I’ve had the privilege of taking care of children of all ages for the past 11 years. It has been a true blessing and quite the journey to work with them from a higher level of consciousness.
Working as an on-call nanny, I have cared for children from the time of their birth through school age and beyond. In this classroom of learning, I have seen many things that I wasn’t able to see when raising my own children because I didn’t have a higher understanding at that time.
The beautiful thing about truth is that any change made in our being now, changes the past and future as well because it’s all one consciousness. As such, there’s never a need to condemn ourselves for things we feel we wished we had done, because we can always agree to be new now.
I thought I would share a few of the things that I’ve learned over the years in being consciously aware of myself while caring for children.
First. I learned that if I’m not present and fully aware of myself in any unwanted moment with a child, the unconscious past reactive self is always there to dominate and resist the moment on my behalf. Whatever was unconsciously learned by me as a response to similar unwanted moments, is instantaneously there not only to resist the moment, but to fill me with reasons why people and events are the way they are. Basically, it is there to talk me through the moment so that I won’t remain in the moment long enough to see its duplicitous guidance. That is how the past carries forward from generation to generation.
Second. I learned that whether I was buttoning a coat for a toddler, changing a baby’s diaper, helping a child get dressed, or simply wiping their face after lunch, if I’m not attentive in the moment, there is always a certain force applied to my action. No true gentleness and care, just an act of violence, albeit subtle, which creates a certain second force in a child. By second force I mean, an unconscious action of force taken triggers an unconscious reaction and automatic identification in another. This is always happening when we aren’t aware of ourselves.
I noticed one day when I was working to untwist a car seatbelt, that the child in that seat was deeply looking at me. Something in her was memorizing and recording everything I was doing, taking all of it in. My tense jaw, my squinted eyes – the negative energy that was the result of being identified with the nature of frustration. All of it was being absorbed by her and she knew not what was taking place. It woke me up in that moment wherein from that point on, I realized how I had to truly work hard to be aware of myself all the time around these children, or my negative patterns became theirs.
Third. I learned that I had to put the brakes on, meaning, I had to intentionally slow myself down. The past patterns in me that I was used to living my life from were strongly in the forefront of my life always working to push me through the moment to “make the straight places crooked”. In slowing down, I am able to become aware of the pressure of that part of myself which allows me to wait and watch instead of instantaneously react.
Lastly, I learned one of the best things I can do for a child is to immediately start over in any moment where I miss the mark. By starting over, coming back to the present moment, I am able to be aware of any “carry-overs” of resentment or guilt that always try to dominate the moment with their pressure and prodding after the fact.
All in all, I became acutely aware that there is some mechanism in each human being that unconsciously records everything when we aren’t attentive in the moment. That mechanism in your child is recording all the time as well in everything you do and say.
That’s not something to be feared, it’s something useful to remember because it helps you in your wish to be present in each and every interaction with your child the best you are able to be.
As we work, we see that we need God’s help in staying present. The more we see and admit our helplessness, the more help from God we will receive. In other words, agreeing to surrender to God in that helplessness, is the same as our invitation to him to live his life through us.
He’s always with us, but there’s “no room at the inn”, no room for God’s presence, when we are filled with the will of ourselves and our beliefs that we in and of ourselves can do anything. We need to give up that self and its will. Then and only then can the Spirit of God be made manifest in our lives.
