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It’s been easier to bear life’s pain than to watch my son have to bear it. That’s where the ray of light comes in. We must remember how much easier it was for us to rise up strong through great heartache than it is for us to watch our babies have to do the same thing.
My own son is only five and, thankfully, I haven’t yet had to bear witness to what I would consider any great episode of him suffering. However, to a young child, losing a favorite toy feels as real and raw as losing a loved one can feel later. It is a universal human truth that it is harder for us, as parents, to watch our children suffer than it was for us to suffer through the same pain.
I feel this very powerfully every time I take my son to the dentist. As an adult, I’m pretty comfortable at the dentist’s office. I’ve had a mouth full of cavities and years of off-again, on-again meditation practice to help me perfect my mind-over-matter technique. But my son has not. Seeing my boy scared and struggling through his first few dentist appointments brought all the anxiety of my own childhood cavities crashing down around me. I was practically hyperventilating at his dentist appointment while trying to play it cool so as not to tip my kid off about the incredible pain that awaited him down the road.
What was all that meditation for if it could not protect my son from experiencing this?! What was the point??
In the moment of our children’s suffering, all we can feel is our pain as we watch their pain. In retrospect isn’t it funny that we shrug off our own pain and loss as secondary while experiencing our children’s pain as primary? After all, they’re the ones feeling it, aren’t they?
Do we think they aren’t as strong or capable as we were at that age? No, if anything we see them as stronger and more capable. It’s interesting how biology hijacks our brains where our kids are concerned.
We can’t take away all the painful experiences of our children’s lives, but we can show them they are loved and we can give them the tools they need to transmute their own suffering into triumph. That’s what all the meditating and self-work is for, we’re honing our own toolmaking skills so we can teach our children how to hone their toolmaking skills. Slowly, but surely we progress from stone knives to steel across the generations. There is our hope, keep honing.
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