Keep your face to the sunshine, and you cannot see the shadow.
W hen we consider the relationship between parenting and health, we often do so only within the context of children’s health and forget about the importance of parents’ health. But parental health and parental love — for self and for one’s children — are the most significant public health factors on the planet.
As the father of five children, including twins, all of them born
within a period of seven years, I know the role that exhaustion played in my wife’s health and mine. When the children were young, we slept only a few hours each night as we cared for the kids, prepared formula, cleaned diapers, played with them, and watched over them. We were acting out of love, but the fatigue had its effect on our immune systems and stress hormone levels. The result was that I ended up in the hospital with a severe staphylococcal infection, and my wife developed multiple sclerosis.
One of the things all parents should do is take time to get away and restore themselves. There is no need to feel guilty over occasionally leaving your children and caring for yourself, giving yourself the opportunity to live an authentic life rather than a role. Once we learned our lesson about taking better care of ourselves, at the beginning of each year Bobbie would get the calendar out and determine how many days we could be caring parents before it took a toll on our health. Then she’d reserve several days every few months, so that she and I could go off together while friends or family would take our place and share their time and affection with our children.
Everyone benefited from the separation. Through our neighbors, friends, and my patients, our children found a new set of experienced parents and grandparents who were willing and ready to listen to their problems and love them, and my wife and I had a chance to restore ourselves and relate to things other than diapers, schedules, and meals. It also gave our kids a chance to play games with adults who didn’t know all their devious techniques for outsmarting parents.
I have had many patients who developed a dependence on food, drugs, alcohol, or other addictive behaviors, and what I learned from them was that this was their response to a childhood in which they experienced indifference, rejection, or abuse — the opposite of love — from their parents. They sought to reward themselves in order to feel better, but these choices were self-destructive for they were only temporary fixes. People who choose a path of self-destruction don’t live that way because of a lack of information. What they lack is inspiration and a sense of self-worth.
A study that followed a group of Harvard students revealed that, of the students who felt their parents did not love them, by midlife almost 100 percent had suffered a major illness. In comparison, among those who felt loved, only 25 percent developed a major illness during the same period.
As children develop, they require, at very specific times, certain kinds of messages from one or both parents that will make the children feel loved and secure. Most people probably don’t realize that until a child reaches the age of six, his or her brainwave pattern is similar to that of a hypnotized individual. By the time children become capable of evaluating their parents’ words, they have a real struggle on their hands to free themselves from the negative messages most parents deliver. When those messages are destructive, it’s really difficult to get beyond them.
To quote one of my patients: “My mother’s words were eating away at me and maybe even gave me cancer.” This woman’s mother had constantly belittled her accomplishments and dressed her only in dark colors so she would not be noticed by others. She had to develop a life-threatening illness before she could go out and buy a red dress, begin a new life, and become her authentic self.
When parents impose behavior patterns, career choices, and more, what they are often doing is literally taking their child’s life away. The sweet identical twin sister who pleases Mom, Dad, and the family, but internalizes anger, is far more likely to develop breast cancer later in life than her little devil of a sister who is always doing her own thing.
Parenting problems can be revealed in the drawings made by children. For example, a child might draw a family picture and give her mother a facial expression that makes her look as if she’s angry and using verbal aggression, and draw her father with his hands in his pockets and facing away from the mother, showing his emotional withdrawal. She might draw her own facial expression as looking sad or frightened. When this drawing is brought to the parents’ attention, they are more easily motivated to get help. Rather than hearing the therapist’s interpretation, which makes them feel they are bad parents, they see what their child says with pictures, what she is going through; this tells them what they need to hear.
Family counseling, classes in parenting and anger control, and workshops in communication skills are often the key to helping the family work as a unit. Not only will this ease the child’s psychological distress, but it will also play a big part in healing the child’s physical disease and create for her a healthier mind and body for the rest of her life.
