Teaching your children to PERform rather than CONform…
Remember when you learned how to colour? It gave you so much freedom… you were able to create something.
It gave you a sense of control, that you were able to leave your ‘mark’ on the world around you – albeit furniture, walls and anything BUT paper! You were even able to control the adults around you, because you could make them mad if you drew in the wrong place… but it was ‘fun’ colouring your world they way you wanted it…
Then somebody taught you that you could only colour on paper. Then, they went a step further, and not only were you taught to colour on paper, they also began to condition you to colour in between the lines that existed on the paper. All of a sudden, you weren’t able to make your own creation anymore. You could only add your ‘touch’ to someone else’s.
The rules were made! You began to believe it was SO important to stay within the lines… this became your ‘goal’ every time a picture was put in front of you… so you began to conform.
You were then judged, not by the creation of your picture, but by your ability to stay inside the lines! You noticed that your classmates would hand in colourings that looked exactly like yours – no-one was different, so you better not be!
This became comfortable for you. So much so, that you developed a philosophy in your life… that with any project you were given, first, you would identify the lines, then you would colour within them. You conformed…
Although secretly, when nobody was watching, you LOVED to get a pencil and scribble the hell out of a picture, so hard and so fast that you ripped the page!! Oh how there was a feeling of freedom when you gave yourself permission to colour like that – WAY outside the lines!! But you dare not do it often…
Over time, this caution translated into an inner voice that softly killed your spirit, and slowly diminished your integrity to stay aligned with your highest values… “don’t be unique”, “don’t rock the boat”, “take the path most travelled”, “play it safe”, “don’t speak out”, “don’t ask questions”, “don’t have an opinion”, “don’t live your joy”.
Society produced yet another ‘robot’. One that was programmed to CONform, not PERform. One that had pre-determined settings that it was limited by.
You lost your performance, because you lost who you ARE! You became unsure of whether or not you could ever “win”… and despite performances and achievements that society would applaud you for, the happiness you were chasing continue to ELUDE you.
Until one day you realised, not only could you “colour outside the lines”, you realised that the lines were an ILLUSION all along. There are NO lines.
Your world became enlightened, and the light within you once again began to shine. It felt so good to BREAK THE RULES… outside the lines is where you began to find yourself, and in turn, the happiness you’d been searching for began to find you!
Then, you had children of your own… and remembering this lesson, you put a piece of paper in front of them and told them to colour it however they like!
When they bought it to you to show you the work they were proud of, you pointed out the fact that they had made it their own. That they had been creative. You said “my favourite part about this is that you coloured outside the lines”. You broke the rules for them before society even had the chance to place the rules on them!
So your child grew with permission to make everything their OWN. To colour their world in a way that lit them up, however that might have been.
Subconsciously, you gave them a belief system that was perfectly aligned with their inner-truth. It resonated with their soul… it trained their own inner voice to say “be YOU”, “be different”, “be unique”, “break the rules”, “be true to yourself”, “create what you like”, “think outside the square”, “take the path less travelled”, “get uncomfortable”, “stand out”, “don’t fit in”, “be congruent”, “be authentic”, “be original”, “leave YOUR mark”.
So your child grew, their entire lives, with the fulfillment of knowing who they are, and in the absence of feeling the need to CONform…
Because they didn’t conform, they began to PERform… They discovered their own gifts, their own talents, their own beliefs.
It seemed that without even ‘trying’ they were SO good at what they did… they felt inspired… So they did it more often.
Before long, others noticed and appreciated their gift. They wanted access to it! This gift gave your child the ability to “FEED a starving crowd”. They began making a difference. They felt significant. They felt important. They felt valued.
When people asked them how they did what they did, they told them it was all because of YOU, their parent… they gave all honour to the way they were raised – without the lines!
How will you colour your world today, now that your lines don’t exist?
