A word or a thousand on love and parenting… Mostly love….

I like to believe that I lead a pretty spiritual, connected life. I meditate, do emotional discharge work, do therapy of many kinds, read spiritual masters, go to lectures and symposiums about uplifting ourselves, humanity and the planet. At the moment, I am also changing careers and moving into the world of teaching parents and other adults how to access their emotional intelligence. I’m catching up on all the latest brain/heart research, and reading many different approaches to parenting while also pursuing my own personal growth.

What’s striking me today, enough to want to sit down and say something about it, is how similar so many approaches are. Perhaps we like to think that we are different, or perhaps it’s just human nature to feel alone and isolated in how we do things, but the truth is, most of the paths to “freedom” and most of the approaches to parenting, to personal growth, even to spiritual enlightenment that I’ve seen all seem to lead in the same direction.

The most salient point on all these paths is that human beings are essentially good. We each have some kind of connection to a higher truth, call it God, The Universe, the Flow, The Truth, Consciousness, Spirit, whatever. We each have a true heart inside, a good heart that longs for connection, truth and love. When we get connection, truth and love, when we are listened to and helped, encouraged and understood, we act respectfully. When we get separated from one another (I hurt you, you annoy me, something causes us to separate), we feel pain. If we express the pain healthily and lovingly, we can move through it and move on. If we suppress the pain we become angry, depressed, self-loathing, or just plain don’t like people. We become judgmental to protect ourselves from having to experience that separation again, and off we go into a world of hurt, dislikes, isolation and lonliness.

In order to avoid this separation, we do our best to train our children to act respectfully. The problem is that we’ve been taught that our “moral compass” is not something innate, rather it is something that is trained in us over time. We must be good trainers, and must accept nothing less than respectful behavior from our children (not to mention our significant others and family members). Good training imposes structure, punishment for bad behavior and rewards for good behavior. Love and acceptance for behaving the way we should and shame or a time out (or god-forbid a breakup) when we are bad.

The problem is that this perception of people - that we require training to be decent - does not account for how our brains physically function, and does not lead us to solving our problems and becoming more connected. Actually, it is what leads us to brow-beating each other with our own opinions, to clinging fiercely or desperately to our position in a conflict, and to the general unease we experience in relation to our fellows.

The most current research out there on Brain Function shows that when we feel safe and cared for, we are more able to think and choose actions that benefit us, and those around us. When we feel bad, threatened, ashamed, or distressed, our pre-frontal cortex shuts down and we begin functioning from our brain stem – that area of our brain designed to protect us – to fight, freeze or flee.

I don’t know about you, but for me, trying to resolve arguments with my loved ones by fighting, fleeing or freezing has never really worked.

I need to feel loved. I need to be listened to. I need to have the people around me understand and believe that I am a basically good person, and that when I behave badly it’s less about maniacal selfishness and more about how hurt, angry or disconnected I feel. If people believed that about me, and chose to look at why I might be behaving some particularly baaaad way, instead of just judging me and reacting with their own negativity, perhaps we could de-escalate the problem. Perhaps we could share, understand each other, come closer, know one another better.

I also need to have the people around me have faith in my basic intelligence. Given conditions of love and acceptance, I will be courageous and will find solutions to my problems. Children are, believe it or not, the same way. Sure, they need training on how to communicate their feelings, but let’s not confuse punishment and shame with training. Punishment and shame shut down a person’s natural ability to problem solve. They may cause a person to suppress their feelings and look like they’re being “good,” but that ultimately leads to lying, depression, anger, mania, and finally that feeling that we are all alone in the world and no one will ever understand us.

If we could give each other that faith, if we could give each other the gift of listening, if we could be detectives and ask ourselves why people behave how they do, then we might be able to show enough compassion to liberate someone else, or ourselves, from the feelings that caused the behavior in the first place. We might be able to create lasting peace and connection. We might be able to create love.

If we could see for ourselves how hurt we really feel about how that thing that just happened separated us from someone, perhaps we could focus on getting connected again rather than condemning someone for the behavior.

Current scientific research shows that we act respectfully because we feel safe and loved, not the other way around. So today, when your child acts out and you desperately want to shut them in their room, or tell them how bad they’re being, or throw them out the window or whatever (don’t be shocked – you know you have that feeling now and then), try looking at why their behavior is off. Try figuring out what they might need in this moment to come back to being the loving caring person they truly are. Try it with your spouse, or with that problem sibling or co-worker. Address the need behind the behavior and see if you can create more love. Cuz don’tcha want more love? I do.