Hi Joshua,
I am an Army wife and mother of three swimming deep in the waters of your teachings. I am so excited to send this question to you! My question today is about my oldest son; he’s 8, we adopted him at the age of three weeks and he is deeply angry. He seems to be triggered by just about everything his dad and I do. I believe he is mostly angry about the circumstances around his adoption but it manifests as mean spirited barbs and increasingly violent tantrums.
I have been using some advice I gleaned from your podcast and focusing on the positive aspects of him and just imagining him in my mind’s eye as perfect and whole. I try to tap into my highest good before approaching him while he’s in a rage but it doesn’t seem to be making any difference. I believe that we are in each other’s lives because we agreed to this experience while we were in non-physical. I am just so stumped as to what else to do. How can I help him and/or help myself and my two younger children to be safe when he goes into a rage?
Thank you so much,
Maura
Dear Maura,
We understand that from your perspective, your son’s rage might be seen as wrong. You might wish that he was happy and carefree like other children you know. However, what if his rage is exactly the thing that causes him to find his purpose and passions in life? What if removing his rage would mean that he could never find his purpose or passions? You would not want to do that, would you?
If your son was a brilliant pianist, you would not consider that to be wrong, in fact, you would think it’s a wonderful thing. Imagine him being consumed by the piano, playing it on and on day after day. He would perform for your friends and at school. People would comment on how brilliant he is and how lucky you are to have a child like him. You would feel good about it. However, because your son’s rage causes you to feel a bit of anguish, you would prefer that he was different than he is. Not really for his sake, but for your own sake. You want to feel better yourself and so you ask him to be pleasant, when he cannot.
There is nothing wrong with the rage he is going through right now. This is part of his trajectory that will lead him to the exploration of that which he came to explore. In time, he will realize on his now that being abandoned does not have anything to do with his own worthiness. He chose his birth parents, his adopted parents and the time and place of his birth so that he could be launched on this specific trajectory. If you view it as bad or wrong, then that is your resistance to what is right for him. You too signed up for this experience.
In resistance he feels rage. In resistance you feel sad. You might think he needs help, but in that way of looking at him, you feel fear. In fear you will receive urges to change the conditions. Those urges are simply a form of control and resistance. If you see him as perfect, as going through the perfect experiences just as he intended, and that everything is working out perfectly, you will maintain your alignment. In alignment, you will be inspired to take certain actions that are not intended to change his course, but are intended to make the journey a little more comfortable and joyous.
He is on a journey of self-discovery and so are you. Your journey is aided by his and his by yours. You are there to co-create together and not to change anything that is wrong, because nothing is wrong. It is all perfectly right. See it as right and you will begin to receive inspiring thoughts and ideas that will be of benefit to everyone. See him in need of help and you will want to do something that will not be very helpful at all. You need not control him, but you must take charge of your own feelings. You do that by looking at him and yourself from a higher perspective. From the higher perspective, you can see that this is part of the journey of self-discovery and expansion that you both intended. When you look at life from that perspective, it will help you feel better.
He will not be a more perfect version of him when he understands his own worthiness. He will never be more perfect than he is now. He will not improve, so there is no need to ask him to improve or be different. He is perfect. You are perfect. If you would help him see his own perfection, it will help him feel a bit better about his magnificent and wonderful journey that he very much wanted to take with you.
With our love,
We are Joshua