Parenting skills

Salutation to all gurus who inspire my thoughts and writings. 

For people who have arrived here seeing the title that says “parenting”, let me explain that this post is not about parenting your physical or biological child, it is about parenting a different kind of child, one that dwells within oneself, a child that never ages or grows. Read on only if you are curious about “who”.  

“Watch your thoughts and be mindful” – We hear this often and sometimes we do sincerely make an attempt to be mindful. But even with best of efforts, we end up not watching all our thoughts as several thoughts escape before we realize it. After several failed attempts, I have begun to strongly suspect that we are not meant be aware of every thought that comes to us. That’s not humane . That’s robotic.

So being mindful is meant to be for “specific” thoughts. And it is possible for us to identify these thoughts quickly because of the signals that these special thoughts emit. I call them special because these thoughts immediately affect our feelings and emotions. All other thoughts are discardable. Yet the ones that affect emotions, is like a sudden spike on the otherwise steady fluctuating chart of brain activity and ignoring or wrongly treating these emotionally charged spikes have consequences. That is so since these spikes cause an impression and hence they stay in the memory. 

Now this spike can either be on upper side (giving a high or pleasure sensation) or it can be on lower end (giving a low or pain sensation ). It doesn’t matter. Both spikes are meant to fall in domain of human awareness. We should be mindful here. These spikes have a purpose. Others don’t. 

I think we all get aware of long low Spike (due to agonizing pain signals), yet we do tend to miss the smaller low spike (mild pain) usually as they don’t pain as much and we have learnt to tolerate them.. Tolerance is good but in this case, it trains the mind to become blind to a emotional spike (making mind save but ignore the small signal). Be aware because when we ignore these small signs, soon they build up and one day spike length is long enough to get your attention however result is agonizing pain. 

On the other end, we ignore observing high spikes “neutrally” because they represent high pleasure or elation moments. Thus again, we lose our mindfulness here due to this tendency for being opportunistic and enjoying the moment. Higher it goes, more we thrive on it. 

We must learn to be mindful and be aware of these 2 that we normally ignore viz: smaller low spike and the long high spikes. 

Let’s assume that we are able to bring the smaller low spike (mild pain) in our domain of awareness. Be aware of the emotion that it is trying to touch. It could be fear, anger, bitterness, indignation etc. Once we are aware, we have an opportunity to ensure that it does not spiral and become a long low spike. Our task before it is too late, is to begin the exercise of washing the “mild pain” emotion with love. Love is a powerful tool.

If we analyze our feeling and emotions deeply, one can realize that it is “resistance” that brings pain and resistance more often than not usually comes only from a singular aspect of the mind-field “Ego”- the principal that emphasizes individuality. This is the kid “within” that never ages and always remains a kid that needs direction and parenting skills. One has to learn to behave like a doting parent and act with the “one’s individual ego” like the parent dealing with a troubled(or troubling) kid.

Every-time one becomes aware of the smaller lower spike, be on guard that your inside kid “Ego” is craving for attention as usual and that it is worried . Fill it with love till it is rested. In the mind-space, our “Ego” will always represent the kid mind. Let your higher mind (buddhi) which is an “adult” mind reassure the kid continuously and consistently. If you observe deeply, ego will be true to a kid’s nature. The kid who was cranky due to fear of losing something sleeps only after reassurance from adult parent.  On waking up the next day, it again seeks out to check if what adult parent mentioned earlier exists and is true. Every-time an adult makes kid sleep with a lie, the child as it wakes up and sees different, it learns to “disbelieve”. This is poor learning and has repercussions that can lead to fall-out between the kid and parent someday. 

So never reassure the kid with a lie. Don’t give it a reason to disbelieve. Be aware of what you tell your ego as you tolerate the smaller low spike (mild pain). Stick to it in all your subsequent actions with all your heart. The bigger pain comes only when the reassurance was a lie.. For example: when mild pain emotion within is of anger, never reassure oneself saying that the other person will change or realize his or her mistake and things will become all-right. Such assurance is what reveals as a lie sooner or later resulting in the larger pain spike and an uncalculated outburst with painful repercussions. Instead, like a smart father working with the kid on the kid’s problem, try to really assess whether anger is valid and if it is not prove it to the kid with facts. If reasons for anger is valid, point out the possible methods for resolving the core issue and reassure on acting out with the right method in the appropriate moment.  Then stick to this plan with actions (putting your heart into it as mentioned earlier also) . This way, the mild pain has limited chance of later growing into an unbearable pain spike. 

It is noticed that unbearable pain is often also the direct result of high spikes sometimes. 

High spike (Pleasure signals) is also dangerous. Here the “kid” is getting what he desires. And his desires keep increasing. Like the tolerant and loving father who knows that fulfilling every desire of kid is akin to pampering , an adult mind has to reign in the desires of the child. Fulfilling of every desire comes at a cost. Many desires are competitive in nature that aims for larger or better than another kid. Breeding competition is not sustainable as it feeds other kids to compete for everything and that in turn can cause hurt to kid. Instead adult mind has to also train kid for cooperation. Here kid must be trained to spread love rather than basking in only self indulging love at cost of hurting another. This spreading of love can come easy to only those kids who have a lower need for love. And a low need for love is direct outcome of the truthful, consistent and continuous reassurance offered by the caring ‘adult mind’ father. Such a treatment from the adult mind results in abundance of what we call as “Self-love”.

 By doing this, the high spikes don’t spiral out of control to give out a sudden and large low spike as it is not subject to fears of losing out to competition with “others” . It is such fears of the ego mind when uncontrolled (not directed) by the higher mind that leads to large pain spike after a high experience and usually the actualization of losing to competition. 

Thus “being mindful” to me is largely about being a good parent to the ego mind and I think this is the best mantra for a healthy and peaceful life even as we enjoy life, relationship and connect with people. We don’t have to become a “recluse” or disconnect with world at large, if we can manage to be a good father to the ego kid.

All we need to learn and master is good parenting skills for a wonderful enjoyable living. That’s all to it!! (Just KIDding – Kids can be so difficult. Playing the sensible parent is such an exhausting task, O man – when will the kid grow up?)