Sacred Contracts
or angels in body suits

By Marie Mathews, BA

WHEN I FIRST BECAME A MOTHER it used to seem strange that I had so few skills in parenting at the time when I needed them most. I seemed to be flying blind for much of the time, floundering in a sea of inexperience and confusion. Of course, there were wonderful times but there were also many occasions when nothing seemed to go right and I just didn’t know how to cope. I was completely out of my depth. I would have done many things differently if only I had known what to do.

When my children were young I strongly believed that I had to protect them from all pain and hurt. I tried very hard to shield them from conflict with their peers or reprimands from teachers or other adults. It took time to learn that it was much better to help them face their problems and give them some skills to deal with them. I punished when I should have empathized. I gave in when I should have stood firm. I criticized when I should have praised. I rushed to the doctor when a band aid would have sufficed. I ignored a sewing needle in my daughter’s foot because I thought she was just feigning. I recall believing that as long as I worked at it hard enough I could make my children into the people I thought they ought to be. It was only as my kids moved through their teens and my eldest son ran away from home that I realized that I had no right to make them into anything. My job was to help them grow into the people they were born to become.    

It was only when I was past the stage of needing to parent that I began to feel that I was ready to be a good parent! It all felt back to front.

 Now I can see that it was not back to front at all. Being a parent is not an end in itself – it is not something that we are necessarily born skilled to do. Certainly we do come into this life with basic intuitive survival skills for both ourselves and our children, and we learn from our own parents and from observing others. But I suspect that the majority of us with our first child have very little confidence in our ability to do the job well. We learn to parent by being a parent and that is how it is meant to be. I believe that before we are born we choose the children we will have so that we can learn specific life lessons from and with them. Simultaneously, they choose us to be their parents. Together we make Sacred Contracts.

I first heard the idea of Sacred Contracts while attending a workshop with medical clairvoyant Caroline Myss in Scotland, in 1992. It was a real ‘aha’ experience for me. The idea that before we are born we contract with other spirit beings regarding how we can help each other to learn in this current life time. It is with the people closest to us that we make our most significant contracts – parents, spouses, close friends and of course, our children. Ms Myss felt that everyone was, to some degree, a ‘misfit’ in their own family and this uncomfortable environment helped them to grow. Sometimes the contract is that the parents will be difficult - unloving, demanding, helpless etc, which makes the children grow. At other times the children may be challenging, unmanageable or manipulative, to help the parents grow. Part of the Sacred Contract is about working this out to the benefit of ALL - not just the children. Ms Myss went on to develop this idea to include the concept of archetypes which is a fascinating area, but it was the initial awareness, that we all make agreements at a spiritual level with the people in our current lives, that inspired me and continues to influence my thinking.

If we accept the possibility that our children are here to give us opportunities to learn and that we are here to encourage them in their learning process, then our view of them changes dramatically. Certainly we need to love, care for and support them until they reach adulthood, through all the very real physical and emotional highs and lows that parent/child relationships bring. But at the same time we are dealing with spirit beings in body-suits with whom we have agreed to live in this lifetime. We need to resolve the dichotomy of being human parents to human children while at the same time being equal but different spirit beings temporarily living together on the Earth plane. Being one with an awareness of the other. Being teacher and student simultaneously at these different levels and bringing it all into balance with love and compassion. Parenting is a long term spiritual and personal growth programme, and a gargantuan balancing act. We can only learn it by doing it.

There are many different ways of learning to live as fully human and spiritual beings, and of interacting with our children at both of those levels. The one that I relate to at this stage is related to seeing - really seeing beyond the physical and then acting accordingly. To me it is like those picture puzzles where you initially look and see a two dimensional image, but when you hold the picture closer to the eyes and stare a little, a new three dimensional image emerges. Far from removing us from the reality of our human existence, living with spiritual awareness enables us to see the people in our lives with an added dimension and consequently, to live our human life more richly.

Seeing our children through spirit eyes can transform our lives. It means that even when we have those days when they are driving us up the wall, an aspect of ourselves is asking, ‘”What is the lesson I need to learn from this? How can I deal with this and still maintain my equanimity? How can I respond to my children’s behavior so that they can learn what they need to learn? How can I best help them adjust their behavior so that it does not upset the whole household?” The answers won’t always come easily but a change in attitude can dramatically alter the dynamics of any stressful situation. We move from struggling blindly in a fog of anger and frustration to a position of clear seeing and personal power. The frustration and anger might still be there but we will be observing it with loving detachment. There will be times when we will not be able to see beyond the chaos, lose our cool and act in ways we would rather not. After such times, however, it will be easier to assess our behavior, learn from it and move forward. Being able to see our children as spirit beings can take the sting out of the hurt and allow solutions to emerge from our intuitive self. We will have a clarity that is not possible with just our human eyes. I believe this ability is something we all have. We have the basic capability but most of us have never developed it. So it is up to us to do something about it.

How can you learn to see at a spiritual level? The first step is to want to. The second is to ask for help from your guides, your God, whoever is your spiritual source. The next is to give yourself time and space to teach yourself to quieten your racing mind so that your inner being has an opportunity to speak and be heard. Under the shower, in the toilet, waiting in a queue, waiting ‘on hold’ on a phone, in the bus, train, plane or car, in bed just before you go to sleep or first thing in the morning, are all times that are available to you even if you don’t meditate on a regular basis. But fifteen minutes of committed mediation every day will be a big step forward in developing the space from which you can learn to ‘see’.

