Family and Maui

Sometimes we get along with our families and sometimes we do not. The times when we do not, we ask ourselves why I am in this family; or why my sister or brother behaves that way?; or why my aunt cannot forgive? And so on. We wish they would understand us better and that they would do things the same way we would. 

I am going to refer now to Maui which is the place I am right now. Maui is not only beautiful and famous for its views. Maui has a lot of attractions for all type of people. The same way a lot of people who lives here, are here for different reasons. I find interesting the fact that almost 80% of the people (from my inner census), who leaves here, came from other places. From this 80%, even the ones born here their parents or grandparents came from other places in the US or other parts of the world. What we have in common is that almost all of us find Maui as our home, even though we are all immigrants here. Actually the fact that we are all from elsewhere, make us more open to accept each other (of course there are exceptions as always, I am trying to give a big picture here). 

This just came to my mind the other day when I was talking to a friend about our families. We are a little bit far from mainland, 5 hours from California and 7 hours from Japan on an airplane, and a lot of the people here if not most of us, we have our relatives somewhere else in mainland. This make some of us miss our families very much and others, I have heard them saying: "good that I am far away from my family drama"… What I truly believe is that our family are those people we find everywhere we go and who take care of us, family is not only a blood related person who we call brother or sister; family are those brothers and sisters we find along our journey on this planet. When we find the beauty of sharing being away from our blood relatives, we find on each other a family member and we do not feel alone anymore. We feel at home.

Love Forever

Are we expecting that the marriage will not work, so we have to sign a prenuptial agreement?

And if that contract goes unsigned, do we find ourselves at war with each other when we go in different directions?

What happened to “I love you more than anyone in the world”?

and

“We are going to be together forever”?

Those are some of the questions that cross my mind, each time that I meet with people who are going through or have had a “nasty” divorce or break-up. Those break-ups that became a fight about who will get the children, or who will get the house, or who will pay the debts. I am not saying that these agreements do not need to take place; I am saying that there are better, faster and even cheaper ways to settle those agreements.

Now that you are not with your partner, why can’t you love him/her like you would love another human being, your best friend, your brother/sister? Why that person needs to become your worst enemy? Some of you would say: “She/he does not want to be flexible or be reasonable”, “I can’t talk to him/her”, etc. There are many people that are wondering how I have a good relationship with my ex-husband where we are civilized and real friends.

Some of you could find this difficult to believe or understand. For us was an easy process because we have a deeper understanding beyond the material and emotional level and we did it in a spiritual level. Not only from an understanding of our personal lessons and with each other, knowing that a beautiful soul (our daughter) made us rejoin as a couple and be her parents, but also from our own life’s purpose point of view.

We truly understood that even though we were not a couple anymore or living under the same roof, we should give the best of ourselves to our daughter, be better human beings for us and for her. We continue to be friends as we did as a couple and with the love that we should have between human beings.

In this separation process we of course had our rough moments too, where we left our human nature, as I call it, to show up. Those situations were not only part of the “process”, but also were the one that left us the best lessons. When we were in those “situations/moments” I asked myself: “What should I learn about this?”, “what should I change on me, so it stops bothering me something about him?” (mirror law). We both achieved the growing needed, just opening our hearts.

Opening our hearts has been the biggest step that we have made in our spiritual path and the one that helped us to keep the goodness of our relationship, learn from the not so good and be the parents our daughter needs.

Opening your heart…

You do not think anymore that you are isolated being, but that you are part of family, a community, a whole.

You know that you have a life purpose.

You do not need to hurt anyone even though you get hurt.

You understand that the experiences you live in your life, you were the one who chose them to live even before you were born.

You know that you find masters/teachers in others and that you are one for others too.

You are not a victim of situations anymore, but an observer and student.

You do not take anything personal anymore.

The majority of the people that look for my help are the ones that have “trouble” in their relationships (I am attracting that to me, because I have learned very much about that and I would like to share it with others that are ready for a change in their lives). Throughout this path helping others, I have learned a very simple formula and that you can expect the same result when you apply it correctly, like a constant (remember my scientific background right?). Regardless of the situation you are or the challenges that your relationships bring to you at any moment, if you keep your heart open and see the other person involved as your brother/sister that can make mistakes and you as his/her brother/sister with the right to forgive, everything is easier and you avoid to fall into the “drama mode”, as I call it, and take each opportunity to grow and learn. Be aware of the opportunities others offer you and take advantage of them to grow and better yourself, do not take them as menaces that you have to defend against (we are not in the jungle anymore).

What this world needs is love and how we achieve that is a small scale, with your partner, with your children with your parents, at your work, with your friends and with the ones that you do not like too.

Everything is contagious, the good and the bad. Therefore if we see everything with love, experience life with love without judgments, that is also contagious. Do not worry if at the beginning of this practice you feel like a fish out of the water, I felt the same way, and in order to feel accepted by others I went back to the old model of behavior, criticizing everyone and always looking outside and not inside of me. But when I learned to be out of the drama and not inside of it, I felt better and could learn from the experience. Now I know that love is the answer and I am not afraid anymore to let whoever has to know that day. Even though I feel their mind saying: “this gal is crazy or weird” or “does she lives in this world full of hate?”, eventually something is going to let them see what I see, that might not be ready to hear that yet, and I will not force it either. I transform those judgments in love. More and more I am attracting people who needs to learn something from me (and vice versa) and I have less people around me that looks at me like I am talking Chinese to them (not one of the three languages I speak).