We must recognize the importance of listening to one another and verbalizing our love. Be sure to give your children love even when you don’t like what they are doing. Do not attack them with words like: “There’s something wrong with you.” Instead use words that say, “I love you, but what you are doing is unsafe and unhealthy, so please stop.” Let them know you do not like their behavior while, at the same time, you reassure them that you love them. The teen years can be the most challenging for kids, especially when their parents have not developed an open channel of loving communication. When the kids need guidance and support, they don’t feel they can go to the parents with their problems or ask them for help. In one study, 70 percent of high school students said they had considered suicide. These kids have no idea how to eliminate what is killing them, so they consider killing themselves.
Remember that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference, rejection, or abuse. Why do I think children become bullies? When they receive mottoes to die by from the authority figures in their lives and witness other negative behaviors in an unloving environment, they will act out in ways that are destructive to themselves and others, using bullying tactics, aggression, and violence. These children do not interpret aggression the same way we do, because children who develop in a violent, unloving environment have a nervous system that is far less sensitive to physical aggression, noise, and other sensory stimuli. Parts of their brains literally shut down. Studies have shown that neglect, trauma, and abuse in childhood have a physical impact on the central nervous system — the brain, spinal cord, and nerves — leaving some structures and pathways underdeveloped and other structures and pathways overdeveloped.1
Children may deliberately act out. The troublemaker gets attention; even if it is negative attention, it feels better than rejection. Aggression is a normal feeling, but in order to get attention, and sometimes revenge, the unloved and rejected child will turn healthy aggression into violence and destruction rather than engage in sports, work, and hobbies.
Just as fire can either heat or destroy your home, so the energy within children can be directed to healthy endeavors. Children can rebel in healthy ways and not by bullying. When their energy is directed into something positive, such as engaging with the arts, sports, hobbies, or volunteering, the world becomes a better place, and no one is threatened by that energy. We need to provide such outlets and help children search for what fulfills their needs in a healthy way.
As a boy, I became jealous of a neighbor’s toy; I acted like a bully and broke it. When my father came home and learned what I had done, he said nothing to me about it; but the following day he came home with the same toy. He didn’t tell me what to do with it. He just handed it to me and walked away. My father’s action spoke more to me than any words of chastisement would. He did the right thing as the responsible adult by replacing the broken toy, but he left me with the decision of whether to keep it or give it to my neighbor. His action told me that he loved me, trusted me, and wanted me to do the right thing. Whether I did that or not was my decision. My father knew that what he was putting me through was worse than physical punishment. And yes, I went over and gave it to my neighbor.
We need to convey a reverence for life to children. We can do this by teaching them how to be responsible for the life and comfort of some living thing, be it a plant, pet, or another human being, and give them the opportunity to do so with appropriate supervision. When you care for and about what you live with, you respect the world and its inhabitants.
My wife and I filled our home and yard with rescued animals. We broke every zoning law, but no one, including the police, ever reported us, because they knew we were caring for all these creatures. Our children even carried insects out of the house because they respected them as living things. When the children reached the age of rebellion, instead of directing their energy against people, they focused it on improving the status quo and creating a better world. When they needed love and attention, they asked for it or did crazy things, but they never acted in a destructive way toward anyone or anything.
As an example, one son would tell us the grandparents had called and wanted him to visit them. So I would put him on a bus to go see them. As an adult he confessed they never called; he just needed to get away and get some loving. He was the one who, when Bobbie and I were away, got his siblings to tell the couple staying with them that he had left early for school. But he didn’t go to school; he was sitting in the cedar closet all day reading books. He knew how to get attention and also how to care for himself without hurting anyone.