Once you can maintain a degree of quiet for a short period, start consciously looking at things differently. For example, you can look up at clouds and describe what they appear to be to you – not just white fluffy cotton balls in the sky - but huge angels, animal shapes, or whatever comes to mind. Become used to describing what is just beyond the range of your physical eyes. You might think you can’t do it, or that it is just your imagination, but where does your imagination come from if not from somewhere deep within yourself? Why do I see clouds as angels while you can see giant woolly sheep and the man across the road knows these same clouds are old sailing ships? It is a matter of trying and trusting and then practicing repeatedly. This morning I looked out on our drought stricken yard at the intensely green plants in pots gathered around the shady side of a cherry tree. That tree has been growing beside my veranda for over 20 years but this morning I saw something about it that I have never noticed previously. I saw it as a mother, looking after these little plants, giving them protection and shelter as we – the tree and I - nurse them through this dry, hot season, with minimum water available to them. It was a beautiful sense of caring and love, which filled me with joy. And it had very little to do with what I could see visually.

Once you can induce a sense of calm within yourself at will and when you are open to the possibility of seeing beyond what is visible it is time to try connecting with your child at a spiritual level. You need quiet and stillness when you first attempt this. There is no point trying to do it if all hell is breaking out around you. Choose a time when things are peaceful, when your child is asleep or reading or absorbed in TV or a quiet game. Then visualize a blank screen just to the side of the child and ask that the image of your child as a spirit being be projected upon it or that something you need to understand about the child at that time be revealed to you. Pose your question clearly and simply and in such a way that it does not invite and yes/no type of reply. Then wait quietly and confidently. Some people will get a nice clear image or message while others will just get a sense of something. That is OK. Write or speak aloud what you are ‘seeing’. Quite often it is not until you start to describe it that you find that you are saying something that you didn’t know before. If you feel you picked up nothing write that down in detail, including the frustration you might feel at seeming to fail. You might be surprised what comes out once the words start flowing.

Some people can make this sort of connection by working at the computer with a photo of the child. In this situation it is good to type fast without trying to edit what is coming out or worrying about spelling or grammar. No one but you need see what you write. Just let the ideas flow, even if they seem like nonsense. When you read it back later you will find information there that did not come from your conscious mind. Practice on a regular basis and you will develop the neural and energetic pathways that are needed to achieve such imaging or communication skills. If you persist you will reach a stage when you can see or sense at will what is happening with your child as spirit, even in times of turmoil. You will have acquired a very useful parenting tool.

 Enjoy and love your children both as children and as spirit beings. No matter what happens within the family know that you and your children can learn from it. Don’t try to be perfect, accept that being a good enough parent is OK and remember that you and your children are just spiritual students muddling along together. Be open to the great abundance of useful information and healing modalities that can help sharpen your awareness and enhance this very exciting, rewarding, if also frustrating and exhausting period of your life. And for the days when you find it impossible to see past the squabbling kids, the pile of unsorted washing or yet another spill of red drink on the carpet I suggest you do something in advance to remind yourself of your Sacred Contract. Make yourself a sign in big letters and attach it to your refrigerator or other areas where the family gathers. It should read: “Remember, we are all angels in body suits.”

Flower Essences to Help Increase and Strengthen Spiritual Awareness and Communication Skills in Parent and Child Relationships
    There are various healing tools that you can use to assist you in developing your awareness and communications skills. My particular expertise is in the field of Australian Bush Flower Essences. I have found that these remedies are extremely helpful to both parents and children in developing their spirituality and awareness skills. They work especially well with children, who, unlike adults, do not consciously block the healing that is offered to them. The Essences are very specific to the issues which they address and they resolve them quickly and without catharsis. They are natural and safe, subtle, yet very powerful.

    Below are suggestions for essences that can be taken by both parents and children, depending on the particular issue that is being addressed:

• Green Spider Orchid for increasing non-verbal communication.
• Bush Fuchsia for improving verbal communication. It will also deepen awareness of and trust in our own intuitive wisdom.
• Freshwater Mangrove can help parents to be more open to completely new ways of seeing, thinking and doing.
• Boronia can help with creative visualization; it also stills the racing mind
• Red Lily will keep a person well grounded while they are getting in touch with Spirit.
• Fringed Violet will deal with trauma past and present, give psychic protection and repair any damage in the energy fields
• Angelsword will help the recall of wisdom from past lives, help a person monitor information he has picked up at a spiritual level, and will re-energise the energy fields
• Meditation Essence, a combination essence, can support the parent and child in their connection with Spirit.
• Pink Flannel Flower is for accepting with gratitude that what is is OK. Finding deep peace within even in times of in turmoil
• Sydney Rose, Rough Bluebell and Mountain Devil help bring through the love vibration. Love is an essential ingredient in any parent/child relationship.
• Calm & Clear, a combination essence, will help create quietness and inner peace
• Southern Cross for learning life’s lesson and moving into our own power.
• Emergency Essence, a combination essence, should always be on hand for dealing with traumas big and small.

    No matter how spirituality aware our children might be it is nice to allow them to have their childhood and their play. Little Flannel Flower is about playfulness, joy and fun. Children at around 3 or 4 are very psychically aware but unless they are encouraged this tends to fade after about the age of six. Little Flannel Flower with Sundew can help them to get back that ability. Sundew will also help keep things in balance

Did you like this article? It appeared in the online magazine Children of the New Earth. Click on the picture below to find out everything you want to know about indigo kids, crystal children, rainbows, starseeds and more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

   

Marie Matthews BA is a Flower Essence Practitioner, Flower Essence Correspondence Course tutor and Editor of The Essence, the newsletter of the Australian Bush Flower Essence Society.

Australian Bush Flower Essences can be obtained in most parts of the world. For further information or to order Bush Essences, Bush Biotherapies Pty Ltd. Can be contacted by writing to 45 Booralie Rd Terrey Hills NSW Australia 2084, telephoning: 61 2 9450 1388 or Emailing info@ausflowers.com.au.