Honoring the Mother-Child Bond
There is a place in a human being that is a connecting point to God. This place is the Soul. When a human being is completely conscious in their Soul, the connection to God is strong and clear of any interference by any false information.
Action that springs out of a clear Soul is effortless and perfectly effective. When all people act from the clear space of Soul, we will have paradise. When any one person acts from this space, they can create a life of safety, abundance, and happiness.
There is a natural and legitimate impulse to defend the Soul, sort of like psychic self-defense. A person who has a strong presence in their Soul can deflect others very deftly, even gently, and with humor - if another person attempts to ‘play god’ and control you.
The person who has little spiritual presence in the Soul, or who is just beginning to heal in the Soul, will feel the impulse to protect their ownership of self as an urge to lash out, to sting. Following up on the impulse to attack results in a very weak form of self-defense since it can tend to escalate negative involvements rather than diffuse or terminate them, leaving a person more vulnerable to future attack.
We’ve been given false images of how we are supposed to think and behave, such as placing value on sacrificing for others, considering others wishes before one’s own, duty over pleasure, and other persuasions that keep a person vulnerable to interference by others who would try to control you for reasons of their own.
Listening to the lies of convention can set up willpower to “be nice” and submit to the demands of others, and then find oneself angry, and lashing out at the same person when efforts to hold back the life force break and fail.
Releasing the lies of submission is the first order of business in recovering from the contagious illness of domestic violence. Clearing away subservience to the demands of others is a necessary step in clearing the space for a surrendering blissful relationship with God. There is nothing unhealthy or negatively “selfish” about it.
The desire to be yourself, and for freedom from being subject to the demands of others, is one that we recognize as being anything but selfish or immoral. There is no more important aspect to the spiritual safety and health of a person than being able to satisfy these desires. These are healthy desires for privacy, for freedom from unwanted interference.
Though the impulse to self-defend in the area of Soul is legitimate, attacks made in this effort mostly don’t work, and they do injure people. It is natural for little children, without anything better to do, to swarm over a mother - willing to control her by constant demands.
It is a predictable phenomenon that women predisposed to being dominated by others will feel powerless to do anything but switch into the dominant role - and wring their little necks.
We can call this kind of assault pattern the Retreating Assault. Such an assailant does not go looking for a chance to attack, nor do they use their attacks in an organized attempt to control another.
Retreating Assaults are made as a weak attempt to get away, to be “left alone.” Nonetheless, there are stronger ways to defend one’s privacy, and that includes a retreat into one’s private room, to close and even lock the door.
The need for solitude is largely a grown-up need, added upon a continuing need for the companionship of others. Children may feel only the need for companionship.
In a nuclear family home, a solitary and lonely child will wail or pound at the mother’s door after she retreats, even at the risk of inviting an attack. The child still has needs to be met.
A group of mothers and their children working together can learn to eliminate this first type of violence pattern completely, by finding better ways of meeting everyone’s needs. Children usually accept another child as a companion in place of an over-burdened mother.
Members of the group have prior and ongoing agreement that when one says “I need to be excused” she is definitely and with good will allowed to be excused, no matter what the chore is at hand. If there is at least one room set aside that the children may not enter, a mother can escape into that space and receive help from others in firmly but kindly defending the door. Several women using one kitchen can provide for themselves and all the children, without any of the women being burdened with more than they can handle, if everyone eats from the same pot.
Being burdened with “more than one can handle” is a prime situation to elicit a breakdown and an assault. Sometimes a certain chore can prove “more than one can handle” again and again. A repeated inability to handle a chore without a breakdown or an assault, can be called a Specific Malfunction.
Specific Malfunctions come about as a part of the contagious nature of the domestic violence syndrome. Suppose mother had some special stresses cooking supper. Waiting for father added stress. Performance anxiety, self-doubt, and untold numbers of emotional complications can add up to making a complex ordeal out of what could be a straightforward routine.
The children may have been subject to assault during this time of the day - seemingly a part of the regular routine. Through negative conditioning, the prospect of suppertime brings on a helpless, victim response on the part of the child, with fear and anticipation of trouble.
