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Beyond The Paradigm: The Skills of Limitless Human Potential A Series for the Caretakers of Humanity
By Valerie Thea Vandermeer
I: The Choice
Indigo, psychic, crystal, rainbow – they have many names now. Whatever you call them, they represent a new wave of evolution endowed with amazing abilities and a deeply imprinted sense of purpose and wisdom that can lead us into a new and better world. Right?
That’s what we hear everywhere. Even USA Today recently ran an article with a prominently displayed quote, “Maybe it’s possible these children are coming to save the planet.” This concept is slowly but surely becoming a thread of our collective consciousness.
What if we played a little mind game with this idea, though? What if we imagine, just for a moment, that it was our generation, and not “the kids”, who were meant to save the planet? You, me, our neighbours, the school teachers, politicians, therapists, healers – all the adults alive on the planet right now – what if it was our job to save the planet? What if we’ve already succeeded and that’s why so many tender hearted, loving, aware children are now being born? What if the children are arriving because we have indeed accomplished our task and the world is already saved?
Think about it – who’s saving whom?
Let’s examine this very commonly held premise that the new kids are here to “save the world”. It rests largely on three concepts. The first is the idea that the next generation is uniquely empowered or imbued with a special sense of personal purpose and spiritual capability. This works out quite nicely for a generation of adults who might prefer to avoid full responsibility for the future. Our choices and behaviours now, implicate the future. If the kids bear the responsibility, then we’re “off the hook” and we don’t have to pay quite as much attention to our own choices and behaviours.
The second idea is that these kids are so much wiser than us. Somehow they have access to a deep level of wisdom that few adults achieve. This thinking allows us to simply follow the wisdom of the children. It’s much easier to read their quotes and feel inspired by their loving behaviours, rather than searching ourselves for our own wisdom. If these kids are so much wiser than us, then why bother to exercise or stretch ourselves to access our own meagre wisdom? We can simply follow theirs.
The third idea is that these children represent the voice of authority on humanity and its future development. Since we don’t share their deep wisdom and purpose, we must listen and follow them. With this thinking, we do not have to acknowledge or accept the power of our role as authority, or author, of our own life experience which includes our roles as co-creators of our future. We can also minimize the highly influential role we play as adult authority figures and role models in the lives of children.
We have to wonder, what is it about our culture and beliefs that cause most of us, our spiritual leaders even, to believe that we are so very disempowered, so separated from the core of love, wisdom, and creative potential of these children? Why don’t we believe in ourselves as our children do? Are these children actually wiser or are we just asleep at the wheel of consciousness?
When we deeply and carefully listen to what these children are actually saying, as opposed to what people tell us they are saying, we hear –
We are all connected. We are all wise. We are all creative. We are all able to open our hearts and share love. We are all capable of more than we imagine.
The messages and wisdom of these children is inclusive, not exclusive.
It’s easy to become confused and forgetful in the presence of some of these children. They are spiritually awake and their thinking reflects a core connection to the truth of their Being. They feel exceptionally mature and create a compelling magnetic resonance around them. It’s ironically inconsistent that in our drive to honour and support them, we actually set them apart – separate them – from the rest of humanity. We must remember that they are us: we are all one humanity. These children simply have opened themselves up to expressing more of the magnificent inherent potential that all human beings possess. Let's appreciate, rather than idealize the wisdom of our children and remember the Divine spark that resides in us all.
And let’s also remember that they are still children. They truly need guidance, education, leadership, boundaries, parenting, and all manner of loving caretaking. Many children today are masterful at experiencing multi-dimensionality and superbly understand and manage the flow of energies. But they need us to guide them through to adulthood in this dimension of physical form. They must learn how they will Be here on Earth. Our challenge is to respect and learn from their mastery of energy and being, while not absconding from our responsibilities to nourish and nurture their presence in this world.
Some of these children are quite articulate and very willing to “stand up” and purposefully state that they are here to save the planet, heal the earth and/or lead humanity out of destruction into a new dimension. What do we make of this? We have to train ourselves to get past the “sixty second sound-bite” and keep listening to the entire message. Most of the older children who feel they have a message to share will clearly state that we are all from the same source and have the same potential to transform and co-create from love and light. But that message tends to get a bit obscured.
There are some children who truly believe they are responsible for the future of humanity. This is the result of their ability to read and translate the context of a collective consciousness mired in fear and hopelessness and desperately searching for an external mythical hero to save the day. In our willingness to hand over the responsibility for the future to our children, we clearly demonstrate our disempowerment. These children find themselves surrounded by a culture of adults who have forgotten their core, their truth, their potential. No wonder they think that they must save the world: if not them, then whom?
This brings us back to the importance of our beliefs and behaviours as adult caretakers of the coming generations. These children deserve adult role models willing to access and trust self wisdom and whose choices reflect their own deep empowerment and a sense of personal responsibility. As their parents, teachers, guides and caretakers we must demonstrate to these children that they are not alone in their quest for a more balanced, resonant and loving world. Children who have this in their lives are not overly concerned with saving the world. They know and trust that we are all co-creating together.
We haven’t really answered the question, “Are they here to save the world?” For me, this is an utterly inconsequential question, a mental distraction at best. We are a species poised to fully realize ourselves as the unlimited co-creators of our experience. We are all capable of extraordinary transformation well beyond what we imagine for ourselves. The answer to saving the world lies not with a “who” question, but in choices and behaviours, and we are all capable of choosing life affirming, world saving behaviours. In this light, the questions of consequence become, “How do we activate our own capability for whole/brain whole/ being knowing?” “How do we cultivate the unlimited potential nested within our human experience?” “How do we best support everyone on the planet in embracing the joyful expression of aliveness and the flow of love?” “How do we all remember our wisdom?”
These questions can lead us to more profound levels of our own humanity and new ways of structuring our interactions with one another and the children we serve. A vital step in supporting our own emerging potential and the growing awareness of each successive generation rests upon our willingness to embrace a new framework for appreciating and nourishing our young. At the core of this framework are dynamic principles I’ve termed the “Skills of Limitless Potential” which form the elements of a new methodology for working with children. These specific skill sets tend to be natural attributes for children, but with varying degrees of expression. Although innate, they are often forgotten or weak from disuse and most adults must remember and re-learn them.
The Skills of Limitless Potential are at the core of my EarthWalk Facilitator Training Program and include whole body listening, open potential, integrity, conscious languaging, aliveness, understanding human behaviour, utilizing core principles, sensory management, embracing the body, the now-ness of time, multi-dimensional awareness, and energy as communication. Over the next several issues, I’ll share information about these skill sets and specific exercises to activate and deepen each of them in your interactions with children. Embracing this new methodology can assist us in serving humanity through our various capacities as caretakers of Earth’s children. Ultimately, though, I believe that the most profound moment of personal challenge for those of us who interact with children comes when we witness that which is truly miraculous in them. At that moment we have two choices: We can look at them and recognize how amazing they are, or we can look at them and realize the amazing potential inherent in ALL human beings. This is the choice at the core of our work.
Copyright © 2005 Valerie Thea Vandermeer
To schedule a personal phone consultation with Valerie, click here.
This article is the first in a series written by EarthWalk Founder, Valerie Thea Vandermeer, being published by Children of the New Earth Magazine Online. To read the rest of this series when it is first published or for more cutting edge articles on parenting, nurturing and educating today's children you can subscribe to CNE by clicking the link below.
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Copyright 2002-2005 Valerie Thea Vandermeer. All rights reserved. For problems or questions regarding this website contact valerie@earth-walk.net. Last updated: July 22, 2006. |