Anger needs to be expressed appropriately, not repressed. When children are angry, ask them why. Listen to them and help them find a safe way to deal with the cause of their anger, as well as a way to release and externalize their feelings. When hospital staff members continually barged into his room for insignificant reasons, a dying teenager used a water gun to let people know he wanted privacy. His anger hurt no one and taught many nurses and doctors to respect his needs as a human being living under difficult circumstances, rather than think of him merely as a hospital patient who needed scheduled management. The boy’s water gun became a gift for other children to use after he died. As a parent what do you do if your hospitalized child is being treated like a disease rather than a person? Take along a Siegel Kit, as I mentioned in chapter 6 (see page 95).
And what do you do if your child is being picked on by a bully at school or in the neighborhood? It is appropriate for your child to be angry when not treated with respect, but to respond to violence with violence only aggravates the situation. I would make the authorities at school or in your neighborhood aware of what is happening, but I would also kill with kindness and torment with tenderness. Be creative in your approach. I have seen love dissolve a bad situation even when someone’s life was being threatened.
Tell your child to invite the bully over to your house for some fun and games. Or go someplace together, such as an amusement park, and enjoy a good meal. Call the bully’s parents and chat with them about their child’s behavior. If you were to learn the bully’s mom had been diagnosed with cancer, or that the parents are alcoholics, you would find it easier to understand and forgive the bully, and your child would learn more about being a genuine friend. If you try it and it doesn’t work, then eliminate the relationship.
Once I was speaking in a classroom at a school in a dangerous neighborhood, and just before my lecture four boys came in and took the front-row seats. This struck me as odd because students don’t often choose to sit right in front of the teacher. I later learned that these four boys were the school gang leader and his bodyguards, and those were their seats in every classroom. I asked a question, and the gang leader raised his hand to answer. When he was done, I told him that was not the right answer and I went on to explain why. The principal revealed afterward that the boy hadn’t spoken in a class in four years. He expressed his concern: now that I had told the gang leader he was wrong, what was he going to do to the school? I told the principal not to worry. The boy knew I was there only because I cared about him and the other students, and he was having a good time. There was no trouble afterward. By talking respectfully and honestly with those kids, and by sharing a little bit of wisdom and a lot of laughter, I had planted a seed of love.
Through our persistent love, even when we do not like what the bullies are doing, we can reparent them and help them to rebel against the elements of our society that need to change. When we do this, the bullies come to realize they are worth loving and begin to care about themselves and others. I have seen this with children, patients, and other people I have developed relationships with through my work.
I love to bring senior citizens and students together, because everyone needs a loving grandparent who is filled with the wisdom of a lifetime. When you do this, you establish guidance: god-u-and-i-dance. Even people in nursing homes are valuable teachers when they get the opportunity to be with students. Older people often teach children that troubles can be instances of redirection from which something good will come.
If I had to summarize how to raise a healthy child, I’d suggest you get a puppy, go to a veterinarian, and ask how to raise your puppy. Then go home and do the same thing with your child. To quote some vets I know: “Consistency, respect, affection, discipline, love, and exercise.” The acronym for this is CRADLE, and it sounds good to me.
For more details on this topic, read my book Love, Magic & Mudpies about how to raise children who feel loved, who practice kindness, and who make a positive difference in the world. All too often children grow into adulthood without such help, and they are left to cope with the physical, emotional, and mental consequences of bad parenting.
If something was going on in your family during the formative years in your life, something that interfered with your getting loving, positive messages from the important adults in your life, then you need to reparent yourself. It is actually damaging you when you listen to the voices of your past telling you that in some way you are not good enough. The way to get out of the negative trance and change your self-image is by actively and intentionally leaving those old recordings and unhappy experiences behind. By the time we are adults, it’s not about blaming our parents. It’s about becoming empowered and making our own choices.
I recommend that you start by getting to know yourself as a little child. In your mind, separate the person you are today from the child you were, and get ready to love that divine child as if he or she exists right here, right now, because that child does exist — within you. No matter how crazy you think this idea sounds, try it anyway. Fake it till you make it.
