Why I believe every woman should gain some kindergarten teacher experience June 10, 2012

image by axinia

This is a topic I wanted to cover long ago. However I waited until I got my own child and my feelings and beliefs were confrimed.

Yes, I believe that every woman should gain some working experience as a kindergarten teacher. This is a strong statement and I am sure many people would not only be surprised but also react negative to it. Let me give my arguments based on my personal experience and observations.

About 10 years back I was lucky enough to work as a kindergarten teacher in one international school (children 4-6), which I still consider the most outstanding and enriching experience in my career  – even though since last 6 years I hold managerial positions and now heading towards a company director. And who knows, may be it was that childcare experience which in fact boosted my career?

Throughout a history when people used to have big families women /girls have helped in the household and in the childcare for their own sisters and brothers. These days are gone in the civilized society. Today thanks to the epidemic of adult infantilism, more and more grown-ups consider having children a burden. There are various reasons for that child-phobia but one of the reasons is simply lack of experience.

I believe it is a great experience to work with a group of children (not one or two!) for several reasons:

1. Being in charge of  at least 10 children is the best ATTENTION training you can ever get. Small children, especially before age of 6 are extremely active and curious, they easily spread around, everyone busy with his/her own stuff. But surprise, surprise — at some point you will understand that it is easier to manage 10 children than one! 🙂

Another realization from my motherhood experience March 4, 2012

My sweet daughter is almost one year old now. So far I have been fully enjoying the motherhood experience and learning a lot from that.

I have realized certain things and have posted about some here, here and here. Today, rounding up this year, happy to share one more insight.

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Watching my daughter grow, I can see clearly that despite her taking physically after her father and temperament-wise after her mother, she possesses her own already developed personality. I wonder how people who have children can really belive they come totally “new” into this world?! Nothing doing, more than ever I am convinced now that one soul is getting born again and again, reincarnation is not a mere theory.

One amazing thing about my baby is her conscious vegetarianism.

I should admit I am a convinced non-vegetarian myself. I tried to reject meat many years back but this did much harm to my health so I realized that at least for myself this would not work. And I never regret that, enjoying some chicken or even beef now and then. When I got pregnant, after the second month (normally when the soul is believed to enter the embryo’s body) I suddenly stopped eating meat and fish. I could not swallow a piece!  Well I thought, this is definitely not me 🙂 Thus the embryo grew as a pure vegetarian, being perfectly fit. When the time came for the baby to start taking other food additionally to milk, I was advised to try giving all kinds of food, also chicken and fish. And – imagine! – she rejects completely! Quite a conscious choice, I would say, because otherwise she is a good eater.

Now tell me what is the reason behind this? I cannot see any other except that this soul has come not only with a certain character, but with a set of habits and ideas as well, and probably a even a certain mission.

I am  sure my experience and realization about it is not unique. Please share yours!

thanks 🙂

LOVE, axinia

The global changes we have not noticed… October 17, 2011

Over the last 50 years the life on this planet has changed dramatically. I wonder if we can fully realize what has happened to us? Here are some observations on this topic, compared to what we know about the previous history.

• People got used to the idea of change, so used to change, that they are  expecting permanent change.

• Population control: sex has been separated from reproduction, contraception is universally available, Contraceptives are displayed prominently in drug stores, right up with the cigarettes and chewing gum.

• Abortion is no longer a crime.

• Homosexuality is “allowed”.

• Clothing styles became more stimulating and provocative. It is not just the amount of skin that is exposed that makes clothing sexually seductive, but other, more subtle things are often suggestive.

• Families are limited in size, divorce has become more easier and prevalent, the marriage relationship are less stable and, therefore, people are less willing to have babies.

• The old are no longer useful. They become a burden. After you have had enough of it and you’re no longer productive, working, and contributing, then you should be ready to step aside for the next generation.

• Medical care is closely connected to work. If you don’t work or can’t work, you hardly have access to medical care. Everybody is made dependent on insurance and if you don’t have insurance then you pay directly; the cost of your care is enormous.

• Children spend more time in schools, but in many schools they can’t learn much. They learn some things, but not as much as formerly. Better schools in better areas with better people, their kids can learn more.

• Students have to decide at a younger age what they would want to study and get onto their track early. It is harder to change to another field of study once you get started. Studies are concentrated in much greater depth, but narrowed.  People become very specialised in their own area of expertise. But they are not able to get a broad education and not be able to understand what is going on overall.

• Gambling changed from illegal to state monopoly: state lotteries are very popular.

Sufism on educating an Infant April 29, 2011

A highly insightful and interesting not only for parents read from Hazrat Inayat Khan.

It is never too soon in the life of a child for it to receive education. The soul of an infant is like a photographic plate which has never been exposed before, and whatever impression falls on that photographic plate covers it; no other impressions which come afterwards have the same effect. Therefore when the parents or guardians lose the opportunity of impressing an infant in its early childhood they lose the greatest opportunity.
In educating the child the first rule that must be remembered is that one person must educate it, not everybody in the family. It is a great mistake when everyone in the family tries to train the infant or to take care of it, because that keeps an infant from forming a character. Each one has his own influence and each influence is different from the other. But most often what happens is that the parents never think of education at all in infancy. They think that is the age when the child is a doll, a toy; that everyone can handle it and play with it. They do not think that it is the most important moment in the soul’s life; that never again will that opportunity come for a soul to develop.