That child grows up, becomes a mother, and when suppertime rolls around, the helpless-victim response is still in place as it was when this mother was a child. This helplessness translates into confusion about the chore, reluctance or incompetence, the children get hungrier and more demanding . . . and the pattern is established for the next generation.
Specific Malfunctions can make an otherwise capable and affectionate person into an emotional and behavioral collapse, liable to assault (physical, verbal, emotion or volume attacks) anybody else.
Specific Malfunctions might occur in routines like going shopping, going to the doctor, bedtime routines, getting ready for school, holidays, advent of relatives’ visits or guests, unexpected lateness of spouse, housecleaning; anything that is a domestic routine can be infected with a Specific Malfunction.
A Specific Malfunction, shown as a reflex reaction to a triggering event, can be healed. Energy healing techniques or old-fashioned catharsis can make a big difference. But regardless of whether some has started this process, we can make choices now to make the best of things, where we are now.
To block contagion of the Malfunction and to set up for the healing in the parent and the child, relieve the person from that chore, taking the stress off of the weak link. Relieving that person from that chore is similar to taking the weight off a sprained ankle.
If an injury is there, the person deserves and requires rest within which to heal. A group of women pooling strengths can give this relief to each other, while providing for all the children and themselves consistently.
If you are someone who likes making lists, one possible help is to start a list of all the tasks you’ve done well today and add to that list any time. Doing well means you got it done, enjoyed it, didn’t need to get angry nor end up feeling drained. These could be simple tasks like, carrying in the groceries from the car, so simple that you might forget how much they matter to the wellbeing of your family.
Sometime when you might be feeling low, you can look at your list to remind you that on many occasions, you shine. If you enjoyed most of cooking supper (except one part) write down the parts you enjoyed.
You can start another list of chores or types of events that didn’t go well: make sure to notice things that always stress you out. You can call this list: “what I would rather not have to do”. Even if you never show this list to anyone else, it could be useful to remember the list if someone asks you to do one of those items, to remind yourself you really should say no.
As a member of a human rights assembly dedicated to human rights for all, you can call these events of “involuntary servitude,” and apply your-selves together to eliminate or upgrade every one of these events for every member of your group.
These lists can help you set limits for yourself, if someone asks for a favor. The lists can also help If you wish to receive counseling attention on the tasks that do not go well. Part of what happens in a Mother’s Collective is learning how to give healing attention to these kinds of hurts. No blame is attached to honestly accepting the presence of the problem. It is a contagious disorder that nobody chooses. It is an illness, not a deliberate crime. Furthermore, the ideal of the nuclear family super mother is a lie. The sooner we give up the lie, the better. Nobody does everything perfectly, and we are not supposed to.
In every person, among the myriad of acquired weakness that show up, are also special strengths. Strengths indicate a strong spiritual presence. As when one is spiritually strong in their motivating core or Soul, when one has a strong presence associated with a domestic routine, they are able to function abundantly and defend the space without inflicting pain, with gentleness, and with humor.
In Retreating Assault infections, the attack is nearly always a sign of a frustrated attempt to say no. Replacing the attack with the routine of retreat to behind an established boundary can be a key step in recovery from this type of assault pattern.
In Specific Malfunction infections, the step up is to replace the Malfunction with benevolent non-function, where the mother turns it over to another with greater strength. In time the group can identify the strong cook(s), the strong gardener(s), the most comfortable and efficient shopper(s), etc. People with special strengths take on more responsibility in specific spaces such as the garden or the kitchen.
Allowing another woman to be the cook does not mean you have given up being your child's mother. You are the mother even if your children are groomed by somebody else, or eat food cooked by somebody else. That you are their mother is a contract between you and God, between God and the child, and between you and the child. Nobody can change this, and this remains.
We’ve been taught many wrong ideas about what it is to be a good mother. We’ve been told it is performance in making the children look right and act good. We’ve been told that a good mother makes sacrifice after sacrifice for her children.
A mother is a doorway into life for her child. Her life, all of it, is what she gives. The quality of a child’s life is as good as the quality of the mother’s life. Pampering a child while displaying suffering in a bad marriage is not necessarily giving the child a better life than you have yourself.
