Elena-Working with my children

248. Elena - November 17, 2009 [Edit]

Three months had passed since I’d joined The School and I’d been making supra human efforts to use the System’s ideas and work against the obstacles to awakening:

No expression of negative emotions
No identification
No lying
No imagination
No inner considering

My children provided ample material for me to work on my multiple impulses to be negative about everything and nothing and get identified about running late and other excuses that could justify it, like their not eating their meal or going to bed on time.

I’d been working for three months until finally one day I managed to spend the whole day without expressing one negative emotion as if I’d eaten myself from inside by not getting upset when they moved too much while I combed their hair, or fidgeted at the table instead of eating or talked too loud or paid no attention to what they were told. I had begun to realize that there was a negative charge that we kept going back to every day and as if it controlled our lives, we had to get it out one way or another but my children were only three and eight and I knew that whatever negativity was being expressed was coming or had come from me. I begun observing the moments when it happened and combing their hair was a mathematical trigger to getting negative about it, sometimes so much that I’d want to hit them with the brush. I got there once but that was the impulse everyday and we fought about it according to me because she moved too much, according to her because I pulled her hair and there was some of both but it wasn’t us, it was that “thing” wishing to express itself. It’s difficult not to pull the hair when it’s messy but it’s possible. It just takes more effort. Three months and we’d managed to spend the whole day even but it was time for bed and I could feel the negative energy building up begging to be expressed like a devil that wanted to come out. They were fooling around and not getting into bed and playing with the pyjamas and I was tired after a whole day of controlling the impulses to object about nothing but continued to resist and leaned back against the wall while sitting on one of their little chairs waiting for them to finally get into bed before reading them a short story. I felt like Atlas holding the world on my shoulders. Three months working for it and I was about to manage it: a whole day without a negative expression holding myself with all my strength to allow my children to develop in love, to grow up like human beings because that is what I understood by consciousness. They finally settled in bed, the story finished and I was about to get up and turn the lights off when Elisa looked at me from the top bed and said:
“mummy… you’re falling thin on me!”
I felt an explosion of love inside and outside as if the whole world had suddenly lit up and shined and every effort I had made since I joined the School had been nothing compared with that joy. In Colombia, when one doesn’t like someone, it is common to say that that person is falling fat on one but Elisa had expressed the opposite. She was eight years old and at least five years had passed since I remembered a truly positive comment coming from her. I kissed them both goodnight and turned the lights off.

The work worked! THE WORK WORKED, I wanted to scream and let the whole world know that the work worked. That if one made enough effort life could change. That if one worked hard enough love was possible. And we began to live. Not just to survive but to live: to express our selves freely, to experience joy, gratitude and gracefulness and communicate with each other gently, lovingly.