Talkin' about it
One of the passed-along beliefs in our lives that has gone unquestioned is the idea of our incessant need for talking about things, whether to ourselves or others. What do we talk to our ourselves and others about? Most of the time, we talk about what is bothering us about others or about life.
I can't count the times in my life that I had conversations with a friend, and immediately turned around and called another friend to complain about something the friend I had just spoken with said or did. This kind of thing, of course, takes place between friends, relatives and between husband and wife all the time.
Why is there this incessant need to talk about what is bothering us about life or about another? Do we, as parents, realize what our children learn when they witness that kind of behavior?
They learn to do the very same thing, which is to release the pressure that arises in oneself in the moment - by talking and complaining to another (or inwardly to oneself).
That action feels like it releases the pressure inside us in that moment, but does it? It may temporarily feel like it, but no sooner than we blink, that pressure inside us has arisen yet again. We have never been shown how waiting, watching and learning about that pressure can transform it into something entirely new.
In a nutshell it comes down to the fact that it is easier to talk, to blame and point the finger at others for any disturbance that arises in us, than it is to take responsibility for what has arisen IN US in the moment. Taking the easy way, is never the right way.
The pressure that arises in us is difficult to stand in for sure, but it holds the possibility of something new coming out of it, if we would just agree to use that state properly, which is to wait and see. And you can see a certain level of insanity we live from in that there is a certain preference in continuing to do the same thing over and over again (expecting a different result) rather than agreeing to take full responsibility for ourselves and the states that arise within us in any given moment.
There are countless hand-me-down beliefs that we unknowingly continue to unconsciously pass down to our children - "talkin' about it" just being one of them. Some are obvious, others not so much so. When we are present to ourselves, fully aware of ourselves, we realize that every action we take and every word that we speak has a consequence and is passed along to our kids (and others).
Now I'm not speaking here of proper conversations that need to take place in our lives. I'm speaking of this incessant need to talk about others, to others, or to ourselves in order to release the pressure that has come up inside us. It is easy to feel the difference. One is a compulsive behavior and the other a simple need.
The bottom line is....
We can't help ourselves by ourselves when it comes to these past, compulsive behaviors. We can't help our children know something new (through us) without help from something higher. That's the fact whether we want to see it or not. Right answers and true help do exist, but they don't come from old borrowed parts of ourselves. That should be pretty evident by now.
As an exercise for you as a parent, do your best in seeing how you might be instrumenting old parts of yourself that your child is picking up. Quietly notice that. At first, you will only see it "after the fact." Eventually as you work to really want to see more, you start seeing it while the behavior and/or words are taking place, and then as awareness expands, you will be able to see those old parts trying to push you into doing their bidding and you won't agree. Instead, you will consciously suffer them.
There's nothing else to do but simply see - and to see without judgement. There is a borrowed belief that all of us carry in this consciousness that believes it needs to do.
We can't change anything. We have to agree to be changed - and there's a big difference between the two. The belief that we can change ourselves is based in an idea of what we believe is wrong with everyone and everything. The same part of us that tells us that something about us is wrong is the same part of us that feeds us what we need to do to change it. So, nothing really changes - we just keep going around in circles. Nothing new can come out of that equation.
Real change comes from agreeing to be changed by a level of consciousness above ours - because we see that all we can do in and of ourselves is go around in circles "talkin' about" what's wrong and then "talkin' about" how to fix it.
Just simply see the truth of yourself....and stop talking about.
Image courtesy of: Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
