Little mirrors

I wonder to what extent my son is a reflection of me.

I have been spending most of my time with my 2 year old son. I have been busy writing my thesis these past months that I just recently notice how much he had changed and I felt like I had missed out on his growth. Not that I need to be there for every moment, but I did create him and I feel like he can teach me a lot.. about myself. And he is such a joy to be with.

So I stayed at home with him for the last 7 days. I knew I needed to change my priorities and the way I go about my day. I wanted to see what would happened if I just followed his rhythm, do everything he wanted to do, inspire him to discover new things and just 'be' with him. When I follow his rhythm, I came to realize that there is nothing to fight against. And not just that, but I discovered new things. We went for a walk in the forest and I let him lead the way. Immediately, he chose to go off the path, into the rough, and we discovered enchanting new water streams and big mossy boulders that I didn't know were there. We laid on the grass, look at the sky, played with a few bugs... it really was much more pleasant than our usual walks on the 'path'.

Because I had made the decision to 'be' with him, I think he knew that I didn't have anything urgent to do so he would not want to leave the beach or the forest until he was completely done. Often, I would get the feeling that I wasn't very productive and that I should be working on more important things. Even if I had made the conscious decision to be with him for the week, old habits were knocking on my door for the entire week. Sometimes, it would be so great that I would break down and cry. I felt like I was wasting time and that is unacceptable in my old model of the world. When I would try to skip out to my computer to read or write, I felt like he knew if I was doing it to escape something or if it truly was important. It drove me crazy some times because he would not give me a break from just “being’’. I wonder how much we put our children in daycares and schools just because we can’t handle the reflection of our own selves.

I started to wonder to what extent my son’s own rhythm is a mirror for my own? If the source is more evolved and he is still so young with very little cultural conditioning, he must be wiser than I can imagine. He would only know the natural rhythm of life because he lives completely in his body. I wonder to what extent I could still be productive, healthy, happy, and do the work I want to do, if I had him all the time with me?

The thought seems crazy to me right now but I can sense a certain wisdom in it. I will continue to explore that.

The past week, I have found myself in interesting social situations. As I live my truth in my daily life, I found myself talking to more people and creating situations (out of my awareness) that help me discover more about the work I want to do with children and parents. At first, when I realized that the people I was interacting with were not familiar at all with my views of education, I started to doubt the value of what I want to bring to the world. After a few waves, I came to realize that I have to be in situation where people are not familiar or how am I suppose to make a difference? For so long, I have been seeking people that think like me,... well, except for a very few people and a few books, I wasn't being truly myself when I was in conversations with most people I met. Like Louise says in her blog, it's easy to preach to the converted.

This is a whole new way of going through the world for me. And I need to breath....

I helped out a friend on Friday evening, bartending for an event, and I forgot to breath for 5 hours. Wow, do I ever regret that. I felt hung-over (I didn't drink) the day after, I just wanted to sleep and there was my son, wanting a new adventure... I thought I was going to die. I don't know yet what kind of lesson that was but maybe something about how should not engage in activities where I will find it to hard to be my authentic self.

Something else came up this past week with my son. The whole issue around food and meals. The three meals a day, whoever invented that? I feel like trying to feed a child at specific times and specific foods that we think are good for them, is creating some sort of addiction. I notice that my son is very happy drinking juice, milk and water all day with fruits and a few veggies. I wonder how much creating pressure around eating at that young age creates addiction to food later?

And as we evolve, and our vibrations become higher, how much food do we really need? Is it even a need?