Being a parent is painful business, for children reflect to us, all that we want to shove under the carpet.
I asked my teenagers if they wanted to have lunch at home and absorbed in some work they were doing, they did not respond. I doubt if they realised I was talking to them, but I snapped. I started accusing them of ignoring me and not respecting my need to plan my time. Later, on reflection, it became obvious that I often ignore them, when they ask me for something. It is often because I am preoccupied with some thought or activity; or I am unable to decide or articulate my decision. Sometimes I don't want to share my thought at that moment for fear of being judged or hurting someone. If I could do it to them, why should I get angry when they do the same to me, I wondered.
On close examination we may find that almost every quality we find ridiculous, irritating, overwhelming or devastating in others is what we do not like about ourselves.
I possess or at some point in the past, possessed, to varying degrees the same thought or action that I find abrasive in someone else. If I did not possess that quality myself, how could I recognise it in another? This lead me to asking myself, “If it is just a matter of degree, who decides what degree is acceptable and what is not? Where do the lines get drawn?” And I find no appropriate answers, for these lines would obviously keep changing in different contexts, geographical spaces and historical times.
I used to get annoyed with my mother for asking me to switch off the fans and lights while leaving the room. No sooner did I leave home, I started doing the same with everyone around. My brother often jokes that I have become 'mummy'. A friend recently shared that when she met her mother recently, it was an absolutely aha moment for her when she saw her mother suspect the maid of stealing money. She realised that though she never accused her maid at home, the moment something went missing, her first thought was, 'my maid must have stolen it.'
We often become reflections of our parents, without meaning to.
The same evening a friend called me from Europe, where she was visiting her sister and told me that being away from home made her homesick. Her sister was preoccupied with work. Watching her sister, my friend realised, she was seeing her own reflection. This helped her resolve to be more present with her family once she is back in India.
Using others as a mirror to reflect on own habits and personality, can help us break out our limiting habits.
A dear friend called me excitedly from Mumbai. She had gone through a transformative experience and started accepting her shadow side. When she went back home, she found the entire atmosphere at home changed. Did her family change or was it her perception of them that had changed? Did they react differently because she was behaving differently? Doesn't matter much, for the end result was a lighter, happier, closer family.
Magically, people around seem to change as our perception of them changes.
Reflection
The world is but a reflection
Of one’s own thoughts
For when there is no thought,
Where is the world, to us?
Both disappear into a void
In deep sleep
The world appearing back
With the first thought
Two people see two different worlds
Even though the scenery is the same
One may see useless ruins
The other may see history
The world can be place
Full of conspiracy
And wars to be fought
And calamities impending
Enemies lurking in every corner
Waiting to malign, to destroy
Of rapes, murders, kids being abused
Or an unsafe, untrustworthy arena
The same world may seem to another
To be a place full of trust
Of wondrous events
And beautiful nature
There are also the rare
Who can see things as they are
With no judgement
No optimism or pessimism
We can often change much
By changing our view of it
We can transform the external
By changing our own self.
If there is agitation in the mind
It may do well to reflect
On what the world is reflecting
To us, of our own thought
Image courtesy Protovillage, clicked by Rishab Rao
Comments