learning about themselves and reality around them. Learning is not limited to what happens inside a school or classroom, and how things are taught/learnt at school is not the only way one can learn something.
Just as forcing your child to learn will lead them to experience learning negatively, so will the opposite of dismissing, avoiding and postponing it as your own bias towards learning will be carried over to your child.

When Cesar is learning about words, their meanings and how to read them - he doesn't access the same idea many have of 'learning' as being a negativly laden concept. For him it is simply an extension of what he is already naturally doing: exploring his physical reality, how it relates to him and how he can engage and participate with it. Learning is natural to babies, and 'letting babies be babies' then naturally implies providing an environment conducive to learning, prickling their curiosity and stimulating their natural explorative disposition.

Unfortunately we have made learning quite an unpleasant experience through limiting it to school and their factory-like setup. But it is up to us to re-create and reinvent what constitutes learning and to pass this on to our children.

In this picture I took today, Cesar and I are playing on Maya's bed with mini flashcards. We've recently started playing with learning how to read and made our own flash cards. Maya made her own little set that Cesar can play with when we come visit her, much to Cesar's delight.

Since Cesar was born, he has gone through many phases in his life. With these phases, I don't mean developmental phases (although in a way, they are), but points in his reality that he gets really interested and obsessed with. These are usually of a kind that is kind of, well 'unpleasant' for the rest of the people living in his environment.

One example would be throwing around the dogs' steel bowls. It makes such a big noise (like someone constantly banging on drum cymbals), but he was absolutely fascinated by it. My first instict was to 'make him stop' because I knew this could be bothersome and distracting to other people. Because I was coming from a point of fear of 'what others might think'; I wasn't considering Cesar within this equation. Making him stop or preventing it was very difficult and he would end up doing it anyway, but with even more vigour as he now knew that 'he might soon not be able to'.

This method was obviously not working for him or for me so I took a moment to stop and really look at what was happening. I looked at Cesar and I looked at myself when I was young and absolutely fascinated by something. I saw that what he was going through was simply a natural curiosity of cause and effect and exploring all the objects in his world. Once he had fully explored an object, he'd be done with it because through his exploration he now got a good understanding of what the object is all about and there is no longer a drive to 'see what happens'; he has tested it all, he know simply knows.

So instead of fighting whatever phase he finds himself in at any particular time; I embrace it - as I understand it's just part of his learning process. Instead of stopping him and getting frustrated I look at how else his particular point of focus can be explored. We can push a bowl sideways so it rolls like a wheel. We can spin it like a spinning top. We can bang it against different objects to see what different sounds it makes. He's learning new things about physical reality, and gets to know what he wants to know much quicker then if he would have gone through a continuous stop-start process where his curiosity never gets satisfied - leaving both him and myself disgruntled. So whenever you find yourself in a situation where you want to make your child stop, I ask yourself: "Am I empowering him or am I simply limiting him out of convenience?"
These simple shifts in perspective can make such a huge change in making your daily life a more flowing and smooth experience!

In my previous blog, Day 83: Playfulness | Gifts from Animals - Dogs, I shared how the dogs’ expression of playfulness assisted me getting through tough times.

If there’s something Cesar knows all about, it’s exactly that = tough times. Being a baby and growing into a toddler is a lot of work for the physical body. The rate at which the body grows and changes is exceptional, and so is the pain and discomfort that comes with it.

On one of the days that he was going through a particularly rough patch, I looked at him and could see myself in his distraught eyes. It reminded me of when I would go through physical discomfort and would then emphasise the physical discomfort by adding an emotional experience to it, basically ‘feeling bad about feeling bad’. I also realised that, even though I was feeling bad – I could make the decision to acknowledge it, but not allow it to ‘take over’ to the point where it disabled me to do something with myself and my day. So looking into Cesar’s eyes, I realised that if I wanted him to get out of this experience, it was going to be up to me to create a new moment. I got up and moved myself to come up with something random for us to do, something he is not used to in terms of his routine that would get him to be engaged and curious about what we are doing, rather than being focused on what he is experiencing. In this particular instance, I playfully pointed out the chillies which were growing on our pepper plants in front of the parrot aviary, how they can be plucked and then given to the parrots who happily eat them.

