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January-March, 2007

A Course in Miracles Enlightened Parenting

by Rev. Myron Jones

The following is an excerpt from Myron’s pending book about applying the principles of A Course in Miracles to parenting. She has been studying A Course in Miracles for 25 years and has had extensive experience applying Course principles in parenting her children. Her children have encouraged her to write a book so that others can benefit as they have. Myron will also be facilitating a workshop on enlightened parenting September 15-16 at Pathways of Light.

I bought a new car last year, and noticed that there was not one, but three, instruction manuals in the glove box. I looked in one of them to see how often I was supposed to change the oil, and when I should get a tune up. I haven’t looked at any of them since. I will use them if a light I don’t understand comes on.

The manual I didn’t get was the one I would have really appreciated. I will never understand why babies don’t come with instructions. Learning when a cry is boredom and when it is urgent comes pretty quickly, but there are so many other cries in between that leave a new parent baffled, uncertain, and fearful of making a major mistake. There are so many things we, as new parents, just don’t know. It is “on the job” training with very little to go on.

Each stage of their lives requires different skill sets from the parents, and we are expected to learn these skills through trial and error. Just as we get it figured out, they have moved on to another phase. By the time my children were teenagers, I was not so much confident as I was resigned. I knew I was going to make lots of mistakes, and all I could do was hope I wouldn’t do so badly that they would need extensive therapy to recover from my parenting.

And yet, my kids are grown and doing very well. I love them and they seem to love me right back. I even like them, and enjoy their company. My job as parent is over and now we are something else. Perhaps not buddies, but the relationship is now more relaxed than it was as parent/child. We are all adults and facing the same challenges. When they have a problem they may come to me, not as children looking for someone to solve their problems, but more as younger adults to a more experienced one asking for her opinion.

Occasionally, I forget my new position and fall back into my role as parent. My kids do not welcome this. They don’t need me in that way anymore. I am pleased to step back. I don’t want to fill that position for the rest of my life anymore than they need me to. I now do for them what I would any of my friends. I listen intently. I care and I know the truth for them when they forget. I offer suggestions if appropriate, and if that seems to be what they want. If not, I just step back and know that they are exactly where they need to be in their life, and that they have the same Inner Wisdom to draw upon that I do.

I want to speak for a moment to those of you who have already raised your kids. You may be wishing, as I often did, that you had done a better job. For a long time I was plagued by a lingering uncertainty, and sometimes by truly debilitating guilt. I knew that I had not been a perfect parent. I also knew that at times I had failed miserably as a parent. I had more convincing evidence of my failure than many parents did, and I would remind myself of that from time to time, and just wallow in the guilt until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Interestingly enough, my children, whom I was thinking of as the victims of my errors, did not accuse me of anything. That did not stop me from imagining that they were just too nice to say what they were thinking. I remember asking my oldest daughter, Sheryl, to forgive me for something I had done to her that I was just so tired of carrying around. I thought maybe getting actual verbal absolution would help me to let it go. She told me that, of course, she forgave me and that she understood the concept of making amends very well. Then she surprised me. She confessed that she had no idea what I was talking about. Obviously I had not scarred her for life as I had feared. Who knew?

I tell this story because I believe it is more common than you would think. I told that same story to a friend once, and she had her own story to relate. The ego self thrives on guilt and is anxious to perpetuate it. I lived under a terrible burden of guilt for many years. When my first two kids, Scott and Sheryl, were very young, I left them with their dad and moved away. My fear of being a parent was just more than I could overcome at that time. The resulting guilt and shame overshadowed everything I did from that point forward.

Later after I had matured, and after I had found my spiritual path, I desperately wanted them back, but felt it would be unfair to their dad and to them. I had two more children, Susan and Toby, and I kept in regular contact with Scott and Sheryl. The burden of my guilt, though, was truly awful, and colored everything I did for many years.

When I was fifty one years old, I got really serious about my spiritual life, and began studying for the ministry. While at Pathways of Light doing my in-person training, I was introduced to Accessing Inner Wisdom Counseling. In the course of learning to do this counseling, I both gave and received counseling. This kind of spiritual counseling is unique in that the counselor doesn’t tell you what to do or even encourage you to talk it out. Instead, the counselor helps you to get into a deeply relaxed meditative state where you can receive help from your own Inner Wisdom.

I had been studying A Course in Miracles for many years, and now felt that it was time to release the guilt I had been carrying around for so long. As part of the counseling, I looked at the clusters of thoughts that were causing my discomfort. I saw that I felt I had made unforgivable mistakes, and that to forgive myself would be unfair. If I had failed my children so badly as to affect their lives forever, the least I could do was suffer with them. I had never realized that this was my unconscious motivation for holding onto the guilt.

While still in the counseling process, I brought these guilty thoughts to the Holy Spirit for healing. The healing that took place during the Accessing Inner Wisdom Counseling was truly a miracle. In a blink of an eye, a lifetime burden was released. When I asked the Holy Spirit for a new way to think, He told me that I had never done anything wrong. In that moment, I lay down my burden and began to live. My decision to relieve myself of guilty thoughts about my failure as a parent also relieved my children of the burden of receiving my sacrificial offerings. We were now free just to love each other without the past overshadowing everything we did.

If you seem to have made mistakes as a parent, and it is likely you think you have, let me reassure you that everything is exactly as it should be. There are no errors. You have made no mistakes. Your children chose you as their parent because they needed exactly the lessons you brought to them. The ego divides all your actions into categories; this one good, that one bad, this one to be proud of, that one is perfectly shameful. This is what the ego does and you cannot change this about the ego.

You do have a choice, though. There are two voices. You do not have to listen to what the ego says. You can, at any time, turn your attention from the ego and listen instead to the Voice for God. When you do, you will hear that Voice gently laugh at the thought you could have done anything wrong. You did exactly what you came to do. You fulfilled your part in your children’s stories just as they needed you to so they could learn their forgiveness lessons.

The Voice for God will tell you that there is only one category, and everything you said or did goes into it. This category is labeled, “Perfectly Done.” This Voice will assure you that you can lay down your burden of guilt, for truly you have never done anything wrong. It will show you that the help you always wished you had is right there within you, gently guiding you to the absolute certainty that you are God’s holy child and that He loves you. You may feel trapped in a situation with no good choices available to you, but the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, will show you another way. You can be certain that His way will always bring joy and peace to everyone in the situation.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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