Meet educator, mom, and wise spiritual teacher, Rachel Horton White. I sure can relate to her description of how her patience gets tested! I love how she gives it a capital “P” and names it—along with Selflessness and Sacrifice—all Life Lessons (let’s use ALL THE CAPITOL LETTERS!). Awareness can help keep us grounded and centered for sure. Enjoy!
I have two loving, vibrant, and energetic children, ages four and seven. I spend most of my days with them, and this is by design. They are my most precious beings and I understand how much of my life has led me to this point of helping to understand and nurture them.
Children are naturally intuitive. When my son was about 1 ½ years old, he would repeat words that I had only thought in my head. I remember him asking me for a complicated word once (“gulley”) and I decided not to say it to him since it was too hard. A few seconds later, he said the word, “gulley.” I was shocked. I have other connections with my children, extending beyond the time of their birth. My daughter Alice also has a deep connection with animals and plants, caring excessively if anyone hurts a bug or if our dog accidentally eats something she should not.
Arran regularly talks about his “brother” (and he doesn’t have a brother in reality) he calls Michael. (I had told him about Archangel Michael as a source of protection when he was scared at night, so this could be connected somehow.) He says his brother is invisible and only he can see him. His brother sleeps in his room with him at night. Sometimes Michael comes to dinner with us apparently and plays with Arran in various places. Michael even draws pictures, and along with his grandfather, sometimes speaks Spanish. Is it the average “imaginary” friend or is it a spirit connection?
And as new souls recently born, they are close to the Source and to the spirit realm since they were just there! We can learn so much from children about what that Divine Source energy (otherwise known as God) is really like. My children talk about God and that God is light and love. I wonder where this came from. Maybe from something I said at one point? But what if it’s something more?
I was told years ago by psychic reader that I needed to prepare myself to parent these children. That they would be high-vibration and have many gifts to share with the world. I knew this too as I regularly visited them in the spirit world before they were born in my dreams.
My children have helped push me (on a subconscious level) to come into who I truly am, as a person with a message to help uplift others. It wasn’t until after my daughter Alice was born that I finally gave up fighting in my non-profit job and accepted that I needed to make a change. I hired a life coach, meditated again, and this time asked for higher guidance to assist me. And with some gentle nudging, I started experimenting and eventually my business, Soulful Work Intuitive Consulting, came into existence.
Still, this doesn’t mean that I’m a perfect parent who nurtures my children holistically and spiritually at all times.
I sometimes still find myself getting “derailed” by the chaos at home with my sweet little ones. I’m human. Even though I teach others about their true, spiritual selves, I am not always a tranquil, at peace parent that lets nothing phase her. My pulse can rise when “problems” (fighting over a toy, whining about not getting candy, or calling my name repeatedly) come up or when I get impatient with how long it takes them to get ready in the morning.
I try my hardest to be as calming and as tolerant as possible with them, and I like to goof around and have fun with them as much as I can. But when it comes to tantrums, or blatant disregard for what I want them to do (more on that in a moment), or whining, I get triggered. I pause and breathe, but at times I still feel myself getting annoyed.
I also have a business that I work on technically three days (24 hours) a week, but really more like 40 hours a week counting all the evenings, occasional weekends, and late nights. My work is about helping people find spiritual fulfillment in their lives (and I do this with kids and mindfulness too), so of course I need to stay aligned and balanced too. I quiet my mind most mornings, and do a short a yoga routine (albeit this is usually about five minutes long). I regularly connect with my higher guidance throughout my day to keep me centered.
I wonder sometimes what the lesson is for me about the chaos of child-rearing when I’m just trying to live a peaceful, balanced life?
Indeed, it must be about patience. Especially since mine gets tested over and over.
Ah, patience. There it is. One of my life lessons. I believe that we all come into life with lessons to learn. These could be about unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, or any other possible effect of any persistent pattern that you see in your life. In addition to Patience (it warrants being capitalized now), I know that I am to learn also about acceptance, especially about my lack of control over situations. There is probably something about Selflessness and Sacrifice in there too (as there would be for any parent).
But I thought that I had learned so much this far in my life! Clearly, that’s a laugh, as there is still work to be done.
It’s almost like my children are providing me with a fertile “training ground” for truly honing my craft in Patience. If I view it like this, things start to make more sense. I see why, on a grander scale, my children are in my life. I am human, and as humans we all get tested and can’t always keep our cool. We are meant to express ourselves emotionally, and if we were to hold it in, we could really do ourselves some emotional harm.
That doesn’t mean that I yell at or hit my kids (okay, I have occasionally yelled). But I do ask them to take breaks if needed. I have learned sometimes that children act out because something has bothered them in their day, because they feel disconnected from us as parents, or sometimes they are just tired and hungry.
These tiny humans are fallible and they learn by testing boundaries. I signed up for this when my husband and I decided to have kids. Hence, my other lesson in Selflessness.
Many children being born now are more psychically open and pick up on other people’s energy (as empaths), it’s no wonder that so many seem to be out of balance. Without understanding how to manage their intuitive gifts, children can suffer immensely, and need, more than ever, adults who truly understand how to help them.
In this new age of growth, love, and unity, is our job as parents to learn about how we can support them in our massive paradigm shift here on Earth. Children are wired to help us connect with each other as part of our coming into the era of shared consciousness, compassion, and support.
It may be that we adults can learn to help foster the healing work that children are here to do, as young souls and future healers. They have so much to teach us. Let’s open our hearts, minds, and souls to a new form spiritually-based parenting, of teaching and supporting children in a holistic education, and in nurturing their intuitive gifts that could transform the world as we know it.
Bridging the spiritual with the everyday, Rachel Horton White of Soulful Work Intuitive Consulting helps people who are feeling “stuck” to break subconscious patterns, release old fears, and trust their intuition to find peace and meaning in their lives. Rachel has written articles for worldwide publications such as Wake Up World, Om Times and Elephant Journal and has a podcast called The Courageous Path. Rachel is a hypnotherapist, intuitive reader, life coach and mindfulness teacher. With a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Wellesley College and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Georgia, Rachel claims her most powerful education came from studying abroad in Dakar, Senegal and living in Guadalajara, Mexico. Her greatest teachers are her two bright-eyed, energetic children in Portland, Maine.
You can also find Rachel on Facebook and Instagram. And you can access her free meditations on Soundcloud.
