Ok, this blog post is going to be a total rant. It started yesterday morning and I am so unbelievably flabergasted I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Here it goes:
I’m in the kitchen and the TV is on in the other room. Since I don’t watch TV, I usually just tune it out, however, this time, it just seemed to permeate my brain. It was a man on “The Mom Show” teaching moms how to not only keep their playrooms organized but how to ‘train’ their kids at the same time. The piece I caught went like this, “So, if your child wants a new toy, they must put back the current toy they’re playing with. This teaches your child limits.”
I busted a gasket right there on the spot. I’m sure everyone in the house thought I was a complete nuthouse (not that that’s unusual mind you!). LIMITS!!! Are you freaking kidding me. Why on God’s Green Earth would I want to teach my kids limits.
Do you know how many adults (you included I’d bet a year’s salary) suffer from self-imposed limitations? Guess what? Those self-imposed limitations weren’t self-imposed on purpose. They were imposed upon us when we were kids and constant conditioning ensured they were ingrained into our cellular memory.
Now, before we go off on how our parents wrecked our lives, let’s give them some leeway in that, for the most part, they really didn’t know any better. However, I believe, naive as it may be, that society is a little more with the program now than it was 40 years ago. We are now paying ’teachers’ like Tony Robbins, Robert Scheinfeld, T. Harv Eker and many, many others millions and millions of dollars to undo our self-imposed limitations. Now we have this guy on “The Mom Show” getting access to parents when they’re kids aren’t even old enough to sit up yet and showing them how to teach these toddlers limits!!! When I work with my clients I see the horrendous damage these ‘limits’ cause in people’s lives – it keeps people in poverty, in abusive relationships, in a state of unhappiness and discontent because they know they’re capable of more but can’t move past their ‘self-imposed limitations’ to see the way out of their current circumstances, it keeps them living their lives based on the expectations of others – parents, spouses and even their own kids and on and on and on it goes…
After I finally calmed down I decided this was obviously something I’m passionate about (ahem!), hence the Rock Star thing!
I DEFINITELY DO NOT believe I have ‘the solution’ or that I have some magic formula for how to raise children, or even that I’m right. But I do know I don’t want my kids to know any limits in what they’re able to achieve or be. I want the only thing that holds them back to be the limits of their own imaginations – not any beliefs that I’ve instilled. We’re teaching our children to colour outside the lines, to think outside the box, to be unique, to be OK with being different, to not be afraid to stand alone. We’re teaching them to take risks and to stand in their power.
Of course, the jury is still out on how this approach will work out – my son is now 20 and is a fabulous young man, while still finding his way. My daughter is only 13 and is definitely more strong-willed. We also know somehow, someway we’ll leave our kids emotionally scarred in some way because while we may have the best of intentions, we’re not truly in their heads and we don’t really know how they perceive our intentions, not to mention after working with as many people as I have, I’ve determined that no matter what, parents are going to screw their kids up somewhow – it is what it is. We’ve totally accepted that as being OK.
At some point we have to realize that there are other ways. We have to be willing to try something new – I know it sounds crazy to use your kids as guinea pigs, but I’m asking you to think about your own life, look at who and what you are as a result of the conditioning you’ve received throughout your own life. How has it manifested? How has it affected you? What has it held you back from? What has it given you? What has it kept you from? If you were raised without knowing you had limits – who would you be now? What would you be doing?
Whether or not you have kids, this idea still applies. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what your circumstances were growing up, any day you can simply choose something different. You can choose to be brave, to be quiet, to be different, to be unique, or even better, to simply be YOU!
Ok, I feel better – thanks for that!
Enjoying the Journey! ~Trish