by Bianca Barban, Melbourne, Australia
One of my roles in life is being a mother. I am blessed with 2 children, a daughter, 8yrs and a son, 7yrs. At times I have found motherhood and detachment difficult, mostly because I have been enmeshed in my children’s lives, taking on every emotion they feel and putting their needs before my own.
A Mother’s Role – Is Protection Love?
I have felt like my role was to protect my children, to take away any pain they may feel and ensure they had a better childhood than I did. As my children have grown I have pondered whether this is wrong.
What if the nature of this ideal keeps me from seeing the true love that they are? –keeps me from knowing that even though they are smaller than me in body we are equal.
What if this ideal of protection is harming to both of us and keeps us separate from having a relationship of true love? – where there is an equalness of love and acceptance of choices, and subsequently a natural fullness of self can evolve where ‘need’ (such as the need to protect) is rendered naught.
Getting to true-love through self-healing
When bringing up my children, the books I read on parenting and the conversations I had with other mothers never mentioned about the need to really care for myself – and to start with this first. It wasn’t until I came to the work of Universal Medicine and listened to presentations from its founder Serge Benhayon on the need to self-love and to nurture ourselves, that I even entertained the idea of putting myself first, and that living with this commitment to myself is the most loving thing I can do for me AND my family.
Over the years, I have been re-establishing a quality of true love in my life. This first began with healing many hurts I had collected in my life and then slowly developing self-love and self-nurturing. In this learning I came to know that I am a woman first before I am a mother: that the woman needs to be honoured and nurtured in every moment before any ‘role’ is fulfilled.
‘Shackles of Motherhood’
One modality in particular I’ve found which has greatly supported me in developing this nurturing aspect, and also to let go of some of the beliefs I’ve held and carried about motherhood or the ‘shackles of motherhood’, is the Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM). This type of massage is a truly divine treatment and has assisted me to feel and honour the preciousness I am through supporting me to re-connect to my inner essence of love.
The EBM and also the Esoteric Women’s Groups have supported me to begin to dissolve the numerous ideals and beliefs that society has encased womanhood in, and supported me to feel a quality of inner ‘stillness’ that I have never known before.
What if detachment is essential to the development of true relationships?
True love has no need and is without any ‘requirement’. It brings understanding and acceptance of our choices and also the choices of others in the knowing that we are all equal, and therefore does not and cannot contain one ounce of judgement. It is a very freeing way to be because it helps support ‘observation’ in the choices of people you love and allows them to be where they are at. With true love, there can be the respect that they are making a choice – and a detachment for oneself from the emotion of their situation. But when emotion is ‘absorbed’ it can be like a hook that gets you sucked into feeling responsible for their behaviour. When emotion is instead ‘observed,’ clarity can be brought to any situation.
Detachment is actually true connection.
It is not a coldness, harshness or an inability to care and truly support, as is often thought.
True Parenting
Hence the role of the parent is to detach, and in this provide a loving foundation so the children can express the natural essence of love that they are born with, and let this shine out into the world.
There will be challenges, but these help us grow and just confirm the love that we are (and that we are all born with). When children face challenges, the true support of a parent can assist them to feel their inner knowing of love and to honour those feelings and come back to that (love).
At times it has been difficult to observe the hurts and challenges my children experience. But what I have found is that if I become attached to needing my children to not feel pain or go into controlling the situation because “I know best”, they crumble. They seem to get smaller and helpless, and come from a place of not feeling like they are good enough. By going into control, I have got myself caught up in the illusion of their age (younger than me therefore knowing less than me, and I more) and so disregard their very own inner knowing and strength and think I’m being a ‘good mother’ because I’m solving their problems….
Alternatively, when I allow myself to be in my ‘stillness’ and come from this place – feeling I am good enough myself i.e. a sense of ‘fullness’ – a different experience transpires:
- Things seem simpler and although there is emotion being expressed by my children, it’s not as intoxicating and I’m not getting hooked into feeling like I’m responsible for fixing what is going on, or that I need to step in and save them
- Instead I just sit and listen
- Then something beautiful happens… I feel the love that they are (as well as my own). And I can also feel the beautiful strength and surety of a ‘natural love’ inside them
- Through detachment I am free to honour the amazing beings they are
- I am not disconnected from my children in this moment even though I am detached from their emotions and not needing their situation to fit a certain picture (of my own!)
Instead, I am truly connected to them and they feel the abundance of love that is there.
In this example of ‘motherhood and detachment’, their problems seem smaller and the most amazing truths can be spoken, or a love filled cuddle shared, as we honour the fullness of love that we are.
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