I come to this park almost every morning and over time it has become part of my healing practice.
And there's something about being in nature that brings me back to my body and back into the present moment.
And when I walk here,
I'm reminded that I'm not separate from any of this.
The trees,
The birds,
And the hawks that I can hear in the background and that I've been so fortunate to encounter here,
Or the people passing by,
And the earth beneath my feet.
And sometimes I describe these moments as life meeting life meeting life.
And there's a poem that I've returned to many times that I wanted to share with you here,
Surrounded by all of this life.
It's called On Children by Khalil Gibran from The Prophet.
And I've mentioned one of the central ideas many times in my teachings,
Right?
Our children are not ours.
They come through us.
And I think there's something incredibly beautiful and perhaps challenging about that idea.
So I'd like to share the poem with you.
On children.
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said,
Speak to us of children.
And he said.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you,
But not from you.
And though they are with you,
Yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love,
But not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies,
But not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit,
Not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But not seek to make them like you.
For life goes not backward,
Nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness,
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.
I think there's something profoundly healing in those words.
Every human being that comes through you,
Through us,
Our children,
Is living their own life.
And if this language resonates with you,
Their own soul's journey.
You can love them,
You can protect them,
You can teach them,
You can guide them,
And you can give them roots.
But you cannot live their lives for them.
And eventually,
Love also asks us to give them their freedom.
Right?
Children are not here to become who you needed them to become.
They're here to discover who they are.
And perhaps part of being a parent or anyone entrusted with the life of a child is also learning the difference between guidance and possession.
Learning how to love someone deeply without believing that their life belongs to you or to us.
And I think there's,
This matters for those of us doing our own healing work too.
Because many of us spent part of our adulthood healing those places where that distinction wasn't honored.
Maybe love became conditional.
Maybe belonging required us to be a particular kind of child.
Or maybe we learn to silence ourselves or caretake,
Perform,
Achieve.
Or abandon parts of ourselves in order to maintain connection.
And some of our healing becomes the process of discovering,
Right,
My life belongs to me.
Not in separation from others,
Not without love or responsibility.
But in the deepest sense that there's a life within each of us that came here to be lived.
Our own life.
Our own becoming,
Our own journey.
And perhaps this.
Is the gifts that we can give the children,
Our children who come after us.
Not freedom from guidance,
Not freedom from boundaries,
And not freedom of being parented.
But freedom from having to abandon themselves in order to belong to us.
Right?
We can guide them without asking them to become us.
You can protect them without possessing them.
And you can love them without requiring them to,
Their lives to fulfill yours.
And then,
Little by little.
.
.
You let them go.
Just as everything here in nature,
Right,
Is continuing to emerge and becoming and changing and moving into its own expression.
And maybe that's one of the greatest acts of love.
To guide a life without trying to own it.
And to love deeply enough to eventually say,
Go,
Become who you are meant to be.
Thank you for sharing these few moments with me here in this beautiful park.
And wherever you are on your journey.
Keep staying with yourself.
