Every parent wants their children to have it better than they did while growing up.  We want our children to suffer less emotional turmoil during their early years of socialization, to have higher self-esteem and to generally not make all the mistakes we are so acutely aware of because we made them ourselves.  

Yet, we know that as humans we learn by doing.  Hearing about how things are is never as interesting to children as the experience of finding out for themselves.  And we know as parents that a child is eager to learn by having new experiences.  A child’s mind is like a sponge, taking on new ideas and information that it finds useful or interesting almost continually.  Although children need to do this in order to be able to grow into mature, well-rounded adults, that’s also the problem when it comes to taking on ideas that limit them by diminishing self-esteem and instilling excessive fear. 

Adults, on the other hand, have taken on so much information over the years through experience that the process of taking in new ideas becomes extremely selective.  The mind is simply overloaded with preconceived notions.  These notions shape how we express our personality and live our experience of life.  They are usually based on our own past experiences.  The ones that seem to hold our personalities most firmly in place are the ones we learned at a very early age.  They have emotional importance because they were passed down to us from those we considered important to our well-being, most often parents, for better or worse.  

These events or ideas that have emotional importance are stored indefinitely in the subconscious mind, and become part of our general outlook.  This results in the common malady often referred to as “the sins of the father (or mother) being passed down to the son (or daughter)”.  

Addressing these feelings at their source is the theme behind my book titled, High Way From Hell: Using Emotion to Fan the Fire of Enlightenment.  Using examples from my own life, I demonstrate ways to use feeling as a tool for conscious evolution.    By opening to a more expanded awareness of the consequences of our thoughts and intentions, reading High Way From Hell enhances a more intuitive relationship with the authentic self.

To raise a child who is more self-confident, who has high self-esteem and who has the courage to pursue their heart’s calling requires the guidance of parents who have resolved their own emotional conflicts and limitations.