do they see your love...

I have been toying with the idea of what to write about for the past few days. Love is always easy, for a person like me who has toyed with it, grappled with it and suffered as well with it, there is always, a load to say. But I am going to change course this time and write about a lecture I have been delivering for several years now at various schools in Delhi. Career choices – or the lack of choices thereof!

In between, working with others and setting up my own training firm, I worked with a dear friend, on a project very close to our hearts. Helping young people find out what they would like to do. We called it Playshops – it was aimed at helping young people discover aspects of their own talents they had as yet not experienced. We based it on the concept of Multiple Intelligences, a brain child of Dr. Howard Gardner, someone I have always been impressed with. Several such workshops and programs have sprung in this country since but what stays in my mind is the experience of the kids.

As adults, teachers and parents we are very well versed and acutely aware of our experiences & feelings about our children’s choices. The most relaxed and the unstressed parent/guardian has only one summative assessment of this discussion – uncertainty, helplessness and feeling out of control. In one simple word severe ANXIETY. Loud and clear, overwhelmingly so… It is this anxiety about our own helplessness that makes us react in various ways to our children’s choices.

Some of us try to talk and advice our children, some others enroll them in additional coaching, sports, music, dance, art, drama, etc. etc. the list in endless; while yet others try to control TV watching time, on the phone time, face book time, yahoo messenger time, study times, even sleeping times. Frankly whichever route you follow, however cool you think you are, it finally is all about coping with anxiety, and that too our own. This does not mean that we should stop doing what we do as parents, even if I were to suggest, so what? We would not be able to help ourselves. Our concern for our offspring is a nature’s way of telling us that we are parents and it is or job to ensure that the offspring flies away from the nest. So what then can be done to help us? Well, let’s take the first step.

For a brief moment let’s forget about ourselves and think this from the other protagonist’s point of view. Let’s hear our children speak. I am basing this on my work with several adolescents in the past years and of course my own teenage years. I am going to tell you the story of Firoza.

Firoza is a passionate young girl, who loves her dreams and fantasies. She loves her friends, her parents, her sibling and of course her school. She also loves to hang out with her friends, go for movies, and appear cool. It is very important to her that people should appreciate her for who she is but in the heart of hearts she does not really have a grip on who that Firoza really is. In fact she is looking for her. So if you can provide her with an experience that will bring her closer to that truth she will be attracted to you.

She believes that her parents are afraid that she will fail in a multitude of ways – not secure enough marks to get an admission into a great college, maybe not be offered the right choice of subjects in school, will fall in love with the wrong guy and fritter away precious years in frivolous pursuits. She is acutely aware that people watch her and she performs for their benefit. She mirrors what she sees in their eyes. If she sees derision she plays out her worst self, if there is anxiety she will play the devil’s advocate and if there is cynosure she will be defiant. But, the minute she see love and appreciation, she will dissolve into the beautiful little baby you first held in your arms and demand the same love and attention that you are so desperate to give.

The truth is she is extremely sensitive to your dialogues. Firoza came to me for a reading; I met her some years ago at a program and have always felt close to her since. She asked me to find out what her mother and father felt about her. A strange request–I asked her what do you think? – She replied – “of course they love me – but I want to know what they think about me?” The cards were spread – the empress and the 4 of cups followed by the high priestess and the hierophant.

The story was simple her mother loved her with the unconditional, nurturing love of the empress and was an important figure in her life but as yet she felt bored and unsettled (4 of cups). She had a lot going for her in her life symbolized by the 3 cups in front of her and more was being magically offered by the hand but inner discontent prevented her from being able to see it effectively. The high priestess stood for potential as yet undiscovered and a need to develop powers of intuition and natural insight. This clearly indicated the need for her mother to transit from being the nurturing provider alone, to being an “unobtrusive guide” who would help her on the journey of self discovery. This is much like the counselor who helps you hear your internal dialogue without allowing her own personality and reactions to come in the way. The hierophant’s role was that for her father to be a rather more obvious guide or a teacher who would help her make choices without attempting to control the outcome.

I remember this reading as I introspected – how in much in contrast this is to our own methods for controlling the environment for coping with our ANXIETY.

Coming back to Firoza, the cards asked her to address her anxiety through the 8 of swords. They advise that fear of unknown is worse that the fear of a real fear. So we embarked on this exercise – Let’s name it. She made a list of all her fears, here’s what she came up with:

Fear of:

1. Death,
2. Stomach upset,
3. Inability to stay popular,
4. Not being able to hold attention,
5. Not being liked,
6. Being misunderstood,
7. Love and being in love,
8. Loss and partings,
9. Rejection,
10. Being dismissed,
11. Losing people,
12. Being clingy,
13. Being angry,
14. Being hurt,
15. Being aggressive,
16. Trying too hard,
17. Talking too much,
18. Having to explain myself,
19. Having to fight, and
20. Losing when up against someone else.

Are you surprised, no shocked that such a little person can feel so many things? There’s more in store. The tarots went on to advice her to explore what she wanted from her parents specially her mother.

Here’s what Firoza said: “My parents are a part of my life in a million shreds. Their opinions and their voice are a part of my being. There are just those little bits of myself fused with each of these million shreds of my parent’s wishes that just hang together in suspension. These shreds function in a synchrony to make me who I am. If there is a disagreement or a conflict with my parent the synchrony gets disturbed. In fact it is they who have taught me the rhythm to this synchrony. Is it that impossible then to believe that the very thought of being in a disharmony with them can separate the shreds of my being?”

And here we are as parents doubting the impact of our words on our children. Firoza is clearly telling us that above all she likes harmony. In fact she needs to be in harmony. So whatever you may do – career choices, choice of subjects, moral dilemmas – help her keep her balance and be the high priestess to her confused mind. Let her find those little bits of herself in the suspension so that she can soon become a whole.

The tarots always end on two counts – a child is like the fool card. An adolescent is like the Greek God Dyonysus, the god of free spirit, an over-turner of bounds of tradition and restriction. He is like the child discovering life for the first time. He is trusting, innocent and ignorant of the travails that await him and as yet ready to take a leap of faith into the future. Walk with him and you will surprise yourself by what you learn as he travels the path of knowledge, development and self awareness.

As Firoza summed this up beautifully – “I know I want to be a Firoza who stands for the Tarot Cards the Sun, the Star, the Moon and the World! I want to be a person capable of unbridled love – Firoza is a beautiful color – my color that is feminine, happy, charming, ever hopeful and supremely confident. Though I don’t want to be Firoza the stone – because stones are opaque and unmoving and I am translucent and fluid with God alone knows what all that is inside me.”