Mom and Dad, I Choose You!

TRAP I PEOPLE SEE THEIR ENTIRE LIFE THROUGH THEIR INNATE EGO LIFE’S GREATEST TRAP IS HIDDEN IN THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP It is commonly believed that childhood is the most important period for the basic formation of personality, and that this is determined by how parents relate to their child. This is why lately more and more parents seem overly nervous about their children’s education. In fact, children are frequently hurt very deeply through their education and behaviors that seem normal or inconsequential to parents. You too may have been traumatized by a casual remark or deed of your father or mother. But do the ways parents treat their children really have such great influence on a child’s personality and life? For example, why do brothers or sisters with the same parents, who were raised with the same amount of affection, have different impressions of their parents? A mother would say she loves her children equally, but one child may feel that he wasn’t loved while another grows up certain of his mother’s tender care. The trap is hidden here in the huge difference that siblings raised under the same circumstances see in their mother. CHILDREN SEE THEIR PARENTS AS INDICATORS OF THEIR OWN VALUE For children, parents are the origin of life, and therefore an unquestionable absolute being. As they learn the basis of human relationships from these absolute beings, children experience a variety of emotions for the first time. When accepted by their parents they experience a sense of security and trust, and when rejected they experience insecurity and mistrust. When praised by their parents they experience the joy of acceptance and the sense of peace that comes from feeling loved, and when scolded they experience guilt, despair, and the terrible sense that they are unworthy—feelings that may give rise to hatred and anger. However, the way you view your parents’ treatment of you is based on your own feelings. In fact, you may never know what they were actually thinking. Being accepted or rejected, loved or not loved—these are not things your parents gave you, but rather feelings based on how you perceived their treatment of you. Furthermore, the reason you viewed their treatments this way is that when you felt you were “accepted” or “loved” by them, you were at the same time accepting and giving recognition to yourself On the other hand, when you felt you were “not accepted,” you were at the same time rejecting yourself. Siblings growing up under the same circumstances can hold different impressions about their parents because they see themselves from different viewpoints, meaning their self-esteem differs completely from one another. If the way we view our parents’ treatment depends on how we esteem ourselves, when does our sense of self-esteem begin? In general, it is believed that children begin to judge themselves according to their parents’ valuation of them, for example when they are praised or scolded. But if our self-esteem creates the way we view our parents, that very self-esteem is actually the driving force, and the way we view our parents only a consequence. When children feel something toward their parent for the first time, they already possess a particular sense of self and view their parent through this perspective. In fact, we possess our sense of self from the very moment of our birth. That self- esteem can be said to be your innate ego, which you need in order to live and manifest the life’s theme that you decided before your birth. We are stuck in an astonishing trap, in that what we feel about our parents is meant to be how we think of ourselves, or in other words our self-worth. It’s commonly thought that a newborn baby does yet possess an ego—that not until 6 to 18 months of age does he begin to realize that his body is his self and recognize that all people except him are others. That’s why it’s believed that ego development occurs during that period. However, recognizing that “you are your body and your body is you” allows your innate ego to arise and enables you to embody your life theme through your father and mother. This knowledge has shaken the foundation of conventional child-rearing and education, as our preconceptions about the self being created by the behaviors and words of our parents becomes no longer applicable. For example, in Maru’s story she becomes jealous of her new baby brother for taking up her mother’s time, and thinks, “My mommy doesn’t love me.” If you have a brother or a sister, you may have had an experience like Maru’s at some point. Children expect their parents’ absolute affection, constantly asking them, “Watch me, look at me, love only me.” Children are extrememly sensitive about whether or not they are loved. If they don’t receive their parents’ affection as often as they want, children may feel that they are not loved. To the mother, both children are adorable. She is just busy taking care of the younger one, who is more in need of her attention. “My mother doesn’t love me” is a false belief on Maru’s part. Usually, we are not even aware of these preconceptions. Even if Maru does become aware that her belief is false, the sense of lacking it creates inside of her will never be erased. That’s because her feeling that her mother doesn’t love her actually stems from herown belief that she is not worthy of love.