The most health-bestowing mothers make themselves as happy as they can. She chooses a mate because of how he is with her, not because he is this or that kind of daddy. Presenting the model of a satisfying partnership is tremendously impactive in preparing the child for satisfying marriage later.
Nonetheless, the person who is a satisfying mate for the woman may be a violent force in the children’s life. If he is assaulting your child, your child is likely to be angry with you.
As the mother, you are a guide for your child. Your child expects this, as part of the instinctive bond. Anger at you because your partner is violent is justified, it is up to you to provide a safer situation for the child. Protecting your child doesn’t have to mean that you must divorce your husband. This can be another benefit from being involved in a Mother's Collective; you can have your day life at the Mother’s Circle with your child, yet go out for a nightlife with your partner, and your children can stay with those who were staying anyway.
It may be that a violence pattern in your mate (if he has one) is a Specific Malfunction or born out of unmet privacy needs. Creating some options for privacy will make it easier to identify and remedy the assault pattern.
Your mate's strongest response can be to encourage your participation in the Circle. If his problem is privacy, he might welcome the break. You can still bring the kids to be with him while it is working for everyone, and just make way for the kids to go back to the Circle if tension starts to build.
A Mother’s Circle can offer real help in recovering from simple family problems. Both the Retreating Assault pattern and the Specific Malfunction are simple assault patterns, in that simple magnetics of attraction to fun and repulsion from pain guide the participants to easy and immediate relief.
People have become so used to the idea of the “one man, one woman, and children” family that we have come to believe that there is no other workable way to provide for children and foster love between human beings.
That the nuclear family fails in so many ways to provide for so many people, and love and happiness are so often cast aside in the attempt, does not appear to deter people in the least. Most of us still want to try it, and make it work one way or another.
It might be time to acknowledge that the isolated or independent nuclear family is actually a very recent invention in society, and that domestic life, since forever, has been handled by the extended family or tribe.
We can create what can serve as extended family, even if our genetic extended family members are not inclined to take part. It may be that when early Christians asserted that a spiritual life could only take place within the context of the church, they were talking about solving these very relationship problems.
Peace on Earth begins with peace within the family. Peace at home.
Action that springs out of a clear Soul is effortless and perfectly effective. When all people act from the clear space of Soul, we will have paradise. When any one person acts from this space, they can create a life of safety, abundance, and happiness.
There is a natural and legitimate impulse to defend the Soul, sort of like psychic self-defense. A person who has a strong presence in their Soul can deflect others very deftly, even gently, and with humor - if another person attempts to ‘play god’ and control you.
The person who has little spiritual presence in the Soul, or who is just beginning to heal in the Soul, will feel the impulse to protect their ownership of self as an urge to lash out, to sting. Following up on the impulse to attack results in a very weak form of self-defense since it can tend to escalate negative involvements rather than diffuse or terminate them, leaving a person more vulnerable to future attack.
We’ve been given false images of how we are supposed to think and behave, such as placing value on sacrificing for others, considering others wishes before one’s own, duty over pleasure, and other persuasions that keep a person vulnerable to interference by others who would try to control you for reasons of their own.
Listening to the lies of convention can set up willpower to “be nice” and submit to the demands of others, and then find oneself angry, and lashing out at the same person when efforts to hold back the life force break and fail.
Releasing the lies of submission is the first order of business in recovering from the contagious illness of domestic violence. Clearing away subservience to the demands of others is a necessary step in clearing the space for a surrendering blissful relationship with God. There is nothing unhealthy or negatively “selfish” about it.
The desire to be yourself, and for freedom from being subject to the demands of others, is one that we recognize as being anything but selfish or immoral. There is no more important aspect to the spiritual safety and health of a person than being able to satisfy these desires. These are healthy desires for privacy, for freedom from unwanted interference.
Though the impulse to self-defend in the area of Soul is legitimate, attacks made in this effort mostly don’t work, and they do injure people. It is natural for little children, without anything better to do, to swarm over a mother - willing to control her by constant demands.
It is a predictable phenomenon that women predisposed to being dominated by others will feel powerless to do anything but switch into the dominant role - and wring their little necks.
