Recognizing Our Parents' Blessing

BY JOYCE AND BARRY VISSELL

Reprinted with permission

"When we heal our relationship with our parents, we are healing a deep part of ourselves, and this will enhance all our relationships."

— The Shared Heart, Joyce and Barry Vissell, p. 121

[reprinted in their April 2004 newsletter under heading of "Our Parents' Blessings"]

There is an ancient saying in the Hindu tradition that unless we receive the blessing of our parents, we cannot progress on our spiritual path. This saying may conjure images of an elderly parent dressed in long flowing robes laying their hand upon their child and blessing their journey. Few of us will ever receive this type of blessing, yet there is much wisdom in that saying that applies to us today.

Rather than waiting for something to come from our parents, we receive their blessing when we come to an inner peace about why we were born to them and the lessons and gifts that come from that experience. To truly progress on our spiritual journey we must attain this inner peace about our mother and father. This peace will give us more motivation in our lives, allow our relationships with others to deepen, strengthen us as parents, enhance our career and bring more energy and health to our personal lives. Coming to this inner peace is not often easy, but is so worth the inner effort.

Some people have had difficult childhoods with parents that have behaved inappropriately. In our thirty years of counseling and workshops we have heard unbelievable stories of inappropriate behavior. There are parents who have sexually, physically and emotionally abused their children. There are parents who have abandoned them, never to be heard from again. One man told us about his father who once held a gun to his head when he was a child and threatened to kill him if he tried again to interfere while he was beating up his mother. These can be very traumatic experiences. How does one ever come to peace with a parent who could do such a thing to their child. The peace doesn't come from condoning or accepting the behavior, nor does it come from hating the parent. The peace comes from understanding the spiritual lessons and gifts and that come from having a parent that behaved in such a way. Sometimes a person has to fully experience or even express their hate, anger and resentment in order to find this understanding. The ultimate goal, however, is to find the lesson and gift rather than to remain in the angry unforgiving place.

Some parents died at an early age, leaving the child with an extreme sense of loss. Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga teachings to this country in the mid 1900's, experienced a very big loss when his beloved mother died suddenly when he was eight years old. He describes the loss as overwhelming to the point where he didn't want to go on living. This single experience propelled him on his spiritual path to find the heavenly mother - the source of all mothering. He was then able to go on and successfully open thousands of hearts to the divine mother. My own mother experienced a devastating loss when her mother died when she was six years old. Now at the age of 87, she can still feel her mother close to her and credits her strong spiritual belief to her mother. Both my mother and Yogananda learned the lesson and received the spiritual gift.

Most of us have grown up learning the Ten Commandments. I'm sure we have all heard, "Honor Thy Father and Mother." Does this mean to honor everything our father or mother does and listen to all their advice. I don't think so. I feel that the deeper meaning is that we are to honor the soul essence of our father and mother, and the spiritual gift and lesson that is ours to learn by being their child. This is deep and worthwhile work on oneself. It is much easier to simply say my life is no good because my parents did such and such to me. Therefore I have an excuse to fail in relationship, career and life in general. Rather than this powerless victim approach, a more mature way of living is to learn the lesson from having been with our parents and then make that gift part of our strength and motivation as a person. In this way we are truly set free to become the person we want to be.

So this Mother's Day or Father's Day when you are sending off that card, or any other time, try to understand the lessons and resulting spiritual gifts from having this person as your parent. Feel the ways your relationship with your father and mother have strengthened you and caused you to grow spiritually. In this way you will be receiving the blessing of your parent.

Please join Joyce and me in holding a vision of a world where women, men and children of all nations, races and religions can see and feel the divine in themselves and one another.

©The Shared Heart Foundation. Reprinted with permission.

LOVE ENCOURAGES FULFILLMENT OF DREAMS

It is important to hold onto our dreams and visions. Helping to bring our dreams to reality brings strength, depth and love to ourselves and to our relationships. If we let our dreams die, then a large part of us dies as well.

When Barry and I were twenty-seven years old, we spent an inspiring summer at a meditation retreat in the French Alps. During this time, two very important dreams came into focus. First, we felt inspired to help others in their lives and relationships through classes, writing and counseling. We realized we wanted to work together. That dream took nine years to come to reality. In that period we gave birth to two of our three children and Barry worked as a physician in a medical clinic. Several hours a week, we worked together counseling individuals and couples, and that brought us great fulfillment and helped to keep our dream alive. Nine years after the initial inspiration of our dream, we began working full time, writing, counseling and giving workshops on living from the heart and loving relationships. Our work is now the fulfillment of our dream.

The second dream took twenty years and many frustrations and heartaches before it came to fruition. We dreamed of owning a piece of land where people could come for healing and renewal at one of our retreats. We were so inspired by this dream that, when we left the meditation retreat in France, we drove immediately to the Sierra Mountains in California and found twenty acres of land. We were in escrow when the reality of our financial situation hit us and we had to hold back.

Two years later, Barry had a job at a clinic and we bought thirteen acres of land by a stream in Santa Cruz. In our minds and hearts we could see little camping spots for people and a beautiful spot for meetings by the stream. We had all the permits and the road built, when torrential rains hit Santa Cruz early in the fall. The road was totally washed out. I was five months pregnant as Barry and I held each other and realized our dream would not take place there or at that time. We sold the land. Five years later, Santa Cruz again had heavy rains and flooding. The spot we had chosen to build upon was covered by a mudslide which would have destroyed our home.

We rented an old farm house on a vast piece of land. Again, visions of our dream began to emerge as we pictured little camp spots and the living room as the meeting room. Each year for 15 years, we begged our landlord to let us buy the place as year by year we became more strongly convinced that this was the land to fulfill our dream. Each year, his answer was no. Then the earthquake happened in 1989 and destroyed the house completely.

There were several other pieces of land we tried to buy and each one disappointingly was not right. The dream was so strongly alive within us, yet bringing it to reality was so difficult.

After the earthquake, we experimented with living on our neighbor's property in a small motor home for one year. We now had three children, two dogs and four cats. It was quite a tight squeeze and far from our dream. While there, the property next to it came up for sale and we bought it right away. We had walked on this land every day for fifteen years.

Twenty years after the inspiration and dream came to us, we moved into our new home. Seven days later, a group of twenty-four people came and camped on our land, and we held our first ten-day workshop, "Living Your Purpose", in our home. Our dream had become a reality. Every single day, we are grateful that we persisted in the creation of our dream.

The struggle, the heartache, the disappointments, are all part of the creation of the dream. Sometimes the setbacks and seeming failures are because we are not quite on the right track and need to try a new way.

If a dream is worth having, it is worth striving for. It will bring power, joy and fulfillment into your lives and relationships. Take a moment now and reflect on your dreams.

© Copyright, April 1999, The Shared Heart Foundation, Reprinted with permission