There’s no doubt that the pursuit of our Personal Mission follows common stages as we move through life. Yet, although the ages at which we reach key milestones will naturally differ, one important aspect affecting the rate at which we spiritually advance, is the messages we receive as children.
The Sixth Insight describes how our control dramas are related to our past (early childhood in particular), and as we review our younger years, we may find ourselves wishing with hindsight that we’d received certain messages sooner. Or sometimes we can recognize that messages were sent to us, but that we weren’t ready to receive them.
Regardless of the twists and turns of your individual life, when we share stories of our journey and learnings with younger generations, we nurture them with wisdom that only experience brings. And, providing that we help ensure that over time the pace of spiritual evolution will gradually speed up, enabling new generations to identify their own missions sooner in life.
We Must Find Our Own Path First
Once fatherhood was upon me, I felt a strong urge to share answers to the big questions with my child. But I quickly realized that I wasn’t particularly clear on the answers myself. Reading books by James Redfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Lama Surya Das helped me to uncover the information I sought, and my own Personal Mission began to sharpen into focus. Over time, I developed an authentic practice that I was able to share with my daughter and now with son as well.
We don’t have to have everything figured out to help children and young adults. But if our intention is to help them find their Mission, then we need to ensure we put effort into our own seeking first. We must have practiced what we preach.
Helping Children Takes Energy
Even once we become clearer on our own personal mission, it’s challenging to skillfully help children unless we successfully manage our own energy levels in parallel. There are many demands on our time, and often our busy lifestyles drain our energy. But children need energy from adults to thrive, and it’s critical for everyone’s health that we find balance in our lives.
Our health and energy are very much linked, and taking physical care of ourselves is an important part of our journey. Despite what’s going on in our external environment that’s out of our control, we can always continue to work on our inner world and physical health. By demonstrating to our children that we take care of our body and spirit, we model a more sustainable path for them to consider adopting themselves.
The Eighth Insight describes how children thrive when surrounded by adults who positively share energy, and explains that one way to build energy is by voluntarily giving it to others. When we willingly give children the energy they need, and nurture them spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we help to stop a cycle in which parent’s control dramas produce children’s control dramas.
Certainly, talking with children about our understanding of how the world works is important. But, our messages are much more powerful if they are reflected in our daily lives. For me, it’s tempting to make my own seeking too intellectual, and it can be hard to put discoveries made into practice. But, one motivation I find to do so, is the knowledge that others may benefit in the future from the actions I take in the present.
Turning the Mission into Reality
Sharing our own answers to big questions is a great place to start with our children, but it’s also important to recognize that children have their own path. The Seventh Insight describes how keeping our mission in mind creates Synchronicities, and encouraging children to keep asking big picture questions will help to energize the flow of their own voyage of Self-discovery.
Children dream big naturally and we should encourage this process. Yet, often when we hear children’s ideas, we’re quick to point out practical limitations. Sometimes we may be tempted to immediately guide children in a different direction, but these moments offer huge potential to demonstrate how children can find their own answers.
After children have discovered potential hurdles to their dreams, we can share our own approach to balancing material needs and dreams; and one area that lends itself well to such discussion is our careers. Whether we are currently in our dream job or not, our experience and training for a career can be a great guide for others.
At some point, children will be ready to move from thinking about their mission to actually pursuing it – and it’s likely they’ll be met with some setbacks along their way. Difficulties can be discouraging, particularly if youngsters feel like they’ve made a mistake, but through loving them and reminding them to always look for the silver lining during harder times, we can tenderly assist them with identifying their next step.
The Importance of Community
Realizing our Personal Mission is made much easier by adopting an attitude of giving. And when we can find joy in providing a service to others, we play a critical part in the evolution of humanity’s spiritual nature. Whether we’re parents or not, it takes a community to raise a child, and when we consider all the elders who impacted our own journey, we know from experience that it’s never solely the parents who influence a child, but it’s also the family members, teachers, coaches, and neighbors too.
No matter what our position within the community is, we should be conscious of the energy we have to give, appreciating how we can assist the spiritual advancement of humanity by investing our time and sharing our truth with the young souls around us.
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