Use this method: Find photographs of yourself as a child and place them where you spend your time so you will see them daily. I call them shrines. Fall in love with that child. Talk to her or him. Tell her that she is safe and loved and will grow to be strong. Tell him how wonderful it is that he was born, and that he is valuable and has a purpose in your life.
Carry the image of that child in your mind and heart throughout the day, and every time you feel disturbed, anxious, or afraid, imagine that it is the child who is having those feelings. Ask yourself, what would I do to comfort this kid? Then do it for yourself. Just as hunger leads you to seek nourishment, use these feelings to direct you into nourishing your life in the ways it needs to be nourished.
On a daily basis, once you have reparented the child inside yourself, extend that loving care to your outer adult self. If you had a son or daughter who was bullied day after day by a teacher whose comments were damaging your child’s self-esteem, wouldn’t you go to the teacher and insist that she treat your child with kindness and respect? If the teacher didn’t change her behavior, wouldn’t you have your child transferred to another class where the teacher encouraged the children and made learning an enjoyable experience? If another class wasn’t made available, wouldn’t you remove your child from that school?
Do the same for yourself now. Talk to your unfair manager at work or to anyone who treats you badly. Tell him you love him, but you don’t like how he is treating you, and that you expect to be treated with kindness and respect. If he doesn’t change his behavior, you can always walk away from that job or relationship. Put yourself in situations where you will not be damaged by the toxic behaviors of others. Sometimes you can’t change your life, but you can change your attitude. When your health is threatened, changing your life by walking away is best; but if you can’t, developing a positive change in attitude can do wonders. When you choose happiness, it affects everyone around you.
While you’re at it, talk to the critic in your head. When you make a mistake, does the voice in your head accuse you of being stupid, worthless, or otherwise not good enough? If you saw a child make a mistake, I hope you would say, “It’s okay; everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes are an important part of learning.” I know of a golf instructor who tells her students not to judge the results of a swing with the mental comment “Wow, that was great,” or “Oh no, that was awful.” She tells her students to practice saying, “That was interesting.” This gives the mind permission to learn from each swing without setting up an expectation or demand, on the one hand, or a sense of failure, on the other. Both of these mind-sets work against the brain’s learning mechanisms.
So when you make a mistake, stop yelling at yourself. Be as kind and gentle with yourself as you would be with a child. Use mistakes as a tool, not as a humiliating instance of failure. When we learn how not to do something, next time we can do it differently. Laugh at yourself, forgive yourself, and move on. You have the potential.
People were not designed to live life alone. We are tribal by nature and form communities for biological and psychosocial survival. People who join groups of individuals who face challenges similar to their own often turn their lives around, especially when they meet in an atmosphere of nonjudgment and anonymity. When the “natives” who have lived the experience come together, they can truly help one another. The “tourists,” on the other hand, do not understand what the natives are experiencing and will make suggestions and comments or prescribe things that are of no help.
Sharing our experience allows us to help each other through the journey of life and its difficulties. We become potential teachers the minute we face the mountain that sits before us. In the ECaP groups I facilitate, bonds formed by patients often last for years, and people feel like they’re family. Often the families people adopt are healthier and less judgmental than the ones they were born into.
Alcoholics Anonymous was the first twelve-step program of fellowship, and it was developed by two men who could not stop drinking despite trying absolutely everything in their power to quit. From its humble origin in 1935 to now, AA has grown to over two million active members in recovery across the world.2 Other twelve-step groups have evolved from the original: Al-Anon and Alateen are for families of alcoholics, ACA is for the adult children of alcoholics, OA is for overeaters, GA is for gamblers, and so on. Wikipedia lists more than thirty such programs based on the original Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
If your life seems to be repeating the same negative patterns and is spiraling out of control, look up the twelve-step meetings in your area. Go to a meeting and listen. You’ll be surprised to find people whose stories have similarities to yours, and you will experience relief when you discover a place where you feel you belong.