We can call this kind of assault pattern the Retreating Assault. Such an assailant does not go looking for a chance to attack, nor do they use their attacks in an organized attempt to control another.
Retreating Assaults are made as a weak attempt to get away, to be “left alone.” Nonetheless, there are stronger ways to defend one’s privacy, and that includes a retreat into one’s private room, to close and even lock the door.
The need for solitude is largely a grown-up need, added upon a continuing need for the companionship of others. Children may feel only the need for companionship.
In a nuclear family home, a solitary and lonely child will wail or pound at the mother’s door after she retreats, even at the risk of inviting an attack. The child still has needs to be met.
A group of mothers and their children working together can learn to eliminate this first type of violence pattern completely, by finding better ways of meeting everyone’s needs. Children usually accept another child as a companion in place of an over-burdened mother.
Members of the group have prior and ongoing agreement that when one says “I need to be excused” she is definitely and with good will allowed to be excused, no matter what the chore is at hand. If there is at least one room set aside that the children may not enter, a mother can escape into that space and receive help from others in firmly but kindly defending the door. Several women using one kitchen can provide for themselves and all the children, without any of the women being burdened with more than they can handle, if everyone eats from the same pot.
Being burdened with “more than one can handle” is a prime situation to elicit a breakdown and an assault. Sometimes a certain chore can prove “more than one can handle” again and again. A repeated inability to handle a chore without a breakdown or an assault, can be called a Specific Malfunction.
Specific Malfunctions come about as a part of the contagious nature of the domestic violence syndrome. Suppose mother had some special stresses cooking supper. Waiting for father added stress. Performance anxiety, self-doubt, and untold numbers of emotional complications can add up to making a complex ordeal out of what could be a straightforward routine.
The children may have been subject to assault during this time of the day - seemingly a part of the regular routine. Through negative conditioning, the prospect of suppertime brings on a helpless, victim response on the part of the child, with fear and anticipation of trouble.
That child grows up, becomes a mother, and when suppertime rolls around, the helpless-victim response is still in place as it was when this mother was a child. This helplessness translates into confusion about the chore, reluctance or incompetence, the children get hungrier and more demanding . . . and the pattern is established for the next generation.
Specific Malfunctions can make an otherwise capable and affectionate person into an emotional and behavioral collapse, liable to assault (physical, verbal, emotion or volume attacks) anybody else.
Specific Malfunctions might occur in routines like going shopping, going to the doctor, bedtime routines, getting ready for school, holidays, advent of relatives’ visits or guests, unexpected lateness of spouse, housecleaning; anything that is a domestic routine can be infected with a Specific Malfunction.
A Specific Malfunction, shown as a reflex reaction to a triggering event, can be healed. Energy healing techniques or old-fashioned catharsis can make a big difference. But regardless of whether some has started this process, we can make choices now to make the best of things, where we are now.
To block contagion of the Malfunction and to set up for the healing in the parent and the child, relieve the person from that chore, taking the stress off of the weak link. Relieving that person from that chore is similar to taking the weight off a sprained ankle.
If an injury is there, the person deserves and requires rest within which to heal. A group of women pooling strengths can give this relief to each other, while providing for all the children and themselves consistently.
If you are someone who likes making lists, one possible help is to start a list of all the tasks you’ve done well today and add to that list any time. Doing well means you got it done, enjoyed it, didn’t need to get angry nor end up feeling drained. These could be simple tasks like, carrying in the groceries from the car, so simple that you might forget how much they matter to the wellbeing of your family.
Sometime when you might be feeling low, you can look at your list to remind you that on many occasions, you shine. If you enjoyed most of cooking supper (except one part) write down the parts you enjoyed.
You can start another list of chores or types of events that didn’t go well: make sure to notice things that always stress you out. You can call this list: “what I would rather not have to do”. Even if you never show this list to anyone else, it could be useful to remember the list if someone asks you to do one of those items, to remind yourself you really should say no.
As a member of a human rights assembly dedicated to human rights for all, you can call these events of “involuntary servitude,” and apply your-selves together to eliminate or upgrade every one of these events for every member of your group.
