This is a 5-part series by Dr. Richa Chopra. The string of articles roots itself onto a series of structured ‘Spiritual Interventions’ observed by Dr. Chopra. She is a Western-schooled Child Developmental Psychologist (Ph.D.), studying a wide range of cross-cultural human behaviors over a span of a decade-and-a-half.
An international Art of Living Faculty, Dr. Chopra, through her monthly writing, intends to bring to light the amalgamation of the East-West perspectives, corroborated through a vast reservoir of case studies from all over the world demonstrating how spiritually-oriented interventions intertwined with the objectivity of modern psychology have helped people come over their struggles in life. These reflections are from diverse yet common domains ranging from parenting, relationships, food and lifestyle choices, substance abuse, the realm of psychosomatics, psychological well-being, etc.
Positive evidential anecdotes from her personal diary supersede the general perceived norm of psychotherapeutic interventions across modern-day challenges being limited to western psychology and carried within cultural contexts. Dr. Chopra’s findings are encouraging enough to delve further into the realm of “Transpersonal Psychology: Beyond Cultures.”.
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Transpersonal or spiritual psychology examines a human being in his/her totality – as a complex system consisting of the soul, mind, and body. An integrated approach to the study of human beings, through science, religion and sacred doctrines, along with experiences and discoveries ( way beyond the mundane levels of the human mind) of advanced ascetics can also be the way to help identify lesser-known factors that determine one’s mind and behavior.
Spiritual psychology from the Vedic standpoint confines itself to the human mind grounded in the Spirit. And in this very context, it may be seen that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are purely psychological - mind being the central instrument. And it may be observed that the physical, emotional, rational and the spiritual – i.e., the same psyche functions across all humans. Therefore, it seems that psychological development, psychological evolution, psychic evolution, etc. are all universal phenomena cutting across cultures. The Patanjali Yoga Sutras delineate ways of culturing the mind through well-laid disciplines, leading to states of inner stability, equanimity, and strength.
Eminent psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, was of the view that holding on to something firm and steady like a spiritual thought would have enabled him to create better avenues to help his patients having no ailments, but simply a lack of direction.
Part-1: Bruises Incognito: Nurturing Kids Right
“If only there were an ethereal umbilical cord,
That would nourish all my subtleties,
I, perhaps, would have been an altogether different creation of the Lord,
Traversing life, with all it's vicissitudes in totality.
-Dr. Richa Chopra
These profound lines are drawn from the life of an anonymous, just an edge over 46, living on this planet. And above all her bygone years, she died and lived in retrospect, at least a thousand more years, in parallel, within - oscillating between different shades and spells of negative and positive emotions.
When, where, how and what created the anguish and peace? What stimulated the seemingly unending oscillations? Is each one of us anonymous in our own experience?
‘Bruises Incognito: Nurturing Kids Right’ intends to acquaint the reader through the long and deep tunnels that may later echo the unheard-heard, unsaid-said voices, unappreciated-appreciated actions and inactions, feelings that perhaps were cut short or kept flowing directionless. And, also taking the reader to understand the impact of outer noises, pacifying and non-pacifying sounds and scenes that, too,, would perhaps have prevailed in the child’s surroundings.
This article is an accumulative wealth of insights and sharing on ‘Raising Kids Evenly’ - integrating glimpses - from my growing-up years, academic readings, personal life explorations, rendezvous with an enlightened Master - His teachings, a few significant cross-cultural perspectives, etc. In two parts, this excerpt will examine and excavate the known and unknown dimensions of every child and light pathways on mastering the trustee-ship of ‘Effective Parenting.’
Lesser-dived fundamentals
1. Our seeds of parenting plant itself in us the day we land in our mother’s womb
Does this sound unconventional? Did we think all this while that adorning a parental role begins for us only when we become parents? Well, the answer is no. The way our mothers felt and dealt with finding us land in their wombs will somewhere shape our attitudes toward the way we feel and deal with our offsprings.
2. Our mind grooves are sketched throughout our stay in our mother’s womb
It is not new amongst many, especially in this region of the world, that learning and making sense of the external world, in our unique ways start from the time we position ourselves in our mother’s belly! In the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, Arjuna’s son Abhimanyu is said to have learned a war skill when he was in the womb. The mental and emotional state of our mothers while nurturing us in their wombs can also be, in direct proportion, grooming our mental and emotional states, thus shaping our persona.
3. Mind grooves continue to be written even after we are born
Behavioral child development theories center on how children learn through their interactions with the environment. Jean Piaget, the renowned psychologist, was the first to note that children themselves play an active role in gaining knowledge of the world. Children can be thought of as “little scientists” who actively construct their knowledge and understanding of the world. Likewise, theories proposed by Sigmund Freud stress the importance of childhood events and experiences.
Our homes shape our mind
Anger collapsed the burgeoning industriousness
I truly believe that it is our homes that shape every nook and corner of our minds!
As a little girl of three, M was very industrious. Her house was right in the main market, with the busy street running endlessly across both ends. After the eve of her birthday celebrations, she remembered having collected all the flattened, punctured balloons, putting them neatly in a small cloth bag, pulling her little brother to one corner and with all the excitement, whispering a plan in his ears. The next afternoon, slyly, both tiptoed out of their house, spread a big sack on the edge of the adjacent street, laying out the balloons, in some order on the sack and innocently calling out to the passers-by, ‘Buy our balloons, buy our balloons.’ A few minutes had barely passed, and her father’s jeep halted outside the house. Seeing both his children, his immediate reaction was to furiously hold M’s arm, dragging her inside the house. He would also have muttered many a loud and strange sounds, that perhaps did not make much sense to this three-year. “But yes, the atmosphere was very tense,” she still recalls. The doings were escalated to her grandparents and uncles and aunts. It was a joint family. The environment was heavy with blame, criticism, and remorse.