Should the father or the mother educate the child? A man’s life demands all his attention in his work; the mother is born with the sense of duty towards her child, and therefore the mother has the first right to educate it. The mother can also quiet the child in the first days of its life, because the child is a part of the mother, and therefore the rhythm of the mother’s spirit is akin to the rhythm of the child’s spirit. The soul that has come from above is received and is reared and taken care of by the mother; and therefore the mother is its best friend. If there is anything that the father can do, it is to help the mother or the guardian to educate the child. If the child in its infancy were given entirely into the hand of the father, there would be little hope that it would come out right; because a man is a child all his life, and the help that is needed in the life of an infant is that of the mother. Nevertheless, later in the life of a child there comes a time when the father’s influence is equally needed; but that time is not in infancy. As the Brahmin says, the first Guru is the mother, the second Guru is the father, and the third Guru is the teacher.

There are five different subjects in which an infant must be trained in the first year: discipline, balance, concentration, ethics, and relaxation.

A way out of depression February 4, 2011

image by axinia

Depression, the greatest soul plague of modern humans… I wonder is it really a modern phenomenon or it is just better documented nowadays that in earlier centuries?

What defines depression? It is the act of depressing and the condition of being depressed. Depression is characterized by lack of activity, self-worth, dejection, sad feelings, gloom and inadequacy. When the people are in depression, then their life becomes negative. People in depression often face hopelessness, passivity, indecisiveness, suicidal intentions, loss of appetite, weight loss, sleeping disorders.

Here are some statistics on depression:

• Main reasons of depression in men are separation after marriage, widowed, divorce
• In US nearly 7 million women are clinically depressed
• One in seven men will develop depression within 6 months of becoming unemployed
• Mostly 15 percent of women suffering from severe depression will commit suicide
• Nearly 10 percent of women experience postpartum depression after birth of a child
• 2003 National Comorbidity Study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health 16% of the population that is nearly 35 million Americans suffer from severe depression
• in Austria: every 5th person is clinically depressed and under medication

I guess the statistics on other countries will be not much different. By simply observing that one can get depressed!

Although I am not an expert on this subject,  I would like to share one unique experience I had about being depressed. May be it will help someone out.

Happy birthday, Vova! June 29, 2010

Today one of the most amazing people ever living  has his birthday!

And I tought of a small virtual present, a blogpost. I tought of a tribute listing some of the qualities that design his personality to the brilliant person he is.

• he has the most incredible intellect I ever met: his point of view is always so unique, that even highly intelligent people never come to the (obvious!) conclusions he comes to.
• he knows all the answeres. no kidding! He has this magic ability to give the right answer to any question, even if he does not know the subject. There is a story behind it, that he was meditating upon getting this quality and he’s got it! I must admit such a thing just thrills me since I am so keen on intellectual stuff 🙂
• he can do everything with his hands: repare, invent, find a unique engeneering solution for any construction problem
• he loves children and knows how to bring them properly up
• he writes poems and songs, and sings them with guitar
• he is incredibly romantic and carrying: he remembers every my little wish and is looking for possibilities to fulfill it. Even if I have already forgotten it myself, he would still remember what I wanted!
• his Russian language is very pure and beautiful, he expresses himself very well
• he is balanced and feels very meditative.
• he has a great sense of humour and loves telling jokes (Russian “anekdotes” ), estimated 10 per day 
• he keeps the perfect order in everything and no one can beat him in packing: sometimes I think he can pack an elephant into a suitcase 🙂
• he is a true genetelmen
• he is a person of high ideals, a global-thinker
• he is humble and never shows off
• he loves the way people seldom love nowadays…

 Well what else shall I say?

Highly insightful: why it’s so hard to become happy, what is dramatically wrong in our child-care and how to overcome it June 23, 2010

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:

How to easily solve conflicts June 5, 2010

This is an old good tick in case you may need one day to make peace between two fighting parts.

The trick is of a purely psychological nature, and thus can be widely applied (there are some other non-psychological  more efficient tricks but they can be only applied by a person who can work with vibrations).

It is an old wisdom but it comes up very fresh even in modern times…

So basically if you have two people hating each other… just start telling each of them separately that the other one was just praising him/her for something (what can be realistic in that case). It is amusing to see the happy and astonished face of the person who hears that… 🙂 It is important to start the procedure simultaneously, so that the both rivals can change their emotions at he same time.

The play of Male and Female February 10, 2010

This is an incredibly beautiful and profound poem from the Hindu Tradition of Advaita (non-dualism), by Jnanadev (1275 – 1296). I love the way it shows the play between the male and female elements in the Universe…

I offer obeisance to the God and Goddess,
The limitless primal parents of the universe.

They are not entirely the same,
Nor are they not the same.
We cannot say exactly what they are.

How sweet is their union!
The whole world is too small to contain them,
Yet they live happily in the smallest particle.

These two are the only ones
Who dwell in this home called the universe.
When the Master of the house sleeps,
The Mistress stays awake,
And performs the functions of both.

When He awakes, the whole house disappears,
And nothing at all is left.

Two lutes: one note.
Two flowers: one fragrance.
Two lamps: one light.

Two lips: one word.
Two eyes: one sight.
These two: one universe.

Traditional Hindu families – compare to the Western family makeup! January 26, 2010

I’ve just finished an awesome book on LOVE: “We: understanding the psychology of romantic love” by Robert A. Johnson. I tell you, it’s a bomb. And a must for any Westerner!

The things the author (himself an American, lived in India and Japan) reveals about the nature of the so called romantic love and where it leads us are terrific! I am preparing the post on the book and its highlights. And in the meanwhile please check Johnson’s insight into the nature of traditional Hindu families  – I guess it is pretty much same today, although the book was written in 1983:

“One of the most striking and surprising things I observed among traditional Hindus was how bright, happy, and psychologically healthy their children are. Children in Hindu families are not neurotic; they are not torn within themselves as so many Western children are. They are bathed constantly in human affection, and they sense a peaceful flow of affection between their mother and father.