These lists can help you set limits for yourself, if someone asks for a favor. The lists can also help If you wish to receive counseling attention on the tasks that do not go well. Part of what happens in a Mother’s Collective is learning how to give healing attention to these kinds of hurts. No blame is attached to honestly accepting the presence of the problem. It is a contagious disorder that nobody chooses. It is an illness, not a deliberate crime. Furthermore, the ideal of the nuclear family super mother is a lie. The sooner we give up the lie, the better. Nobody does everything perfectly, and we are not supposed to.
In every person, among the myriad of acquired weakness that show up, are also special strengths. Strengths indicate a strong spiritual presence. As when one is spiritually strong in their motivating core or Soul, when one has a strong presence associated with a domestic routine, they are able to function abundantly and defend the space without inflicting pain, with gentleness, and with humor.
In Retreating Assault infections, the attack is nearly always a sign of a frustrated attempt to say no. Replacing the attack with the routine of retreat to behind an established boundary can be a key step in recovery from this type of assault pattern.
In Specific Malfunction infections, the step up is to replace the Malfunction with benevolent non-function, where the mother turns it over to another with greater strength. In time the group can identify the strong cook(s), the strong gardener(s), the most comfortable and efficient shopper(s), etc. People with special strengths take on more responsibility in specific spaces such as the garden or the kitchen.
Allowing another woman to be the cook does not mean you have given up being your child's mother. You are the mother even if your children are groomed by somebody else, or eat food cooked by somebody else. That you are their mother is a contract between you and God, between God and the child, and between you and the child. Nobody can change this, and this remains.
We’ve been taught many wrong ideas about what it is to be a good mother. We’ve been told it is performance in making the children look right and act good. We’ve been told that a good mother makes sacrifice after sacrifice for her children.
A mother is a doorway into life for her child. Her life, all of it, is what she gives. The quality of a child’s life is as good as the quality of the mother’s life. Pampering a child while displaying suffering in a bad marriage is not necessarily giving the child a better life than you have yourself.
The most health-bestowing mothers make themselves as happy as they can. She chooses a mate because of how he is with her, not because he is this or that kind of daddy. Presenting the model of a satisfying partnership is tremendously impactive in preparing the child for satisfying marriage later.
Nonetheless, the person who is a satisfying mate for the woman may be a violent force in the children’s life. If he is assaulting your child, your child is likely to be angry with you.
As the mother, you are a guide for your child. Your child expects this, as part of the instinctive bond. Anger at you because your partner is violent is justified, it is up to you to provide a safer situation for the child. Protecting your child doesn’t have to mean that you must divorce your husband. This can be another benefit from being involved in a Mother's Collective; you can have your day life at the Mother’s Circle with your child, yet go out for a nightlife with your partner, and your children can stay with those who were staying anyway.
It may be that a violence pattern in your mate (if he has one) is a Specific Malfunction or born out of unmet privacy needs. Creating some options for privacy will make it easier to identify and remedy the assault pattern.
Your mate's strongest response can be to encourage your participation in the Circle. If his problem is privacy, he might welcome the break. You can still bring the kids to be with him while it is working for everyone, and just make way for the kids to go back to the Circle if tension starts to build.
A Mother’s Circle can offer real help in recovering from simple family problems. Both the Retreating Assault pattern and the Specific Malfunction are simple assault patterns, in that simple magnetics of attraction to fun and repulsion from pain guide the participants to easy and immediate relief.
People have become so used to the idea of the “one man, one woman, and children” family that we have come to believe that there is no other workable way to provide for children and foster love between human beings.
That the nuclear family fails in so many ways to provide for so many people, and love and happiness are so often cast aside in the attempt, does not appear to deter people in the least. Most of us still want to try it, and make it work one way or another.
It might be time to acknowledge that the isolated or independent nuclear family is actually a very recent invention in society, and that domestic life, since forever, has been handled by the extended family or tribe.
We can create what can serve as extended family, even if our genetic extended family members are not inclined to take part. It may be that when early Christians asserted that a spiritual life could only take place within the context of the church, they were talking about solving these very relationship problems.
Peace on Earth begins with peace within the family. Peace at home.
NEXT: Circle of Safety
