What I Learned From Hana - Respect

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What I Learned From Hana - Respect

As children grow, the relationship we have with them also grows... and changes.  Where parents were once the heroes who could fix anything, we become a tolerated societal stigma.   And where they were once our precious little bundles of joy, they become something not quite recognizable.  What ultimately happens is a break-down in communication - partly because they are still working out what their feelings are and therefore can't quite communicate them to us, partly because we are no longer in control of them and this frightens us.

And therein lies the problem, we feel the need to control their behaviour (after all, society makes the parent responsible) and they feel the need to break away from that control and assert their own independence.  

This is how it looks on the surface.  But actually, the problem is deeper than that.  The problem is a common relationship issue of familiarity.  That is, we crossed a line moving from a position of respecting one another to a position of having a right over one another.  She should do as I say. I carried her for 9 months, I nurtured and fed her. I provided for her.  She should listen to me.  I'm her mother.  This is not a message of unconditional love - it is now love with a condition.  The child who receives this message instinctively knows it's unhealthy and wrong, but they don't know how to express this.  Instead they scowl, or hit out, or sulk, or any number of behaviours we read as disrespectful.   Put simply, by taking the attitude 'I have a right over this one' we show disrespect to that child, and so what does the child do?  She does the only thing she knows to do, the very thing we are teaching her, she shows disrespect in return.

The interesting thing is, this is not just a problem between parents and their children, this is a global problem affecting all relationships.  That line of familiarity is crossed, and then we think we have a right over someone - he should remember my birthday, he should consider my needs before making any decisions, he should want what I want - or she should like me as I am, she should not be trying to change me, she should not be telling me how to do it.

What is our thinking before we cross this line?  This person is interesting, I want to get to know this person, I like listening to this person, this person is valuable, this person deserves to have good things.

Now, which way of thinking is more attractive?  Which way of thinking is going to draw the other close?  Which pushes the other one away?  Which way of thinking is more suitable for relationships?

Through the relationships we have with children, we see immediate effects of our own words and actions whereas with other adults, we may not see the return of our words until much later.  Children give us an opportunity to learn how our own thought processes affects others.  Their behaviour is an immediate reflection of our own.  If we learn to listen and accept the message they are sending, we can learn to transform our attitude from 'one with a right' to 'one with respect'.  

Thank you for reading. For more information on Raja Yoga philosophy see www.bkwsu.org.