The Cinnamon, Pie Crust, “Rolly-Polly” of Life….by Leta Hamilton, MLTS Contributing Blogger
Sitting here in the office, which is the café, I am enjoying a pastry. It is one of those cinnamon filled pie crust pastries that my mom used to make. I loved them then and I love them now. How much of our childhood is brought forth through foods, smells and sensations that suddenly bring back happy and sad memories in a wave of energy that is palpable. We call it emotion. What is really is, is energy. We deny that we are energetic beings to our distancing of all the possibilities that open up to us when we do.
What is an atom but a vibrating particle of energy? What are you but a mass of atoms combined as cells? So, it is with a brave heart, sincere in its daring admission, that I declare myself an “energy” thinker. I don’t see myself as a body. I see myself as a vibratory conglomeration of atoms, expressed as energy. I also see my children in this light. By doing so, I offer myself the chance to be the emotions I want my children to see with their tentacles of energy (like antennae, they pick up on what I am feeling) and know that they have a mother who is at peace.
As I take the last bite of this pastry, I realize how much like life it is in its flaky outer crust and gooey center. We humans are “flaky.” We bounce from emotion to emotion, not choosing to create our emotional states, but rather choosing to have them chosen for us through our reactions to external circumstances. Then, like sweet spicy cinnamon, we inflict our reactions on those around us. What others “bite” is either a mouthful of sweetness or a mouthful of bitterness, depending on the concentration of the emotion swelling up inside our bodies.
Why is it that so much of parenting is spoon feeding our children the food of all that they must learn before becoming adults? Where is the consideration of the energy, the emotion, with which we feed them? Is it possibly because somewhere deep inside our psyche we enjoy the flakiness. We enjoy the experience of bouncing from one emotion to another, not taking responsibility for what we are feeling. We are the ball and life bounces us from one life experience to another. We have no say in the matter.
This approach has worked for thousands of years. I believe, however, that many of us here on planet earth are beginning to tire of the “ball” phenomenon and are ready to be the ball bouncer. This will require us to shift our outer persona away from flaky and into the direction of solid. By solid, I mean that no matter what words come out of my mouth, my children perceive “inner peace” as the center of my being. They know that I am at peace with my life, no matter the chaos. With four children, chaos reigns, but peace stands as the throne on which the chaos rules.
Is love at the center of peace? I believe it is. The love and peace I offer my children through my overall energy is love and peace I offer myself. Everything does not have to be “hunky-dory” all the time. (You should see my house right now! Just back from vacation, there is laundry and mess everywhere!) What has to be constant and vibrating through all my demands that they clean up their room is a message, perceived at the energetic level of emotion, that I will love them even if they never clean up the mess.
This is not always easy to do. I can launch into a tirade and everything I have worked so hard to achieve in my soul is out the window in a millisecond. With practice, it is becoming easier. With meditation, it is becoming more constant. With prayer, it is achieved with more and more regularity. My oldest son asks, “Where is the mom who loved me like when I was four?” What is he saying? He is saying that the flakiness is taking over. What he wants is the mom who understands. The mom who forgave him because he was little, innocent and could not have known any better. I will channel this mom today. I will go for “solid.” Now that the pastry is finished, it is time to be done with the back and forth, up and down, emotional sweet or spicy “gooey” range-of-responses with which I inflict my children on a daily basis. They need solid. I need solid. It is with peace that I finish this month’s The Way of the Toddler.
Tags: children, later mom, leta hamilton, midlife mother, parenting, raising a family
