When we approach children with the awareness that they can teach us, we automatically become more present ourselves.
As grown-ups, we often approach children with ideas about what we can teach them about this life to which they have so recently arrived. It's true that we have important information to convey, but children are here to teach us just as much as we are here to teach them. They are so new to the world and far less burdened with preconceived notions about the people, situations, and objects they encounter. They do not avoid people on the basis of appearance, nor do they regard shoes as having only one function. They can be fascinated for half an hour with a pot and a lid, and they are utterly unself-conscious in their emotional expressions. They live their lives fully immersed in the present moment, seeing everything with the open-mindedness born of unknowing. This enables them to inhabit a state of spontaneity, curiosity, and pure excitement about the world that we, as adults, have a hard time accessing. Yet almost every spiritual path calls us to rediscover this way of seeing. ! In this sense, children are truly our gurus.
When we approach children with the awareness that they are our teachers, we automatically become more present ourselves. We have to be more present when we follow, looking and listening, responding to their lead. We don't lapse so easily into the role of the director of activities, surrendering instead to having no agenda at all. As we allow our children to determine the flow of play, they pull us deeper into the mystery of the present moment. In this magical place, we become innocent again, not knowing what will happen next and remembering how to let go and flow.
Since we must also embody the role of loving guide to our children, they teach us how to transition gracefully from following to leading and back again. In doing so, we learn to dance with our children in the present moment, shifting and adjusting as we direct the flow from pretending to be kittens wearing shoes on our heads to making sure everyone is fed and bathed.
Clinical depression affects 20,000,000 Americans every year. Tens of millions more suffer from bouts of the blues. Even these large numbers do not capture the extent to which today's smart, sensitive people are burdened by a sadness that is neither biological nor psychological in nature. In this course you will gain the tools you need to deal with this sadness in groundbreaking ways that complement--and may even have the power to replace--medication and psychotherapy. Do you have difficulties sleeping? Are you tired a lot? Do you have trouble finding pleasure at home and at work? Is it hard for you to make decisions? Are you uncertain about your path in life, irritable and out of sorts, or hungry all the time? All of these are signs of the modern ache that we have come to call depression--a label that people are pressured to pin on themselves. In this course you'll learn a new way of thinking about depression and a new method for getting past "symptoms" right to the heart of! matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment