We are celebrating children, with May 5 being a reminder for us. This is a national holiday, Children’s Day, in Japan. Before they were combined into one in 1948, Boys’ Day was celebrated May 5 and Girls’ Day, March 3, as they still are in Hawai’i.
The world has changed radically for everyone these last two years, no less for the children. High school graduation, playdates, and school days that you and I remember are very much different now. What will the world look like for them? What are the implications of what is happening to children? When they are surrounded by adults and media gripped by fear? When they are taught that every person is a potential threat to life?
What is Our Role as Adults?
What are our beliefs?
Children are sponges and they take on the beliefs and behaviours of those around them. The phrase “mini-me” is truer than perhaps most realize. It’s more than just dressing alike.
We have a responsibility to own our stuff.
To see how we engage with others – the language we use, how do we agree to disagree, do we just stick with our bubble group? How do we handle situations emotionally? Are we aware of our projections? What about how we channel our creativity? Or our general beliefs about money, men, women, education, etc?
What we voice and how we behave are based on our beliefs. What we model physically, emotionally, and energetically become the foundation for children. Like they say, racists aren’t born. Studies also show that adults tend to stay physically active when they grow up in an active family. Also of course, everyone can change their patterns. Perhaps it is more like taking off a borrowed costume to reveal their true stripes.
We forget life is an experiment and experience. We try on things all the time. Yet we are held to not changing, to being predictable (read: safe and controllable).
We are all Unique
Children’s Day celebrates children’s happiness and healthy development. How do we determine if they are happy and if their growth and development show they are on the “right track”? What milestones, standards, and bell curves do we use?
The question is – is who they really are allowed to emerge? Are they nurtured for who they are?
Or do they grow within sturdy containers determined by the parents, teachers, and systems? To ensure they are safe, and “on the right track”.
According to Human Design, we each are unique. We can see this with a bodygraph that pulls information from multiple wisdom traditions, including the I Ching and astrology. This looks like a circuit board with nine centres and 64 gates, showing where energy consistently flows through and so where we have constant access to. Each of the centres and gates has a theme and when two gates form a channel, a new energy is available. This is the surface level of Human Design; it goes deeper into codon rings and amino acids, for example. Many people experience an “a ha” or some sort of affirmation when they first learn about their bodygraph. It provides so much insight, even at the surface level.
The Human Design System is a way to decode human genetic information. It is not a belief system. It is a self-verification and an empirical way to explore who we are and to live our authentic self.
Wade Pajares & Alex Shih, Human Design | Code to Inner Wisdom
Interacting as energy systems
How energies flow and connect is mechanics. Without awareness, this can be a source of challenge and yes, even bliss. Without awareness, we could be conditioning those around us, including children, even if that is not our desire.
One example is the interaction between someone with a defined centre and one without. In Empath : The Open Solar Plexus, I briefly describe relational dynamics between a defined and undefined solar plexus. Essentially those with an undefined centre tend to develop strategies in order to cope with the energies and often overwhelming conditioning forces of the defined centre. They may learn it’s better not to speak about their feelings, afraid of making it worse or “rocking the boat.” Or they may appear “hysterical” and “so sensitive” to others.
Are you aware of the energetic dynamics that may be present in your relationships? Even as we teach children to honour their feelings, they may feel it is not safe to do so. Perhaps we use “teaching moments” when we become aware of our emotions, beliefs, and behaviour and see an opportunity to “educate”. What about those moments when we are not aware? What are we teaching children then? What if we ourselves are lacking the tools and understanding?
Or when we are unaware of the projections we have? Such as seeing others’ potential, through our own lens?
The New World
According to Human Design, we are coming to a close. We’ve been in the era of the Cross of Planning for the past hundreds of years. This is a tribal energy of taking care of each other. We have built systems and institutions such as schools, highways, hospitals, governments, etc to take care of “the tribe”. We as a whole have also come to rely on them, as an authority, and to trust that they evolve to reflect our needs in a more inclusive way.
What has now become crystal clear is that these systems are breaking down, and have been for a long time. It is not cynical to say “follow the money” to revel agendas and motives. How deep we can or want to dig is another question.
The next cycle is all about the individual. This does not mean “each man for himself” – it can. What it does mean is that we must learn to tap into our own inner wisdom. To trust that we know what is correct for us, to choose for ourselves, and to honour the same in other people. There is always at least two sides to every story.
- Stay centred. Pause often and contemplate how you are feeling. Is a shadow or unhealed part of you being triggered? Check out Art of Contemplation with Richard Rudd.
- Honour your energy flow. Do you need to nap? Or go for a walk?
- Do what excites you and calls to you on a deep level.
- Know there is nothing to prove. You have nothing to prove. To anyone.
- Sit with the questions and inspiration that come in. Not everything needs to be manifested. Maybe it is for someone else. Have you read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic?
- Read less. Read more about the other side.
- Get Outside more.
- Nourish and nurture yourself.
- Spend time alone to observe your own energy flow and to discharge other people’s energies.
- Observe yourself and see through the illusion of the desires that drive you. Are they really yours? What is the motivation behind what you say, how you say it?
May 5 is a reminder that children are to be celebrated. They are a gift. They require our presence and are not something to mould, a container through which to fulfill our own dreams, inspiration, or ambition. The best tool we can empower children with is knowing themselves, learning how to discover, listen, and honour their own truth. Celebrating children is to celebrate uniqueness, curiosity, wildness, innocence, and energy.
