Speaking from (sometimes painful) personal experience, we can tell you that creating conscious relationships with children is one of the most challenging and satisfying things in the world. Gay recalls a moment from many years ago: When my daughter was going through her "Terrible Two's" stage, when children practice saying "NO" to just about everything, I was locked in a struggle with her about whether she had to eat the untouched string beans on her plate. My position, which seemed entirely reasonable to me, was that she should eat some of the beans before getting any of the dessert she wanted. She, on the other hand, was arguing forcefully for the anti-bean position. Her view was basically DESSERT NOW, NO BEANS EVER! As our dialogue was escalating, I looked over at my mother for support. Instead, I saw a smile of satisfaction on her face. "What are you smiling about?" I asked. Mom said, "You have no idea how much pleasure I'm getting from seeing you on the receiving end of this sort of thing."
We eventually survived, and are now getting a few satisfying chuckles out of seeing son Chris on the receiving end of some of these kinds of dialogues with daughters Elsie and Imogen. He's about the greatest dad we've ever seen, though, (and the girls are two of the finest human beings ever to grace this planet!) so our main reaction to being around them is utter delight.
For a glimpse of what's possible in conscious relationships with kids, check out this real-life miracle, sent to us by Christine Brondyke, one of the members of our Apprenticeship program:
"We found a weird bump on our son Stevie's neck a couple of weeks ago. (He's 4.) It grew fast in a week, so we took him to his pediatrician. They said it's a benign vascular growth, and should be removed because it's growing so fast. They also said it could go away by itself in a couple of months. They referred us to a pediatric surgeon. We went, and they said "Yep, needs to be removed, but we should probably do it under sedation in the OR." I asked what kind, and they said "Oh just a mask, so he won't notice anything. We can do it in two days." I felt scared but went along. The next day a nurse from the unit called to give me instructions. She said they might need to intubate during surgery because of the location of the bump! He'd be in the OR up to an hour and Recovery another hour. This was all going to be for a 2 cm bump that they had said could go away on its own in a couple of months!
The morning we were to take him in for this surgery, I was feeling really jittery. John said he felt really nervous. So I stopped. I just stopped, and felt what was happening for me. I realized I hadn't tuned in about this in two days because I thought they knew better than me. John and I decided "no" to the surgery and we both felt feelings of lightness, relief. I realized I had given away my power, and I felt scared to own my "no" and cancel the day of, but I did it anyway. Then, I came downstairs, and put my hand over Stevie's "boo boo" and thanked it for my lesson. Six days later it was gone!
I'm so excited and appreciating this...If I hadn't learned so much about following my intuition, and saying "NO" these last few months, I wouldn't have thought twice about it."
Congratulations, Christine, on the miracle of your conscious connection with Stevie.
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