He was very attentive and could see on his face that he moved out of the experience into what we were physically engaged with. This made him ‘snap out’ of his mood where even after our little activity was over, he was more present and not so overwhelmed with what his body was going through.

So, through simply in a moment moving yourself to embody a particular expression such as playfulness, you can stand as support for another to move themselves into the same expression. This isn’t always easy, because within being a mother, I go through my own share of physical discomfort and can get emotional about this – where I have to stand as the support for myself first to push through and move myself out of my own emotional experience, to only then be able to stand as an example for Cesar to show that you can determine your own experience in a moment and change it, even if the circumstances aren’t in your favour.

I am grateful to the dogs for having been my bridge of support, to show me that I can change when I wasn’t yet able to move myself to change in a moment – and for me to now transfer the same gift to Cesar.

When I first arrived on the Desteni Farm, I was pretty much a ball of anxiety.

I always dreaded group settings and preferred to be on my own. Now I was stuck in a place with lots of people where there was virtually no moment alone (this was mostly due to space constriction and lots of visitors sharing a single room; since then many more rooms have been built). I was very far away from home and my comfort zone. While I wanted to be on the farm and push through my barriers of resistance, my actual state of mind did not reflect this intention as I was still dealing with a lot of emotional issues that I had been carrying around most of my life.

I remember being very nervous meeting everyone and worrying what people will think of me. One of the first things that happened as we got to the farm was being introduced to the dogs. Lucy and Grace were a lot younger back then and had a lot more ‘puppy-crazy’ in them than they do now; so when they first saw me they both jumped on me, where I fell on the floor and they went berserk on my face with licking. I couldn’t help but laugh and giggle!

Their timing couldn’t have been better because in that moment I had been so tensed up and rigid, worrying about all kinds of things – them jumping and love-pouring on my face snapped me right out of my mind and into my body.

During my first two-month visit, the dogs kept representing that point of support for me – to just be here, play, have fun and relax. No matter what I was going through or how bad things seemed in my mind, there was always a dog nearby looking for someone to play and entertain them. They didn’t care that I thought all doom was upon me, or that I believed I was never going to get through a particular point – they’d just look at you with their big brown eyes and wiggle their tail and you’d have no choice but to level with them and play. And they were right in not caring or paying attention to what I was going through, because from a physical perspective it didn’t matter. From a physical perspective I was on a farm, where everything was pretty relaxed, people just going about their days, animals going about their day – physically, nothing threatening was going on. Everything I was experiencing and going through, was in my head only. And that moment they look at you with that invite to play; you realise the physical aspect of what’s here – how the birds are just chirping along, how you’re in a big wide space in nature, how all there is, is just this moment. And so you join in to that physical moment, pick up a ball and make use of the physical environment that’s here and have some fun.

In my next blog I will share how this point of playfulness has assisted me in my relationship and walking with Cesar.

In my previous blog, Day 80: Mysophobia & The Inconvenience of Life – Part 1 | From Farm Life to City Life; I shared some of my experiences and observations which happened around ‘sand’ whilst staying in Belgium.
I ended off with ‘Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.’

Another incident which illustrated this point nicely, was when we were at the playground and a child came running very happy and excitedly to have arrived at the playground – where he for a moment was so caught up in his excitement that he fell but was able to stop the fall by putting his hands to the ground. I thought it was rather quick thinking on the child’s part – but the mother who was walking a bit behind let out a big, massive sigh and then loudly scolded the child, complaining that they would now ‘have to go and wash his hands AGAIN’.

From all the variables which took place in that single moment, the one that had caught her attention was that ‘now his hands are dirty again’.

