As I embark on a new life, separated from the father of my children, I find myself turning to writings, poems and inspiring quotations to help me navigate. I find that others put things into words for me, which help me process what I am feeling. For myself I am drawn to the quotations which remind me that this is a process and that evolution and great change is often preceded by chaos. What seems like destruction is a step on the evolutionary path. I also feel resonance with the importance of authenticity and I am playing with the image of the Phoenix rising, like a dragon from the fire. (I was born in the Chinese year of the Dragon!)
As a parent I am drawn to the quotations and readings that remind me that I have released my children into the world, but that ultimately I do not have control. I can work hard to help them feel contained and safe, yet how they feel, how they think, what happens to them and their happiness is not wholly dependent on me. I have faced this before in small ways – watching my children suffer the physical and psychological difficulties they go through when they fall, when they say the wrong thing, when they are bullied; and in bigger ways, such as facing the possible death of my son when he was diagnosed with cancer.
Parenthood for me, seems to be about learning how to let go in the right way. How do we keep them safe as we release them into the world? What tools do we provide them with? How much do we hold onto their pain? Attachment, which I have written about before is, in the west, a positive aspect of parenthood – the attachment parenting of breastfeeding, wearing your baby and the secure attachment to parents, as written about by Bowlby. In Buddhism it is a negative concept associated with a cloying, clinging unhealthy connection to those you love. Compassion and love are what we try to cultivate, and a desire to make those around us happy, yet a recognition that we are not completely responsible for the emotions of others and we can not control them.
I am currently finding solace in p20-21 (Senate 2003 publication) of the 1926 book ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
The bows are the parents. The archer is God or whomever or whatever or conceive her to be, and the arrows are the children. I cannot know what my children are thinking and feeling, so I have to work hard to foster an intimate connection with them where they can say what they feel and I can ask them about what’s going on. The last few weeks have seen my children grow more expressive with me – telling me multiple times per day that they love me, and that I am a wonderful mother. Heartfelt and heartwarming as we navigate this new path.
Tamsin Astor-Jack writes at www.tamsinastor.com/blog
©Tamsin Astor-Jack, Yoga Brained LLC