Are the parents we “have” the ones that we “need”?
November 6th, 2009 by A.T. MannA reader of my book about reincarnation, The Divine Plot, sent me the following fascinating question yesterday:
“I was wondering if you could help me figure out what kind of parent the child needs. I know the Moon represents the Mother, and usually the kind of mother you had, not necessarily the one you need or want, and that Saturn (or the Sun) represents the Father in the same way. So, how or where would we look to find out the type of parenting the child needs? Any thoughts you have regarding this would be greatly appreciated.”
What is more difficult is knowing “what kind of parent a child needs.” I don’t really know what that means, in that we have the parents that we have and cannot know which parents we need. And who is to say that they aren’t the same! The parenting we receive might or might not come from our literal parents, for one thing. The Moon can be mother, but also loving women, grandmother, aunt, a devoted teacher, a lover, a daughter, an archetype. Our life is a process of learning and potentially of transformation on a cosmic and also earthly level. We all have certain hurdles to overcome, including profound ones like Buddhist philosophy details, that we all die. Life leads inexorably to death, that is a fact. Therefore we must redefine what “need” is. In Psychosynthesis, a form of psychotherapy I studied decades ago, there is an exercise that contrasts our “wants” and our “needs” in a profound way that makes one realize values that we confront just by being. In reality our wants and needs should correlate, although in practice they rarely do so. This possibly leads to the problematic ennui we experience in the modern world.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:05 am
We accept the parents we are born to but that doesnt necessarily mean they are what we need.Children havent the luxury of choosing the parents or family.Otherwise we would all most assuredly have a TV parent where all is good and clean and troubles end well.A fantasy to be sure because in this age,family life is niether “normal” or ideal.Alas,this isn’t the case for many children who are born to dysfunctional beings who might want to fulfill a childs needs but havent a clue how to do so and therefore lack not the ability,but the knowlege to do so.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:40 am
I don’t know. I love my parents, but they were definitely less than skillful in their parenting methods, especially in the early years. Had I been a young parent, I am certain I would also have been less than skillful, as I have been learning to be more skillful in my interactions with others only in the last decade (from my 30s to my 40s). But the only reason I have the focus, the drive, the passion, and the work ethic to succeed in the areas where I have - that has come about because of my parents.
Though they communicate rather poorly sometimes, my parents still are often the best people to offer advice in difficult times simply because they have known me for so long. Sometimes the answer to the things that confuse me about my own identity can be explained only by watching my parents go about their work. I see them doing the same things I do and feel a little less foreign.
Some theorists argue that we choose our parents before we are born. We set up the family we are born into because we want to get started with our sacred contracts right away. We want to jump right into the hard work, the conflict, learning a better way to cope, learning to be resilient, learning to turn to the Divine again and again for guidance. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that having been born into one of these difficult, complicated families had definitely challenged each of my siblings. We have each responded in different ways. I would say that each of us is very strong and independent as a result.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Answering this question is a interesting thing for in doing so we are not really answering the question but rather stating what we feel about how life and our choices have treated us. It’s all a matter of our own awareness.
Are we living life fully aware of our own existence and who and what we are, or are we thinking that we are living life with awareness when in fact we are mostly reacting to outside stimulus and internal projections of pain/pleasure and the avoidance or accumulation of same. Are we victims of whatever or are we masters of choice.
Are we a physical entity having a spiritual experience or a spiritual entity having a physical experience?
How does our reference point change our experience and why do we choose what we choose?
Ok so the answer for me is that all of it is true and all of it is not true, it ALL depends of how I look at it and where I’m coming from rather then a absolute right/wrong axis.
I at times thought I knew alot but then I saw things that I had never been aware of that made me question and expand my own sight……this has been a never ending process in my life and I have realized that it never ends………….we are all small parts of the whole and still a key part of it.
Having worked with troubled kids and adults and in my own experience I have noticed that the people that have done deep inner work have gone there allot because of some traumatic experience that has demanded that they take a huge risk/effort and time to get beyond it.
In the midst of it we have struggled and complained but in the end none that I have met including myself would ever trade the awareness that we have gotten from it for the feeling of not having that pain at the time for it was in going through it that we are able to be NOW who we are……………….Which allows for a more awareness that shows us more choices including not having to have horrendous experiences to grow beyond our own self impossed limits.
“A smart person learns from their mistakes, a wise one learns from others mistakes”
There really are no mistakes just experiences that show us the way.
Federico
November 7th, 2009 at 9:41 am
i don’t think we leave anything to chance. before we’re born we’re very aware of our strengths/weaknesses/things we need to learn and what we can teach. knowing this we choose the parents that will best create the environment that will bring all that out. it seems outside our bodies we’re amazingly objective. plus there’s karmic issues that need to be considered also. i think it takes a level of maturity to accept that perhaps we weren’t always pillars of strength and kindness in previous lifetimes (or even this one). we choose to go thru very difficult circumstances to fast forward our learning experience. kind of like spiritual bootcamp. i think difficult parents magnify things about ourselves that we wish to deal with in this life. which gives you a chance to heal yourself, which then gives you the ability to heal others of their similar pain. there’s really 2 things that a very difficult childhood w/difficult or abusive parents will do to you…break you or propel you to question and break the cycles once and for all, making you a much different person than the one who began the journey. having said that, i don’t think that absolves the parents of their bad behavior…we can learn the lessons we need to learn thru love or thru pain. that’s where free will comes into play. but apparently pain is the stronger catalyst, until we grow enough to learn otherwise. so yes, the parents we have are the one’s we need..after all, we chose them.