Highly insightful: why it’s so hard to become happy, what is dramatically wrong in our child-care and how to overcome it

There are very few books that can deliver some truly fresh, insightful information. Most of the things have been repeated for ages. One of this rare, uniquely insightful books is “The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost” by Jean Liedloff. (1975)

 

Jean Liedloff, an American writer, spent two and a half years in the South American jungle living with Stone Age Indians. The experience demolished her Western preconceptions of how we should live and led her to a radically different view of what human nature really is.

And that is:

• the aggressiveness is NOT in a human nature, and even children may never fight! “Not only did they not fight, they never even argued. This is not at all what we have been taught human nature is — boys will be boys. So I thought well maybe, boys won’t be boys.”
• every human being is born as a happy, confident, stable personality. “Society is unpleasant, dangerous, unhappy, alienated, and unstable because in childhood our nature — being confident, joyous and loving — has been undermined and we simply live the way we are expected to. What we believe is what we make our experience into. And what we believe is what we have been taught to believe by our parents and our experiences.”

Jean Liedloff claims that it all our problems can be traced back to the general misconduct of child-care and upbringing. We’ve got disconnected to the natural/true method ages ago, no wonder the evolution has taken a somewhat weong track…

She discovers that the basic difference in what the indigenous people do and we don’t – is the so called “in-arms period”: from the birth till the baby starts crawling, a mother carries it 24 hours a day on her body (including sleeping in one bed). A child gets an enormous dose of security and happiness, since there is nothing more important and beautiful for it than the mother.

 

 Let’s have a look at the common practice in the modern Western childbirth and child-care. A baby experiences:

• traumatic separation from its mother at birth due to medical intervention and placement in maternity wards, in physical isolation except for the sound of other crying newborns, with the majority of male babies further traumatized by medically unnecessary circumcision surgery;
• at home, sleeping alone and isolated, often after “crying himself to sleep”;
• scheduled feeding, with his natural nursing impulses often ignored or “pacified”;
• being excluded and separated from normal adult activities, relegated for hours on end to a nursery, crib or playpen where he is inadequately stimulated by toys and other inanimate objects;
• caregivers often ignoring, discouraging, belittling or even punishing him when he cries or otherwise signals his needs; or else responding with excessive concern and anxiety, making him the center of attention;
• sensing (and conforming to) his caregivers’ expectations that he is incapable of self-preservation, is innately antisocial, and cannot learn correct behavior without strict controls, threats and a variety of manipulative “parenting techniques” that undermine his exquisitely evolved learning process.

 On the contrary, the natural way (for instance, the way the happy Stone Age Indinas treat their children) means for a baby:

• constant physical contact with its mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth;
• sleeping in its parents’ bed, in constant physical contact, until it leaves of its own volition (often about two years);
• breastfeeding “on cue” — nursing in response to his own body’s signals;
• being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually his mother, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business — until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his own impulse, usually at six to eight months;
• having caregivers immediately respond to baby’s signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of his needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making him the constant center of attention;
• sensing (and fulfilling) his elders’ expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.

 As a result, infants whose continuum needs are fulfilled during the early, in-arms phase grow up to have greater self-esteem and become more independent and happy individuals than those whose cries go unanswered for fear of “spoiling” them or making them too dependent.

I personally like the simple idea of the author that since we all have missed this “in-arms” phase, we are looking for this “dose of love, support and affection” conctantly. Apparently, it is also the reason for drug-addicts to fall on the drug track again and again (please check the book for interesting detalis!)

Basically, we are all looking for the Mother, since we’ve lost her (never had enough of motherly love). It is only her, who can give us full comfort and the highest happiness.

We are looking for the Mother even in our partnership  – and interestingly, the best relationships are those where partners are mutually “mothering” (cuddling, kisses, sweet talk, just taking care)… Unfortunately, since we have been ill-treated by our mothers, even the word “to mother” often has a negative meaning, even something like “getting on the nerves”. According to the book author, the true task of a mother is just to always be there, like a solid rock, and give, give, give love and affection. But not to run after the child all the time.

But this is not all… here comes the best part: as I’ve learned from the greatest spiritual personality living today, “you have to become a mother to everyone“. Now, after reading the Jean Liedloff ‘s book I know how true it is! If one manages to become a mother to everyone, it will bring the full happiness and succes in all spheres of life! For everyone would love to be around that person :). Is’t it amazing?

I think, this formula “you have to become a mother to everyone” is defineitly one of the greatest keys to the human soul.

Well, what can we do now, knowing that we missed the happiest phase in our life and are hopelessly searching for the compensation in form of money, power, success, appreciation? In the end of the book Jean Liedloff gives a hint that the experience of thoughtless awareness through meditation is able to give the sense of return to the complete happiness of a baby in the arms of its Mother.

LOVE, axinia