We were taught by our parents that we have to do things for other people in order to achieve some kind of self esteem for ourselves. Even if it was to get a beer for dad from the fridge or clean up the dog poop or wash the dishes so mom could sit down and watch TV we were trained from day one to do things for others. If we did good we were rewarded with feelings of love. So we grew up thinking that love was s conditional thing, a barter chip. If you do this I will love you and approve of you. But if you don’t then you are a pile of dog poop and I will withhold my love from you and tell you that you are worthless. Wow! This is what we do to kids! I heard recently that kids hear 300 negative comments about themselves and only 60 positive comments about themselves each day. So we grow up completely out of self esteem and the only way we know to get it is by helping others. But mom and dad are out the picture now. We may have a boyfriend or wife or husband or children now and we do things to help them. Often things they don’t want done! But we also try to help them out of problems or troubles or situations that may cause them suffering.
The fact is that everybody hates change. They don’t’ want to change anything in their lives and then something comes up that no longer benefits them and they know they need to change that thing but they don’t want to change so they start whining and complaining and tell us that they hurt and are suffering and we think it would be good to help them and do something to help them get out of their pain. The truth is they have set into motion the wheels that will cause change to happen in their lives. They have begun the machine that will push them up against the wall and force them to make that change they need to make that will benefit their lives but that they don’t want to make. WE set this machine in motion by our own intention! Its how people get to the point of being able to make a change in their lives. But you see this person suffering and being squeezed and yelling loudly about it and you (or anyone) marches right in there and rescues them from the very machine that was set in motion to benefit their lives! And you keep going in and rescuing them over and over and over, preventing them really from having to make the change that they even know they need to make! Wow!
If you have any friends with teenage kids you can see this machine in action very plainly. The point I am trying to show you here is that we should not rescue people from the very machines they created to force themselves to make a beneficial change in their lives! If people liked change, if people could embrace change, no one would create these machines. But since people hate change, this is what they do. Please don’t try to rescue them from their own machines. Its far kinder to let them go through this experience they chose for themselves and make the change and get on with life. I am sure you can look at your own history and see how many times you created such a machine to force you to do something you didn’t want to do.
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