Q: When it comes to educating my child, I feel that I’m not being heard unless I raise my voice.
John: If you need to raise your voice to be heard, that tells you that when you speak she doesn’t believe you.
Q: She doesn’t!
John: Raising your voice doesn’t make her believe you.
Q: No, but it makes her feel fear, and then she would do what I want because she doesn’t want me to shout at her again.
John: When you want to tell her something, you’ll make it work even if you have to pound it into her. That’s what the shouting does.
Q: And that’s wrong?
John: It doesn’t work.
Q: So what does work? Opening the heart while telling her to clean her room?
John: Open your heart so that she’ll listen to you. You have a need in your self for her to listen to you, so you have a need in your self to control. When you say something and it doesn’t work, you raise your voice. Your bottom line in saying something is she has to believe you. She has to see and do things your way.
Q: So what is the other option? Just let her stay in her filthy room with all the disorder and not do her homework?
John: What’s the difference? Her being in a filthy room or her being in your shouting?
Q: Okay, so what is the solution?
John: You need to reach her. Shouting doesn’t reach her. Shouting pushes her into a corner.
Q: But even when I’m just having a conversation with her, I have to explain to her why doing homework is needed. She says: “Yes mommy, I understand.” And then the following day or two she goes back to her old patterns.
John: Your explanations to her don’t reach her.
Q: The question is, if it does reach her, will she change her ways? Maybe it’s just the way she is.
John: Your explanations to her are not comprehensive and they lack depth. Children growing up are fascinated with anything that’s real. When something really meets them in a way that is real all the way through, as far as they follow it, it continues and continues. Just an explanation doesn’t go very deep. She doesn’t experience the realness of her own interior.
You’re not talking to her about reality, you’re talking to her in a way that gives her an understanding of how you’re thinking. So all that’s taking place is that she understands what you say, but it doesn’t mean her interior really gets a reality meaning of what you’re saying.
Q: Can she get that ever? Is there a way that she will want to do these things?
John: She will like to do these things if they have a relationship with her interior, particularly her deep interior. For a child growing up, that’s fascinating.
Q: So I can’t do anything; it’s in her hands.
John: Your interior doesn’t mean very much to her because when she looks at your interior, she doesn’t want to be like you. There’s not a draw from her interior to your interior.
Q: Thank God! She is her and I am me and she has to be her own person. She doesn’t have to be my interior.
John: It’s not about being a different person. Real parenting is when a child reads your interior and your interior has more taking place, a greater depth, a greater breadth than the child’s interior. That’s really exciting for a child because it invigorates her interior.
Q: What changes do I have to make in my self for her to be attracted to that?
John: As you have conditioned it, your interior is predominantly about your self. That’s not interesting to her.
Q: Okay, so when it would be about my heart or about my knowing?
John: Not about your knowing, but you, in some way, being like your own being and that having function in your self. That function in your self isn’t about your self; it’s about your being and how your being interfaces with this world. That’s exciting for a child.
Q: And until such time, what will happen? Do I stop asking her to do things?
John: Instead of pushing her into a corner to control her, begin to realize that in your parenting you’re the one who’s cornered. You’re in a corner because it doesn’t matter which direction you move, she doesn’t believe you and you don’t really have much to offer her. The only way that can change is for you to turn into something different.
Q: Can it happen in a day or is it something that takes place over time?
John: It can take place very quickly. If it were to take place in a day, your whole self would be in shock and the shock in your self would stop you. What you would go through, in your own interior, is like a very heavy earthquake.
Q: Physically as well?
John: The experience would be real in your body. It’s not that your body is going to split. The earthquake is in your self. When you open profoundly to what you are as a being and when you believe the truth within your awakening, that’s your reality and no longer your self.
When that is free to take place it will split right through your self. The meaning of your awakening will push all the way through everything in your self. Anything that is not like that in your self is going to crack. Your self will go through a catastrophic failure. That doesn’t mean that your self won’t be functional. What will remain is very profound shock in your self, because in your self you will realize what is no longer real and true for you.
The program in your self, your usual ways, will no longer be real for you.
