Life isn’t always crap!
Teaching your children that life isn’t that bad is important.
I remember my father always telling me that life is HARD and nothing comes easy and he continues to remind me of this everyday as an adult. Just recently, I had a conversation with my mom who is terminal ill and I said to her,
“Mom, look at the sun trying to come out today,” and my dad was quick to remind us of the clouds around it and I thought, how symbolic of my childhood and my programming.
Previous generations taught their children to fear others, to fear life and that the real world is hard. I understand the protective intention behind this but what does it really do to one’s subconscious and overall perspective of the world and thus themselves ?
Personally, I grew up [ aka modelled ] always looking for the bad, to think that life is unfair and people are always wanting something from me as that is what my father believed and continues to see the world as a result of his own generational patterns and trauma, but this is not what I want for my own son.
I understand the worry and the concern of not wanting children to feel disappointment or pain however this is an essential part of life as they learn about their own resilience and personality, and how they fit into this world. But there are deep consequences in thinking that the world is all negative and research shows us that when we are chronically hypervigilant or negative we can suffer depression and poor health. We fear any and all change, new experiences and people because we are stuck in this feeling that life is HARD. Our nervous system needs to know the good feelings of pleasure so it can ebb and flow in the river of life and create resilience. * more on that soon
When we are programmed to only look at the bad we find it hard to see the richness in life because of fear and thus live in anxiety and this anxiety is a mirror of learned behaviour and our nervous system stuck in survival mode.
This was my childhood and as I became a conscious parent, I would look at my own son and think to myself how I deeply do not want him to not know the richness of life or even fear the richness of life. Yes, he will find out that there are disappointments and he will take what he needs from each. It’s important to remind him and his nervous system that life isn't all hard nor bad nor awful and that there are moments of pleasure that we need to FEEL to build a balance and healthy nervous system, a resilient mind and a wholeness of life.
So I choose to raise my son knowing that life is MOSTLY good, knowing that life has experiences and we don’t have to label it all bad or good but as is and take what we feel that we need from it.
As I write this, my inner child who was programmed to only believe in the bad is feeling very scared and I am giving her voice here because our inner child needs to be validated as she screams no and starts to feel anxiety. I see you [ my inner girl ] and I want you to know that life isn’t all bad and that you deserve everything you want and desire because life is mostly good.
Pleasure is your birthright.
I’m also highly aware that I am writing this after another of many school shootings in the United States where we live at the moment, so again my brain is telling me something different and yes this is incredibly sad … scratch that it’s inexcusably sad and should never happen and my son will know this and he will also know that life can have magical things as the sun trying to find it’s way between the clouds.
There is sun and there are clouds and this is life. Let’s feel both with a healthy pleasure seeking nervous system — jenn
If you, like me have been programmed to see the worst in everything and feel stuck in this scared mindset AND don’t want to raise your own children this way, I also offer Hypnobreathwork + Conscious Parenting Coaching Bundles to help us heal from generational patterns and live in our fullness before the trauma and wounds told us we were something else.
with love,
jenn 💋