This just blew my mind, to see and realise how far removed we can get ourselves from reality. How we place such specific filters in our mind which define everything we see and experience in our world. In terms of filters active towards children, the biggest ones were money and relationships (/status). I mean, in any given situation, there’s a myriad of ways we can decide to respond to a given situation. But when we have filters in place, such as the things we value and give importance to, this limits our scope of how we see we can responds to a situation; to the point that we believe that there is only ‘one way’ which is the way we end up responding.

This is something I have seen so many times over within myself when working through memories within the DIP Pro course – and it was quite interesting and entertaining (in a scientific kind of way lol) to see it play out in front of my eyes.

There are so many ways to explore and experience childhood, yet within stubbornly holding on to values which set the parameters of how we see things and so respond to our environment, we force children to only live and experience life within very limited dimensions.

I am going to be opening up a new series, on – as you may have guessed from the title – how animals taught me to be a better parent. I will still be writing about my Euro-trip experience so the two topics will be posted on and off.

I was actually first looking at the various gifts as insights into my life that I have received over the years with the various animals I’ve walked with on the farm.

Each relationship with the animals carries a story, a story of my personal process. When I was looking more into each specific ‘gift’ I had learnt and received from the animals; I noticed how each on of those gifts had come into play when working and walking with Cesar. Some I applied naturally and didn’t even notice where it came from, others I specifically implemented to see if they would assist with my relationship with Cesar as well as with my relationship with myself. So when this point opened up within myself of looking at what I have learnt from the animals, it really hit me to what extent my participation with them influenced me and assisted me to become who I am today, and still assist me in my personal development.

We often take animals and our relationship to animals for granted, so with these blogs I would like to highlight the ‘special’ part they can play in one’s life and how one can utilise animals in one’s environment to assist yourself in overcoming your own limitations and get more out of life.

So stay tuned to read all about the experiences and lessons I have learnt from walking with dogs, birds, parrots and horses – and how I have been able to apply these lessons walking with my toddler.

Continuing from my previous blog: Day 79: From Farm Life to City Life | Don’t Touch the Walls

Within my previous blog we already established that the inside of the house was not a very pleasant environment to be; not so much because of the physical features but the mental limitations that were imposed within and unto the space.

So – whenever we could; we would go outside to one of the parks so Cesar could walk and play on the playground.

The one would we would go to the most was the bigger one which was furthest away. It had a nice playground which was also covered in sand that kids could play in.

Cesar loved sitting in the sand and picking up sand and placing bits of sand on random places and spots on all the various playground stations. He liked stirring sand with sticks, digging holes, finding little pebbles or rocks or just sitting and watching, observing other children play.

For us, this was natural. On the farm, we sit on the ground outside, we play in the sandpit, he plays with dirt, he plays with dogs – being outside, interacting with ‘the elements’ = you get dirty.

Being at the playground almost everyday, we noticed that the way we were playing and behaving at the playground wasn’t the norm.

The first thing we noticed, was that even though the playground was covered with sand – it was not something children were playing with. The second thing we noticed, was that adults/parents stayed away from the actual playground stations and left the children to play on their own. This isn’t that noteworthy for older children, but did get our attention for toddlers.

In terms of the sand, what became clear was that there was a general agreement that sand is very undesirable and should be avoided at all cost. Do not play with the sand, try not to touch it and dare not to sit in it. Other parents’ eyes actually became big as they saw us and Cesar sit with our bums in the sand, as if we were committing some type of sacrilege (didn’t we know we were gonna get sand all over our bums and maybe even in-between our clothes!!!!) as well as the realisation of fear that our (bad) example may tempt their children into disobedience.

The one time as we went into a shop and some sand from our playground trip had found itself on the shop’s floor; the owner had a fit of rage at the sight of a little bit of sand as this was simply ‘unacceptable’ and was convinced we were deliberate evil-doers.

Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.

The fact that children thoroughly enjoy sand and are able to do so much with it – completely bypasses parents’ minds. The only part which gets registered is how much ‘they suffer’ at the hand of sand-play and how they’re just not bothered to go there.

To be continued