Living

david hobbs · Living

7th Thread: I live in the Here and Now.

meiah

I read that, and felt a change to my focus. Thanks for the reminder x

david hobbs

I often think that if our minds are elswhere we might as well be sleeping.

How much time do we spend in the illusiory world of mind.

We worry about the future, this is an illusion because past and future does not exist outside of our mind. and think about the past. We feel guilt for things done and opportunities missed. Why?

meiah

To question ourselves is not a bad thing. To dwell on it doesn't help anyone.

We live this illusion, we create it, and make it our own. Perhaps in doing so, we know ourselves better, because we are living our "self"?

evergreen

to reflect and learn is to grow with understanding but to reflect with regret or disappointment and guilt is pointless it can really only hold us back kind of suspend us in time

living in the moment can be very hard for many ... some say stop and smell the flowers .. other just say appreciate each now day

I like to encourage others not to look to far ahead as it is important to realise that living now is what will get us to that ahead

david hobbs

I get so many people PM me with tales of abuse.

Abuse by parental expectation.

I am really pissed off with parents, especially eastern ones.

They ruin a life before it has begun to find it's own path..

evergreen

it is a hard thing ..don't be pissed off with parents they are only doing what they know.. and they think they should do... as a mum of three I know I really don't want to be the monkey on my kids back.. but will I be ?? most likely in some areas I will be even with all the thought and effort I put into teaching them about their own healing and their own work and mine too....

I think it is less about forgiving parents and more about understanding them and then seeing where we are the same and working on us because we cant' change them... and for us parents we perhaps need to step back and look at who our kids really are not who we think they can be

david hobbs

I read somwhere that "Our children are not our children. They are of us.

We are the bow and they are the arrow that must be let fly".

Something like that any way.

mark

we are also not respobsible for the horns they grow

beantighe

David, that quote you're thinking of is from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.

Here it is in full:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

mark

very true

evergreen

I have a copy of that on my wall.... its beautiful

I find its good to remind ourselves that about ALL people

be they parents children friends or partners

david hobbs

Time for another thread...........

I see things from the others point of view and do not judge.........

Could you do that with your children?

Can we have more philosophy please especially if it is as beautiful as the one above.

Don't know if it is philosophy but I feel it as truth.

evergreen

meiah

beantighe

I found that poem quoted in a book called The Return by Josephine Sellers, when I read it in the mid-1990s, and it meant so much to me I copied it into an exercise book to keep, as a lesson.

When I became a parent, the only role model I had to go on was my own parents (adoptive) and the only thing I learned from them was what NOT to do. I was afraid of my father, and kept out of his way as much as possible, and my mother was a manipulative control freak who tried to influence everything I did and thought. She didn't succeed, mind!

This poem sums up exactly how I feel, and how I tried to treat my own children. You must give children the tools and abilities they need to be able to live their own lives and stand on their own feet. Everything this poem says is so true: you can't live your childrens' lives for them, or your own through them, or dictate what they think, and you can't treat them like property. If you love them, let them go, and then they will always come back to you and you'll never lose them. Try to keep them prisoner, and they'll get away and you'll never see them again. I was that child.