Years ago I told cancer patients who had no local support groups to go to an AA meeting and lie about why they were there. Some AA members felt I was doing the wrong thing, but the principles and practices of AA have proven to be sound, and these people needed help. If a theme repeats itself as an aid to recovery, then be assured it must work — or you wouldn’t find it in the Bible, in Buddha’s teachings, or at a support group meeting.
Slow down and feel your feelings. Living mindfully and in the moment requires that you become aware of your feelings and accept them as your own creation. Don’t hide from your feelings by keeping busy, distracting yourself, or by self-medicating to numb yourself. We cannot heal what we don’t feel.
After I expressed my anger over family problems that I couldn’t fix, and all the diseases I couldn’t cure, my close friend Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said quietly to me during one of her workshops: “You have needs, too.” Those words have stayed with me, and I share them with you now as an important truth to remember.
One place where we store our feelings is in our hearts. Even transplanted hearts hold feelings and carry messages from the donor’s life. When evaluating options and choices or making decisions, let your heart become the compass point. One woman shared her father’s advice with me. Before he died, Fred Croker advised his daughter to “follow your heart and use your mind to navigate the heart-chosen path.”
Let your feelings be the guide to what inspires you. Let them not only fill your lungs with inspiration but also fill your every activity with life and the joy that comes from having creative choices. Accept that the way you felt about something in the past may not be the way you feel about it today. Allow yourself to know and honor the person you are today and not hang on to something that no longer serves you. By doing so, you become a cocreator of your life. I like to remember what my mother always said when I had a decision to make: “Do what makes you happy.” When things didn’t go as I had planned, she reminded me: “God is redirecting you. Something good will come of this.”
Practice paying attention to the moment rather than the past or the future. Focus on your breath. If you’re breathing, things are looking good. Stay out of other people’s thoughts; their thoughts and attitudes are not your business, not even what they think about you. Your job is to be the best you can be in this moment, dealing with whatever is directly in front of you, one small step at a time. And when you need help, ask for it. As one of my favorite songs by Tom Hunter says, “Tonight I’d like you to rock me to sleep.”3
When you live in the moment, you begin to realize that a perfect world would be meaningless, giving you no choices or possibilities for growth.
Find your authentic life and do not live a role. Don’t be the Wage Earner or the Momma, because if you believe the role is who you are, you lose the meaning of your life when you can no longer work or the kids grow up and leave home. There is a story about a man who stood at the gates of heaven, asking to come in. “Tell me who you are,” God said. The man thought about his wife and family and all the people he had worked hard to please. He thought about his important job, impressive house, and fancy car. He thought about the bills piling up on his desk and the cruise vacation he and his wife had been planning. All these thoughts circled around him, and no matter how hard he tried, he could remember only the roles he played. “I don’t know who I am,” he admitted.
“Then you are not ready to enter,” God replied and sent the man back to his body. When the man recovered from his heart attack, he made a pledge to find his authentic self.
Over the next few years, the man learned that the heart speaks in whispers, which meant the man had to slow down at least once a day, be still, and listen. He stopped trying to impress others and worked instead on the things he loved doing. He took time to listen to people without interrupting or rushing them, and he valued the growth in his relationships. The more he focused on the here and now, the more he seemed to accomplish. He was able to be of service to people in many small ways, and when the small things added up, they made a big difference in the world around him.
As time went by, he realized he felt good about himself, and the new behaviors that had once taken concentrated effort were now ingrained habits. Life and death placed no fearful images in front of him but were instead mirrors that reflected love and integrity. Several more years passed before the man approached the gates of heaven for the second time.
“Tell me who you are,” God said.
“I am Wholeness. I am your divine child. I am you,” said the man.
“Welcome home, my child,” said God, and the man was embraced by a light more brilliant than the sun.
I knew a teenager who, as he lay dying, said, “Tell God his replacement is here.” He was admitted immediately.
