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Dorothy wrote:
.... I made a resolution that I must open channels of communication with
my two teenage daughters (16 and 17). This I had decided after much soul
searching over the weekend, during which I finally faced the fact that I
have not been giving my daughters enough of my time and had not shared with
them my professional or personal plans and dreams. I thought this was what I
should do as a first step towards opening these channels of communication.
Reveal my heart to them, I thought, tell them what makes me tick and how I
feel about my life and my future and what my concerns are. This, I thought,
would encourage them to do the same.
So I came home from work full of enthusiasm and high hopes but it all
ended in a silly fight with all of us locked in our separate rooms.
Nothing changed.
...Why is it that I can communicate with every form of life on the planet
including rocks, dishwashers and television audiences, but not with my
teenage daughters?
b) Is the aforementioned disharmony indicative of some kind of failure by
me as a mother or is it their karma to go through all this stuff and
I should just let them get on with it and stop feeling inadequate?
c) Am I missing something here?
Dear Dorothy,
An old Sufi story comes to mind... This is Nasrudin, of course, and the
story goes:
'If you want your donkey to move faster, Nasrudin,’ said a neighbor,
'get some ammonia and rub it on its rump'.
Nasrudin found that this worked. One day, feeling a little listless, he
tried the same remedy on himself. The ammonia burned him so much that he
started to run round and round his room.
'What's the matter?' shouted his wife, unable to get hold of him.
'If you want to catch me, use the contents of that bottle over there,’
panted Mulla Nasrudin.
That story and others can be found in "The
Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin" by Idies Shah.
You better pass the ammonia over to your daughters.... or vice versa.
The baggage of our personal history (you know, those cumulative habits of
consciousness) we all tote around is very heavy. People view and respond to
each other based on this history, not the current story.
So you decide to drop a few pounds of baggage...you can begin to rewrite
your history but everyone else around you is still viewing and responding to
you in the old way.... Unless everyone has a conversion at once (group
rates?) the interaction will stay pretty much the same...for a while....
until a new karma begins to work its way into the new scripts. Be patient.
Be consistent. Don't vacillate.
You’ve also fallen into the trap of Immediate Gratification--results or
confirmation so expected by everyone these days. This undermines the innate
trust we must have in mystery, surprise and the yet to be announced, in your
case, undermining your decision to change something in your life….
Our very efficient and customer oriented world of business supports this
trap. Another modern myth is not helping: the new age obsession with self
improvement and self motivation, self worth, self-help...all supporting the
illusion of self importance...lost are the tools of submission, humbleness,
patience, and trust...
Trust your intuition and let go of your expectations. It’s just your
mind getting afraid and needing assurances…the mind does that when the
status quo is threatened. The mind’s job is to prevent change, so trick
the mind, appease the mind, surprise the mind, let go of expectations and
judgments…sit, observe yourself, don't try to change anything.
Dorothy, stick to your resolve and be patient...your teenagers will look
to you for consistency not experiments...they have to be seduced into a
relationship, coaxed, foxed. You’re their parent not best friend.... If
you want to be best friends...give up the clean house.
The answer is (c).
The Dishwasher
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