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Holistic Dad Tries to Expand His Boy’s Minds (and Hearts)
Can you relate? I pick up my boys from their Mother’s home and they hope in the van, drop their things all over the vehicle and (with the precision and speed of fighter pilots) swiftly and adroitly tap something into their ipod’s, PSP’s or cell phones. Once again, my boys are lost in the world of digital blips and bleeps.
Sometimes it makes me wonder if humanity will evolve into the cyborg-like hybrids known as “the Borg” in the T.V. Star Trek shows where electronic gadgetry melds into their very flesh.
And I really wonder what it does to my relationship with them. It is bad enough that we live in a world of “new blended families” where I only see them a few times a week at best, but to have that time conscripted by little lighted boxes…
Oh I hear what you are saying, “well, just tell them to put it down!”, as if it were just that easy. You see I’m a Dad, and a guy. And Dad’s like gadgets too! And guy’s especially like to play with gadgets when they need to unwind and shut out the world. Like after a long day at work…or, for them, two pre-adolescent brains overtaxed by the “non-holistic” demands of the modern day school systems….
Well, after they have been in school all day, I get the attraction and the function of needing to shut out the outside stimulus and focus on something totally and completely distracting (and otherwise, meaningless). It’s a guy thing, and it’s akin to the caveman hiding out in his cave until he felt like he could come and sit around the fire again.
Most women find this very confusing and puzzling, but guys need to be quiet and alone in order to regain their energy, whereas women, need to talk and be social. Quite the trick the Creator pulled there eh?
So what’s a Dad to do?
“Counter attack the status quo when you can” is my motto. That is, I don’t think fighting the battle when they are too tired to pay attention helps…and since I too, am rather worn from a day at the office…well, I allow the blips and bleeps to exist as part of the mix. But then, just when they least expect it (well not really but that sounds more dramatic)…I take them to one of my holistic activities.
I am a new age spiritual kind of guy. (No, not a modern-day-hippie-wearing-flowered-pattern-shirts-and-beads-dude, but I feel very strongly that the world they grow up in is out of balance). I make an effort to buck the trend and introduce them to alternative world views if I can. A few years ago when my youngest boy was about 6, I had him and his older brother do a shamanic ceremony to welcome in the new year. Complete with a holy man from Ecuador, smoke and chanting, they were quite intrigued. My youngest saw some visions even.
The modern world of electronics and shopping malls would hide these things from them. I believe it helps them to open their hearts, and not just walk in a world of mental stimulation and constant distractions. There was a simpler way of life just a few short 100 years ago in our culture, and it is my hope that I can awaken that kind of world in them. Though for certain, most of their Dad’s friends from class would find such things very strange.
Next week I am taking them to a wonderful event that will have channeled music and some chanting. It will even include a group mediation and some inspired words channeled from a woman who shares the messages of the angels. You can’t get more holistic and “new-agey” than that. The thing is, it really is undeniable that it melts your heart just to be in the same room with these individuals as they share their gifts (and the gifts of spirit) with the audience.
And that is a message I really want my boys to be exposed to: that each of us has a unique and specific talent, and that talent, no matter what it is, is there to be shared with one other, to uplift and inspire one other from the heart – to being better and more whole than we were before we came together. That’s “holistic” for me.
If you live near Philadelphia, New Jersey or Delaware, maybe you want to join in and attend this event too. (Go to http://www.ofLove.org/peacetour for details).
In the meantime, if you too have boys (or techno minded girls), don’t let the blips and bleeps take over your kids lives…but don’t try and shut them out entirely either.
-Mike
Mike Hayden
My latest article on Lightworker.com:
http://tinyurl.com/mikehayden-earthchanges