I invite you to open your heart and allow love to rule your life, it is easier this way.

With very much love and a rainbow for all of you.

As always I appreciate your comments or questions.

Balanced parents, balanced children

Most of the time children are the reflection of their parents, but of course, there are always exceptions and a lot of isolated cases out of this affirmation.

We are going to talk about the first affirmation now. Isolated cases or exceptions we could talk on individual basis.

We are more and more experiencing a different generation of children. They do not only know how to operate a cell phone, a computer, but also sometimes they prefer them over other things. Some people would say that this could be because they are exposed to those electronics that we were not exposed before, it could be, but knowing how to handle them sometimes before even you show them how, is another story.

Children of this era, not only know what they want, but also they are letting us know loudly. When I say loudly, I am not talking about yelling or screaming, I am talking about the strength of their will showing up as early as in the womb. Some of us could "hear" them and some could not. But either way we cannot deny that fact.

I have talked to several parents with different backgrounds and beliefs, and most of them affirmed that they know they have a different type of child at home that does not behave quite like they did when they were kids.

These children are more sensitive, more artistic, nature and animal lovers, fearless, just to mentioned a few characteristics. Some could be more active, even diagnosed with ADHD or similar. Others could be as calm as the water in a lake in the morning, and what they project is just love. Everywhere they go, they fill up the room with love.

We sometimes do not notice all these characteristics because we are too busy with our work, our partner, family, friends, economical problems or other things that we get distracted by in our lives. The fact that we do not see them does not mean that those characteristics are not present.

Our children on the other hand, they notice everything that happens in their surroundings, our surroundings and beyond. Closing your bedroom door, in order to get into a fight with your partner so your children can not hear you, does not work with this kind of children. They feel and see beyond all this. They feel there is trouble; they feel if you did not have a good day at work, they feel even who they can trust and who they cannot trust.

The best way to avoid losing your children's respect is to talk to them; and explain if needed, or clean the air of frustration before even picking them up at school or coming from work. Pretending that nothing happened when you have not really cleared the air of the heaviness of some feelings, is not the best way. Accepting those feelings, clearing them, forgiving (if it is the case) and moving on, works better.

Children of this era do not respect authority without a reason. If our grandparents or even our parents used to say: "Because I said so", and it worked for them, it does not mean it will work with our children.

The same way science and technology moves forward and develops new ways of doing things, parenthood and education need to do the same.

Wanting to raise our children with old schemes, will not only do not work, but also could frustrate their own life mission.

We choose our parents, family and lessons to learn even before birth. What happened is that in order to experience life we forget about all these in order to be surprised with what life has to offer. We spend great amount of time in our lives trying to find our life's purpose and we sometimes need spiritual guidance to find it. We could be those spiritual guides for our children if we want to.

However, we need to start with us:

- Are you happy at your workplace, with your partner, with your family?

- Do you know what your purpose in life is? Do you know how to find it?

- Do you want to improve the way you are raising your children?

The answers to these questions will give you an idea of where to start.

If you are not happy, how can your children will be happy?

If you do not know what your mission in life or life's purpose is, it is nearly impossible for you to help your children in finding and developing theirs!

Please do not hesitate in asking, comment anything this writing brings to your mind and heart. I am here to listen and may be help.

Education vs Love

Do you really think that an academic education is the best treasure you can give to your kids? Think twice.

Because of what I do, I have the opportunity to talk with a lot of adults and we talk about their past and their childhood and I do not recall anybody saying: “it was so much fun to learn how to multiply”, I used to love study more than 8 hours a day and then do homework, and I loved it!”, “I used to love school because they were so strict and they always put me in time out”,  “because I did not play too much when I was a kid, that is why I got my PhD”. NO.

They usually refer to their childhood or teen years as follows: “I used to go with my dad fishing and we had so much fun”, “my family and I used to spend time together at dinner and talk stories”, “I used to cook with my mom and we made cookies on Sunday night”, “my dad taught me how to drive”, my mom taught how to be very polite and compassionate with others”.

I am not saying education at school or university is not important, believe me I love it! I am an eternal student. What I am trying to say here is that sometimes we are focusing in how we are going to give our children something we did not have, or a better education so they are “someone” in the future, etc, that we forget that we can give them more and better things.

Why do not we switch gears and think for a moment: “What can I give to my child that it is not only going to last forever but it is going to make us bond as a family?” All the good memories that we keep in our mind are those that we were with people, and in growing up years that people are our parents or adults around us and our friends. They learn by example more than by words. 

If they see parents working, being discipline, eating well, loving themselves and others, how do you think that child is going to grow up doing? Yes, the same. We just have to relax and make it easier for all of us. What we can really teach at home that nowadays is missed in some schools is spirituality. 

That is big word for some of you, for others, it is a piece of cake. I am talking about purpose in life, know that there is something greater than us, that all of us are part of a whole and that is why we need to respect and love others as we love one of our legs, our eyes, and so on. If you do not love yourself, that is another story. You probably will work on that when you are ready, and teach that to your child.

That's all for now, I hope I gave something to think about or to talk about. My mom used to say: "it does not matter than others are talking good or bad about you; what really matters is that they ARE talking about you". 

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