HOW IS IT THAT CLARA LOVES MICHAEL?
By: Bill Cumming
It is not a mystery; understanding a child’s love for his/her father, contains within it some of the most important underlying principles of the work we do in the Center for Access to the Power Within. (That’s what we used to call The Boothby Institute. I’m now sure you can see why they don’t let me name anything anymore.
“It was at this point, standing in yet another line with a screaming toddler in my arms, that my six year old daughter, Clara, decided she absolutely had to have a look at her passport picture. This was a seemingly innocuous request, but in fact would have involved unhooking several bags from my shoulders and letting loose the toddler who, screaming aside, had already demonstrated her intention to leave no ‘Do Not Enter’ sign undisturbed in her exploration of the world of airport immigration.
Now it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have thought ‘why me?’ when Clara was nipping at my ankles and the people around me in line were silently nominating me for a ‘person I’d most like to not sit next to on an airplane’ award.
But after responding to Clara’s continual requests like a six year old adult, (I believe the words, ‘I’m not going to do it and you can’t make me!’ may have passed my lips), I took a deep breath, recognized that my reaction was more a function of my emotional state than her behavior, and I apologized for being mean to her.
‘Mean?’ she asked, incredulously. You weren’t mean to me. You’re my daddy. Daddies can’t be mean.’
It was at this point the question ‘why me?’ popped into my head. Why me? Why do I get to be loved so unconditionally by someone who is all too frequently in the line of fire when I lose my cool? How is it possible that her love and trust are still firmly intact after six years of sporadic positive parenting?”
The author of this little slice of life vignette, Michael Neill, is one of our conveners, an actor, coach and had created his own company. (While Michael is no longer a convener, he and his family are family to me. Since then Michael created SuperCoach Academy and is one of the best known and most successful coaches with clients all over the world.) In his vignette, Michael goes on to explain that we are all given the gift of absolute love, among other things, which many of us summarily ignore. The degree to which we recognize the gifts for what they are and the disciplines necessary to maintain them are critical ingredients of the underlying principles of our work.
The most powerful force in the world is unconditional, absolute loving-kindness. Unconditional love is necessary in order to engender unconditional love. The capacity for it resides within all of us. In its presence all else becomes manageable.
From just this tiny glimpse into the life of Michael and his family, there are a number of things we can sense about him as a person and a father. He loves Clara absolutely. He is introspective regarding his own actions. He strives to improve. He tells the truth. He is self-correcting. He takes ownership of misguided actions and apologizes for them. It is reasonable to assume that with the continued presence of absolute, loving-kindness, Clara will continue to thrive and create for herself (because no one else can do it for her) a meaningful, productive, magical, joyous and contributory life.
In order to move forward in the world, one must accept the fact that the conditions as they exist are of our own creation. We must demonstrate ownership of these conditions so that we can stop the futile search for someone else to blame for the condition or any expectation that they will solve the problem(s). That does not mean that we caused the violence, rather that we are the inheritors of the condition.
“Children accumulate emotional violence in both their bodies and their minds. If they do not know how to transform it, they may express it harmfully and lash out at others. Or, if they do not recognize it, they may repress it, creating a bomb, within themselves. Eventually, they direct the violence they feel at themselves in self-destructive ways. Many children feel they have no way to escape their pain, so they take drugs, abandon school, engage in reckless sex, or even commit suicide. Or they inflict suffering on themselves to punish those they believe have made them suffer. It is important to recognize their feelings of anger, isolation and fear…We are the continuation of our ancestors. We contain all the beautiful qualities and actions of our ancestors and also all their painful qualities. Knowing this, we can try our best to continue what is good and beautiful in our ancestors, and we will practice to transform the violence and pain passed down to us from so many generations.”
– Thich Nhat Hahn in Creating True Peace
There is no attempt on Michael’s part to assign blame for the conditions as they exist, nor blame the child for testing the limits (I want the passport). What there is, is a recognition of inappropriate reaction to Clara’s request, the telling of the truth and the return to a place of loving-kindness without self-recrimination or drama. It is impossible to truly apologize in any other state. When loving-kindness appears, it arises out of the space created for it by its own presence. Sounds like a contradiction and it is not. If you are not surrounded by loving-kindness, see how much of it you are putting out in the world.
In order for a person to move from a position of feeling of no value (hopelessness), to a place of honoring the self, one must have contact with a person (people) who loves them absolutely and knows that only they are in charge of their lives. In the past twenty-five years, I have asked thousands of people who did not feel good about themselves at one point in their lives to tell me what was present at the moment when they decided to turn that situation around. While the words they choose to express may have been different, the essence was the same. They said that it was the presence of a person who loved them absolutely and the accomplishment of something tangible, which they recognized they had created themselves.
Maintaining a state of absolute loving-kindness requires constant attention and focus. There is no substitute for personal discipline. Daily, personal, spiritual self-care is required in order to maintain perspective, purpose, and equanimity. Each day through readings, meditation, exercise, music, quiet, observation or any combination of the preceding, we can come to a place of loving-kindness, recognizing that the only thing we control is ourselves and go out in the world being open to the opportunities that each day holds. When we practice this discipline, we can recreate it at any moment in the day.
In the middle of a long travel day, in the midst of another’s upset, there is no way we can access the insight of this father without the discipline that allows us to know that our actions are not created by the circumstances around us but by the way we choose to respond to them.
Remember you are loved without condition!
With all my love and every blessing!
Namaste!
