Can't You Just SEE Me?

I like to let life unfold naturally and with grace. I try to pay attention to inner urgings and let the River of Life flow to and through me. I glean what Spirit is telling me and find the deeper meaning along the way. The synchronicity is so informative when I allow it.

I’ve been leading a book group at my daughter’s school for a couple of weeks. It’s fascinating to me how each week, the theme of the book and the discussion is a fractal of whatever is going on in my own life. We have talked about the nature of reality with The Little Prince and how image or external packaging affects how people see us and relate to us and sometimes how we see ourselves with The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool. The discussions have been very fruitful and informative. I was given very little instruction about how to do lead this so I have included some expressive arts and tried to keep the topics in the realm of how these themes play out in their own lives for I believe that’s why all stories, myths, etc. exist–to act as a mirror and to inform us of a greater truth about ourselves and our place in Life.

Yesterday, we decided it would be fun to speak in accents during the entire discussion. It was silly, freeing and entertaining and we managed to stay on topic. We were talking about a book where a child is transported to an island where the teacher’s are crazy and teach the kids the wrong things. I asked the kids why they felt the author created these characters. Their answers were filled with wisdom. One of the girls said that adults often try to act like they know everything and tell them how to be. She said that sometimes they are wrong but won’t admit it. It was clear to me that these kids often feel oppressed by this so, to close the discussion, I said (with a French accent), “Okay, let me ask you a very important question. I need a serious answer but you can answer with your most silly voice if you like. How does it make you feel when all you are being told what is right for you or how you should think?”. Here was the amazing answer from one of these little treasures:

True to my fractal theory, I, too, have been facing oppression by someone who wants to tell me how to be, how to think, how to live. I don’t feel seen and I feel the authoritarian fist of judgment wanting to slap me down, to bridle me and box me in. It’s not happening.

When someone isn’t “controllable” and we think we need to change them, to morph them into what we want them to be so that OUR needs can get met. I have been supportive of this paradigm myself, sadly. Now that I am awakening to a different truth, I see how often I haven’t seen, really seen what was real, who people really were. I saw them for who I wanted them to be and when they didn’t fit that ideal (because how could they?), I would try everything I could to get them back to that place where I could feel safe. Of course, it was an illusion and it never has worked and it never will. Real change never happens through tantrums, beatings, withdrawal of affection, or any form of “punishment”. Real change comes from acceptance, love and compassion of ourselves and others.

Freedom is what I believe we are all here to experience. We have to choose it. Learning to accept what is in others and change what we can in ourselves seems to be where it’s at. When a little person (or any size person) asks me, “Can’t you just SEE me?”, I want to be able to say, “Yes, I can.”, and mean it.