Homaira Kabir

Here’s the good news. When we practice self-compassion on a regular basis, we literally mold our brains for the better, thanks to the power of experience-dependent neuroplasticity. This changes our gene expression towards greater compassion, so that we not only build our relationships, we’re literally evolving our collective brain towards a higher consciousness.

We can begin by stepping away from the self-improvement craze and understanding our place in the larger flow of life. What are we here to achieve? What needs can we address (aside from our own) and how can we make a real difference to other lives? Meaning is relational by its very nature. It grows out of bursting our self-reflective bubbles and belonging to something larger than ourselves.

Kegan’s 5th order of consciousness involves being able to hold onto multiple perspectives at the same time, bound together by common questions, not letting ourselves be not thrown apart in the search for common answers. Given the challenges we face in the world, the timing couldn’t be more right.

There was my lesson. What my child needed was my attunement to help her make sense of her emotions. By shushing them down with a glassful of gratitude, I was simply shirking my responsibility.

Perhaps I don’t need to fear the world I leave behind for my children. Perhaps technology is paving the way for them to come together as a common humanity.

The experience taught me a lesson about fear. It’s not just the dark and wicked emotion that we all wish would be gone because it seems excessive compared to its survival value in the relative safety of the 21st century. Like all emotions, it has an upside, for it possesses a certain goal orientation that urges us to act. When we move beyond our own selfish worlds, fear can give rise to moral emotions such as pro-social anger.

Like all New Year’s resolutions, it’s going to be a journey where there’s no guarantee of success. But something tells me that it is in embracing every part of my experience that I can move freely through the yin and yang of life.

The twins had been studying the last ice age in class, and on this particular day, had watched a short video clip about a large asteroid hitting our planet unexpectedly. As we discussed it over lunch, my daughter threw me an unexpected question.

“What would you do if you knew that an asteroid was going to hit our planet in two years time?”

This kind of selfless love requires that we sit with our uncertainties and fears and yet assure our children that they are not alone. It requires that we refrain from fixing the cracks and fissures in the urge of making their lives perfect. It requires that we contain our impulses and desires and live in the hope of creating something far more beautiful than perfection.

Infatuation with speed is a characteristic of our times. We live in the fastest phase of human history. That can lead to what Larry Dossey in 1982 termed time-sickness, as we become fearful of missing out. The ability to stay with the discomfort of life’s paradoxes and our own ignorance and to remain patient and still while questions and answers grow in never-ending cycles, requires a certain mental toughness that seems to be on its way out in a world in a hurry.

Perhaps it is adversity itself, and the strengths that it builds. For adversity humbles us and reminds us of our limits and our rightful place in the universe. Adversity makes us grateful by preserving small anticipations and accepting the good we find without questioning it. Adversity gives us faith to rise above despair and in so doing, answer the call of the soul. The poor may not have the material riches we possess, but I can’t help wondering who is really the richer or poorer amongst us.

Sometimes our children do something totally unexpected and unacceptable. Then we try desperately to make sense of what happened by playing it over and over in our minds. We can hope for particular outcomes, but with that hope comes fear that it will not be so. Is the road to fearlessness found by giving up hope and letting go of dreams? But not to dream of their futures is an intolerable posture.

As these thoughts and images flashed through my mind, I had a sudden surge of humility. The awareness that I did not have all the answers grounded me in my own limitations. The realization that she was not asking for my solutions but simply talking out loud to find her own solution made me question my role as a parent.

We all have our own little bubbles of fear resting deep within us. Our relationships with our children take us back to these bubbles. I am beginning to recognize my reactions as based on these fears and to forgive myself for being human, so I can embark on the journey to change. I am reconnecting to my own goodness and beginning to embrace the parts of me that want to love unconditionally and accept non-judgmentally.

As a mother, I knew what was best for him, I told myself. I could not trust his teenage judgment. But something deeper prompted me to question my reasoning. Did I fear knowing his goals in case they were different from mine? Was I running away from the possibility that his ideals of success would not measure up to societal standards? Would I be able to face it if they didn’t? I slowly began to see myself hiding behind the guise of motherhood.

Yes, I could rest assured that they will not be gullible in life. But this thought did not reassure me. Instead, something gnawed at my heart. Something murmured its disquiet.

I am learning to appreciate the distinctiveness of each self and the flexibility with which one transitions into another. I may not get an Academy Award for my acting. But in the coming together of my multiple selves, I’ve begun to discover the wholeness of being.

Moral beauty pays tribute to our stature as a social species. It elevates us towards selfless pro-social behaviors and connects us at the level of common humanity. Physical beauty, on the other hand, ties no familiar thread across time and culture.

My twins’ busy schedules had become a source of worry for me. Rare were the moments when I saw them relax with a storybook, while the afternoon away with friends, or unwind by throwing hoops in the basketball net.

So I made taking time out a priority.

Lunch-time was often a struggle for my mental capacities. Rarely did a day go by when my vibrant nine-year old, just back from school, failed to enlighten us with long and winding tales of girly social interactions. Rarely did I manage to follow them all the way through. In fact, I usually lost the story line somewhere in Act One….