Many have asked me if I would publish this letter I had written to a friend. The time seemed perfect as we received wonderful articles on Autism and ADD this issue.

At the time of this letter my personal journey had lead me to a close friend who had asked me what I felt the "secret" to raising children was. At that time, after a divorce and having raised my children in what I would have once called a normal household, I was floundering to "find myself." Voila, into my life came a healer who introduced me to a healing process that helped me see what had been and was currently happening in my life.

Then just this morning I reached for a booklet, my partner Ron picked up called Clarity by the Grail Foundation of America. It has an excerpt from the Fourth Commandment "Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother." An explanation followed, that we have misunderstood this commandment as a personal message and not one that encompasses the whole of honoring fatherhood and motherhood.

"Therefore, it is not in the first place addressed to the children but to the parents themselves, demanding of them that they keep fatherhood and motherhood in honor! The Commandment imposes absolute duties upon parents, always to be fully conscious of their higher task, and therewith also to bear in mind the responsibility involved in it." After showing the movie The Moses Code a few times, the questions arise... have we misunderstood the meanings to most everything in life? What might that higher responsibility be? This is my letter and what I had begun to see that I had not...

Dear J–The only way to teach our children now is by example. It’s not what we say to them it’s our actions that show them where we are at. Most parents or people in any relationship can talk a good game. We need to know that our intentions and our actions really do speak louder than words and that our words are in alignment with our feelings. Aligning those intentions, actions and words to our children and partners, is critical. I think someone called it honesty.

Teach your children from a place of responsibility, not from a place of right and wrong. Teach them to be responsible for their intentions, actions and words, to see the real impact they have on the world and the people in it, the benefits, opportunities, possibilities in everything they do. Help them to see how we can hurt the world and each other. When they experience that hurt in life, taking responsibility for their part is what is important. Then the lessons are learned and not recreated. Right and wrong is limiting, being responsible is not. They will learn what is in harmony and what is not.

Teach them to live consciously. Give them choices in every aspect of their lives. Help them see what the outcomes might be and let them take responsibility for those outcomes and their feelings. Help them to be open and feel, to not shut down to the world and others by hiding who they are. Do not subtly manipulate them by packing their lives and yours with all the distractions that we have created in our world, and by ignoring what is really going on with their feelings and those of others.

Teach them to communicate. The world is safe, and they really are safe within themselves. The reality is that we bring up the hurt within ourselves; it doesn’t come from out there. As with happiness and love, it doesn’t come from out there.

For some, children tend to fill the void we feel in our lives. They start out giving "us" the unconditional love that we all so want in our lives. But then we raise them in judgment, fear, control, right and wrong pretty soon we have recreated the world once more with the same basic baggage, just a different back drop. Most times experiencing our fear for them while we are “thinking” it is our love of them.

Be ready for the everyday routine. The needs of children to eat, sleep and play may not coincide with yours. It usually seemed they wanted activity when I was exhausted and wanted to sleep when I was ready to go. It takes a lot of adjustment from a world of me to a world of we. People experience this even in relationships where two adults seemingly can entertain themselves.

I feel there are wonderful feelings to experience with or without children. Being conscious you’ll see where patterns will develop, distracting you from those feelings, enabling you to change or shift those patterns for your benefit as well as others, especially your children.

Love yourself, unconditionally, so that you may love them. Live consciously in every aspect of your life to the best of your ability so that you’ll act knowing what your responsibilities are and not just react to situations you will constantly be brought into. In doing this (easier said than done) you’ll teach your children to love, accept and trust themselves.

Not every child needs the same things, listen and be present with them, know what each needs. Leave out the powerful tools of control, guilt, anger and fear. Raise them from your heart and not your mind. Your heart knows no fear, anger, jealousy, guilt or how to control. But be humbled and honor those powerful tools as they all will show up showing us time and again that in that moment we need to love ourselves a little more.

The trick is knowing what a child's needs are, which ones they are responsible for meeting, which ones they may need help meeting and getting this all to flow with a give and take which is balanced. Balance is what we all think we need to learn; we’re not taught what that is. We then try to create it without a real clue based on what we have been lead to believe it is, we may never experience it, thinking that we’ve got it. Kind of goes for love too.

It takes a lot of practice, if we are lucky, maybe only one life time to get it all. There are no magic answers only the magic to live each moment where we are, so we can consciously learn from all our teachers. Can I teach it? Only by being it... and that "is" the journey.  Love Ya  J

Some how when raising my children I had other perceptions, even though... it has become a wonderful journey to self-knowing for everyone. They are wonderfully human and deeply loved. This was my perception ten years ago, much remains the same, and some have changed, what's yours?

Joan Emmons is one of the publishers of Inner Tapestry and partnered with Ron Damico in their healing practice Ron and Joan. She can be reached through www.ronandjoan.com.