When someone comes to us and wants us to make them feel better, it can confuse our immune doorways, (and theirs). If they are not first orienting towards the capacity of their own hearts, they can fail to respect their very own internal emotional immune system. Repeating this, they can falsely come to rely on others. This is the root of emotional dis-ease, co-dependence, and commiseration.
Immunity is a mechanism that learns to discern the question, ‘what to allow in and what to keep out?’ The root of the word ‘immune’ means to “NOT exchange in community”. We each have our own ‘unity’ within ourselves. Immunity is an ongoing learning process of ‘the wisdom to know the difference’. We each have our own communities within to cultivate for health – microbiome in the guts for physical immunity, and the mind, heart, imagination for emotionally immunity. Respecting the sovereign power of those communities within is the foundation of our immunity. As adults if we do not have that respect we can cultivate that by respecting our emotions and compassion for our inner child.
When we are small and dependent, and an authority figure (parent, caregiver or teacher) becomes dependent upon the subordinate (child’s) for their emotional health, (”I am only as happy as my most unhappy child”) the child’s immune system can come to orient outwards, towards others, not toward their own communities within themselves. Their mechanisms, the doorways decide what to let in and what to keep out, orients towards others as source of their protection, instead of towards building their own sense of power within themselves.
Of course, adults protect children, and this is vital. But what is equally crucial is to respect each individuals’ capability, not matter how old, to develop the sovereignty within themselves. This is done in the same way as you see each childs’ capability to learn how to walk – they can do it, you encourage it. With the emotional systems, this is done by teaching a child to listen to their feelings and have compassion for the process of learning to listen to the different kinds of difficult emotions, rather than have an adult anxiously want to take the bad feelings away or to teach the child to avoid them.
If an adult teaches a child to avoid or fear discomforts, the child’s reality becomes, “since I am dependent upon you to make me feel better and to distract me from my feelings, I first need to make sure that you are ok, in order for me to be ok.” If this persists, and anxious/avoidant orientation towards others becomes the norm, and the relationship with our own heart, worth, confidence, and capable agency becomes compromised. And our physical and emotional health can suffer compromises in immunity.
Immunity, emotional and physical is, ‘the wisdom to know the difference’. Feeling capable of our own health and the orientation toward “self-care capable” is how we become responsible and loving towards others. When we know what we are capable of, we also know others are capable And also we learn when to ask for help appropriately. When we know to put your emotional oxygen mask on first, we become a healthy capable person, then we can offer compassionate gifts to others.
God has no grandchildren. Connect to your own source, your spirit. Allow others to do the same. As a parent, teacher, doctor, or therapist, be a responsible model of your own connection to source. Don’t strive to be the God to your children. Instead, be a safe harbor that models that each one of us has our own safe harbor right inside ourselves. We will talk more about denial, commiseration and validation, re-attuning to our own Self, the role of compassion and complications in cases of addiction and mental illness in upcoming posts.