“The burgeoning industriousness in me just collapsed …not just for that moment, but it continued far and long, spreading its tentacles across other arenas,” she exclaims, many years later!
The parents that ever fought, marring respect
S says both her parents were highly qualified, with a liberal point of view towards larger aspects of life. They were both religious and had high-value systems in their own ways. Finance was never an issue. The house was big with helping hands for almost every chore. Both S and her younger brother were sent to study in boarding schools from the time they were eight or nine years young. The town where S’s parents lived did not have good English schools.
Vacations for both the children were pretty disciplined with a stream of hobby teachers lined-up from morning till evening. One thing that was paradoxical in this seemingly perfect environment was the abrasive relationship between both the parents; the parents did everything to contain their abusive disagreements within the walls of their room, not realizing that these energies were all-pervading. S recalls many a night, she and her brother sat with their ears glued to the doors of their parent’s room and her little heart thumping each time she would hear a verbal or a physical attack.
The significant lesson of respect was nipped right at its bud for S. And going ahead, S found it a lot difficult to respect herself and others.
Unintended favouritism, brews complexes
B was born one year and ten months after his sibling A. Being the first child across both her paternal and maternal families, A enjoyed all the initial attention and pampering until B came along. Overnight, the spotlight shifted from A to B, leaving little A to pre-maturely adorn the role of Big A, which she developmentally was not prepared for. Every first small act of her younger brother was applauded, privately and in public. Perhaps everyone forgot that A too was growing up and passing through certain milestones that also needed its due attention. The growth of A was somewhere camouflaged. This unintended favoritism led to a plethora of unhealthy emotional and mental patterns in the older sibling: inferiority complex, poor self-love, jealousy, and low esteem.
Catering to every want may not be the best policy
My best friend was very intelligent and would turn a dozen heads by her looks each time we stepped out of our college. Though from a humble socio-economic background, she always secretly aspired to settle down with someone who was very wealthy. Midway her studies, she got married and discontinued college. Thereafter, whatever I heard of her was that her lifestyle had completely taken a U-turn and both her husband, and she would often make Page 3 news. Recently almost after two decades, I had the opportunity to interact with her 19-year- young son for the first time. Being a single child, life for him had been a bed of roses. At the blink of an eye, every want and need was catered to most joyfully. He doesn’t remember if his parents ever said ‘no’ or disagreed with his faults. He doesn’t even remember any instance of disagreement between his parents. “They share a great deal of love between them,” he says.
Ironically, amidst all such congeniality, this young boy is totally directionless and into a series of addictions. What went wrong and where?
Intelligence is not just academics
When I was practicing as a counselling psychologist in the prestigious Guwahati Neurosciences Research Hospital back in 2002, a middle-aged couple was referred to me with their two teenage daughters. Through the first meeting itself, both parents were aggrieved and started to complain about their older daughter, saying that she spent days and nights in mimicking musical sounds and fared poorly in academics. Whereas their younger daughter was a topper. They left no stone unturned to drive home the point that their older child was not at all intelligent and in a meeting that lasted for about 45 minutes with me, the comparatives made between the two children were poles apart. I suggested for a psychometric assessment of the elder sibling and later found that she was gifted musically, kinesthetically and in spatial intelligence! If only parents can drop their feverishness for academic performances.
Intelligence can be multidimensional.
Childlikeness engulfed by parenting voids
I have come across many parents who, themselves as individuals, are emotionally in deep trenches, without any real connection with themselves. And living in such unresolved states, they continually, intentionally or unintentionally, impinge their negative emotions on their children, forcing them to grow out of their innocence beyond their little bodies. Such was the case of a single mother I knew of. She had a poor childhood that extended way beyond her thirties. She doesn’t remember any instance where she was not reprimanded, or compared with her younger sibling. She doesn’t even recall a single day where her home was free of flights; whether between her parents or between her parents and other family members. And being nurtured in such a soil, it is a far-fetched dream to expect positive values and holistic life skills to reign within such a person. Her marriage broke within a couple of years. The only relation she could hold on to was her daughter.
Her growing up voids and bruises had silently started to engulf and stunt her daughter’s childhood, which seemed close to being irreversible.
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Moving on: The brighter side of the fence
In the above, I have attempted to cite just a few of the many varied dynamics that can play a major role in shaping a child’s world within. There are, in addition, many other contributing significant factors such as the latent impressions (samskaras) with which one is born, the role of genetics, etc. Yet, there is no mathematical law on human development. It is a complex phenomenon wherein what can be seen as ‘attributing’ for someone can be ‘non-attributing’ for another. I have made a humble attempt to put a cross-sectional overview, restricting myself to my area of expertise and experiences.
Bringing to the forefront some of the instances is merely from the perspective of lighting awareness. Most of our inappropriate doings emanate from our spaces within, that is vexed. Education is the first step. And even though prevention is better than cure, nevertheless, if something needs to be mended, there is always a scope.
In the second part of this article that shall follow I will share some interesting case studies and tips on mastering the trusteeship of effective parenting*.
*Parenting is not limited to being biological parents. Every human being has the attribute of nurturing another, and that is true parenthood.
You can leave your feedback and experiences at @DrRichaChopra1 and @ArtofLiving.
You can also connect with the writer at richa.chopra@artofliving.org.
Apart from being a Child Developmental Psychologist and an International Art of Living Faculty, Dr. Richa Chopra is currently the Chief Counsellor at Vivechana -The Counselling Space: Enriching Consciousness through Vedic & Modern Perspectives at Sri Sri University, Cuttack, India.