I am reminded of a patient of mine who was diagnosed with agoraphobia. When this woman, who had been unable to leave her house for years, learned that she had only two months to live, she saw the light and asked herself, “What is the point of being afraid?” From a person living with a crippling condition that stopped her from going out in the rain, she changed into a woman who took up white-water rafting! It scared the wits out of her kids, but it also led to her surviving cancer. And a letter I received from another woman with a similar prognosis ended with, “And I didn’t die, and now I am so busy I’m killing myself.”
You do have control of your thoughts and actions, so take control — it is your right. Rehearse being the person you want to be, and each day act like you are already that person. If you are afraid, imagine loving arms around you before you fall asleep, so that when you awaken you will immediately think of that warm, comforting thought to push away the fear. Or if you need a role model when in doubt, ask yourself, “What would Lassie do” (WWLD)?
In a study of a group of people who suffered from asthma, individuals were told to keep a journal of their feelings about their experiences for a month, while the control group was told to simply list what they did each day. After a month, those who wrote about their feelings and experiences proved to have better health and suffered fewer asthma attacks than the people who only listed what they did every day.
The other day I was looking through some of my papers while searching for something, and I found my journals from twenty-five to thirty-five years ago. As a doctor, I had begun to make notes during the day about things that affected me, and then at home in the evening I would write about them in my journal. Soon after I started this practice, I found that when I tried to write about what had happened during the day, I couldn’t remember what my notes referred to. Imagine writing “child in emergency room” and twelve hours later asking myself, “What was that about?” I realized then that, whatever the pain was, it was in me and I couldn’t deal with it; so I was burying it and storing it within my body. The haunting words Someday the body will present its bill came to mind, and I began to write whole paragraphs in my notes so I would remember what I needed to deal with in my journal.
Once, when I forgot to hide my journal, my wife found it and read it. Bobbie said, “Bernie, there’s nothing funny in here.” I said, “What are you talking about? My life isn’t funny.” She then reminded me of crazy things that had happened in the hospital and that had had the whole family laughing when I shared the story. These stories had never made it into my journal. Bobbie’s comment refocused me so that I started looking at the nice things that happened as well: you get a hug; you get a little love; you get a little laughter. “Put that in your journal, too,” she said, and I did.
Writing a journal keeps you aware and lets your unconscious know you’re willing to deal with whatever turmoil is inside you. We all need to be heard by someone who cares. In order for our inner voice to speak to us, we have to find a way to listen to it. Writing gives us the means to listen. I’ve often referred to Helen Keller’s observation that “deafness is a much worse misfortune [than blindness].” Survival behavior requires you to know what is in your heart, reveal the unconscious, and feel your feelings. Putting them down on paper — that’s how you get to know yourself.
Delighted listening uses body language that shows you are paying attention. When you use eye contact and don’t interrupt, and you lean your body slightly forward, and nod or tilt your head in appropriate response, you assure the person who is talking that you are engaged in the act of listening, and you are hearing what they say. Listening is a good habit to adopt. When you listen to others, they get to know themselves and you get the credit, even though all you did was listen.
I have had people thank me for how helpful I was when I never said a word. For example, our children would come to me and say, “Dad, I’ve got a problem.” The first time, I’d respond by giving advice such as “Okay, read this book; go see this person; take this medicine” — and they’d always say, “You’re no help.”
The next time they’d come to me and say, “Dad, I’ve got a problem,” I’d ask, “What is it?” Then I’d just sit and listen for twenty minutes or half an hour, and when they were done, they’d say, “Thanks, Dad. You’ve been such a big help.” And what did I say during all that time? Nothing more than “Hmmm” in an empathetic or understanding tone. Why did it work? Somebody had heard them.
I had one woman come to me with a problem, and I didn’t say a word for ninety minutes. When she was done, she said, “That is one of the most meaningful conversations I have ever had in my life.” She was talking to herself, and it was meaningful.
So, keep a journal. Listen. Pay attention to your feelings. Be authentic.