Yesterday I wrote a post about how for some weeks I used to drag my daughter out of bed to get her to go to school. Thinking about that later in the day there was much sadness. At that time I was so deeply conditioned to believe it was absolutely essential to get a high school diploma that I often overrode what she was telling me to force her to comply with school. I would do it so differently now. At that time we spent hours and hours and hours fighting about homework. The minute school started I would count the days until it was over because it was so stressful often. We got along so well the minute school was over. Looking back I’m stunned at how trapped I felt.
I have it that she was wise beyond her Years and she saw so many ways in which school did not serve her. Even though we had traveled three states and checked out about 33 schools to find the best one we could literally relocating to attend that school, and even though that school was the best one we could find, there were a lot of ways in which it created negative conditioning. Because her learning style did not fit with the prevailing mellui, the main thing she learned was to believe that she was stupid. I felt so helpless because I didn’t know what else to do. I so wish now that I could’ve heard her more clearly and truly listened to her concerns rather than try to control her.
One day I did listen. I was absolutely exhausted from the weeks of dragging her. On this day she wouldn’t budge no matter what I did. I’m guessing she was may be in fifth grade. I literally felt paralyzed with no clue what to do. I felt pulled by two horses; her will not to go and my believe that she absolutely had to go. She literally had gotten a truancy letter in kindergarten and I was concerned about not complying. So much compassion for my younger self who felt so trapped.
Her absolute refusal finally gave me the space to look within. I laid on my bed in absolute disorientation. I had no clue what to do. My family had conditioned me that education was everything. I had made a commitment to my father to educate any child I had. It was his only request of me.
So that morning I laid on my bed absolutely flummoxed. As I often did at that time I opened my “A course in miracles.“ It said to surrender. I called out to the gods what does that even mean and I heard again surrender. I literally had no clue what that meant. So I let my daughter sleep for hours. As obvious as it might seem, I hadn’t realized school was exhausting for her and she was trying to tell me how difficult it was for her to be in that situation where the learning styles simply did not meet her needs. I finally heard her.
She woke up hours later. I asked her if she was ready to go to school, it was about 1130. She said yes. We went off to school with no stress. The next day I asked her what it would take for her to go to school without all the stress. She asked me to make soy sausages and wave them under her nose. I was grateful to comply because I’d been exhausted by all the conflict. As best as I can remember I did that for a couple of years every morning, sausages under her nose. Until one day that was no longer required. I’m imagining she finally felt heard and that was willing to cooperate. God bless me for how long it took to finally move beyond the matrix of my conditioning.
The photo below is of one of my favorite places on earth, my happy place. I sit there every time I’m in Mendocino for hours, simply staring at the sea. May we all have a happy place. May we all be heard. May we all move beyond the limiting matrix of conditioning.
