On growing up. A letter to my son.

You have shared that you no longer get attention from your mom in the way you used to. This is true – and this is the natural way because you are older now. For example, when you hurt yourself, your mom may not come to you each and every time like before and hold you as frequently as she used to or in the same way. This is because it is time for you to learn how to find comfort from within yourself now, more so than before.

First, I want to say this does not mean that your mom loves you less. She loves you the same, with all of her heart. You are a great treasure in her heart and she still spends most of her time caring for you, but in a different way because now you have different needs. What it means for you is that you are growing up and now it is for you to find more nourishment inside of yourself to supplement or add to what your mom gives you with her attention and outwardly expressed love.

Before you were born you were inside your mom, you were actually part of your mom. As a baby you became separate in your bodies but still very intimately connected to your mom. As you grow up you become more of your own person, continually more separate, gradually and slowly over time. God planned it this way with care and perfect planning.

As you grow older and slowly become more of your own person separate from your mom is important that you pay attention to who you are, both inside and out. It is important that you take time to get to know who you are, inside and out. And that you contribute to meeting your own needs, inside and out, as you grow more able to. By contributing to meeting your own needs, you build awareness and experience and knowing of who you are and how to care for yourself, bit by bit, gradually but surely – both inside and out.

On the outside you use your body and your understanding of the world and your needs and what is around you to help meet your needs. When you need a cup of water, you can get it for yourself. When you want to get dressed now, you can put your clothes on, all by yourself. You are learning so much and as you are able to do more and more, then you step forward and do those things, and through doing them you build confidence in yourself and awareness of who you are and how you do things and what your preferences are.

And also on the outside you help with your family’s needs some, because the family needs so much and more so when you get older and need more. And so your help is both needed and possible because you are able now to help. So it is both right for you to help out, to pick up after yourself and to do a few chores that you can do to help the family. This builds your sense of confidence in yourself as you feel good about helping your family and as you experience using your ability to accomplish tasks. And it helps the family also which is right.

And you can also help to meet your needs by helping when you are not asked to. Because your mom is more busy now and has less time to spend playing with you, you can apply your effort to help her when you can and this creates more free time for your mom so she can spend more time playing with you. When you apply effort to meet your needs or someone else’s needs, this is called work. Work is how we get our needs met. If we want things in life, we ask God for those things and then we must work towards attaining what we want. We do not sit back and wait for God to give to us, but we apply our effort. This is how God created the creation. This is how life works.

The inside part requires you to spend some time with your inside, with how you feel, your thoughts and questions about life, and contemplating / thinking about what you are learning about yourself and the world around you. And you want to spend time asking God questions and waiting for answers, quietly inside. Being with the inside requires patience because the fragrance of who you are is soft and quiet and subtle and not as obvious as the outside, but there is also lots of noisy thoughts and emotions and pictures inside that distract you from your fragrance and that you may not want to be with – but once you take some time to be with it all, and remember God, it will get more quiet and you will find peace and happiness and fulfillment inside. Then you will drink from your own heart, from what God puts inside you and from God directly.

Now is a time for that. Now is a time when you have less friends around, the weather is getting colder and there is less sunlight time as we move into winter. This is a time when we naturally go more inward just as the natural world around us goes inward – the trees and plants and animals.

We will help you. We love you and can help and teach you to find the love inside – and you will like it when you get there. It is important for you to go inside and discover who you are and find nourishment from inside, find love inside, find strength inside, find courage inside, find appreciation inside, find out what beautiful qualities and attributes God put inside you and how they shape who you are uniquely and how who you are can best help you when you need help. To know yourself is to know God. God made you to know yourself. And now is your time.

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