The birthright of a child

The past week has been a time of adjustment for me, trying out different travelling routes to work and establishing a new routine for my daily commuting ritual. This was a perfect reason, or excuse (sheepish look) I used to take a break from my regular runs. This evening, I finally conquered my procrastination and went for my long-overdue run. To my clients and former clients who are reading this, yes, I suffer from the "disease" of procrastination from time to time as well! Looks like we have something in common!

During my run this evening, I listened to a recording of one of David Whyte's workshops on my iPod nano. David Whyte is a faithful companion of mine on my runs and great company too. Below is a small segment of his workshop:

"...one of the marvelous thing about children is they're made to be loved and appreciated. And a child only thinks something is wrong in the world when they are not loved. And the child looking for appreciation and love and to feel special, that's the birthright of a child. To feel as if they're seen and held and understood as this particular form of incarnation, which is not found anywhere else. And if the child can't get it in their own family, they'll get it from a neighbour, they'll get it from a person they just see once a day that they get a kind word from, they'll get it from a teacher. A child is hungry to be loved and to be seen...

You could say that for a human being, it's so natural to us in our growing that when you are feeling unloved, you could say that you are not quite feeling yourself. You are not quite feeling what you are actually born with as a natural faculty."

The other day, I read through some of the case notes to have a better understanding of the background of some of the cases which I will be handling. I found myself reaching for tissue paper a few times when I read about the amount of pain some of them had to carry with them through the innocence of their childhood. I also thought about some of my former clients who grew up feeling unloved by their parents.

The subjective experience of feeling unloved as a child is crucial, whether or not he or she was in actual fact unloved is a completely different matter. As a result of this pain, the child attempts to please the parents in hope for some remote hint of affection to reduce the feeling of being unloved, or strive to do well with the desire of receiving some form of affirmation to boost the positive sense of self. It tends to become a pattern in other relationships where the child becomes fearful of rejection and abandonment, highly critical of self, and doubtful that there is anything lovable about himself or herself.

If the birthright of a child is to be loved, what happens if the birthright is not fulfilled?

We cannot go back in time to alter the interactions between the parents and the child. Besides, the child is now grown up and has a deep emotional memory of the hurt of not being loved. You have now grown up, with the deep emotional memory of the hurt of not being loved etched in your heart.

The process of picking up the pieces of your broken self and mending your broken heart is going to take time. Rather than trying to find someone to love you for who you are, you will have to first learn to love yourself. When you are able to love yourself and accept your own shortcomings and see the goodness within you, you give yourself the permission to be loved and in turn, to be able to love another for who they are.