QA179 QUESTION: My main problem is with my daughter who is only and always unhappy. And I just don’t see how I can help her, because I’m not so very happy myself. Our relationship is so bad and she doesn’t do any work in school and she doesn’t really have friends – I’m just completely at a loss.

ANSWER: Have you considered giving her some professional help?

QUESTION: I can’t. We don’t live in the states. We are in Brazil.

ANSWER: Is there no possibility there for this?

QUESTION: I haven’t found anybody English speaking. She would need it, I know.

ANSWER: Would she be willing to accept it?

QUESTION: I think so.

ANSWER: Well, in the first place I would suggest that you really pray for guidance. Ask for guidance, specifically for help. I venture to say you will find it wherever you are. If you have not found it, there is somewhere a barrier there towards it – perhaps a fear even of the implications of it. But I would also say your own guilt plays a role there, your guilt feelings, your feelings of self-blame.

QUESTION: I know, it’s all my fault, I know it.

ANSWER: Yes, but you see, this is not true. This is really a hindrance. You load too much guilt upon yourself here. Each individual comes into this world with their problems, and your problems can only be a catalyst to the problems of your children. If you do not load this false guilt upon yourself, you will be much freer in the help you can give her.

But you almost wallow in the self-blame, and this is much more of a hindrance than you realize, my dear. There is also direct connection with the self-blame. You extend blame to especially one of your parents and probably – unbeknownst to yourself in some areas – to both of your parents, although you go through great pains of denying this in your consciousness.

Something in you renders others responsible for your unhappiness. Therefore, you must assume the responsibility for others’ unhappiness. This is the balance structure that is bound to occur. As you assume total self-responsibility for your problems, you will free yourself of the burden of other people’s responsibility, even your children.

Now, this does not mean that I advocate irresponsibility or callousness toward a child. Of course not! I am saying, however, that the help to a child will be much more adequate and appropriate and meaningful if false and exaggerated guilt are given up – the guilt that does not belong.

The moment you say, “It is all my fault how unhappy she is,” you are playing a role somewhere with which you deny something else in you. Do you follow me, my dear?

QUESTION: Yes, but still, in practical terms she’s been traveling around the world attending different schools and it’s very, very difficult to talk to her.

ANSWER: It is not that she attends schools in the different countries that is responsible really for the problem. You are barricading yourself in your own insistence on this. The practical help will come the moment you give up this aspect I just talked about. The practical help will be a result of your attitude, believe me.

For with this attitude, even if you would live here and would have all the many possibilities, the help would not work – because it is something in your mind. Therefore it affects also the most negative aspects in the child’s mind. There’s a mutual interaction of blame and self-blame and negativity there.

QUESTION: Is her problem not as serious as I think?

ANSWER: Well, I do not want to label this. I cannot see things that way. From our vantage point, what you would consider perhaps the gravest and most serious problem is not such a terrible problem, because the attitude of the persons involved is positive towards a resolution. While what would seem like a very minor problem from the spiritual point of view is an immense problem simply because it is not seen or it is negated. So a big or a small problem does not exist in these terms from our view here.

QA242 QUESTION: For the last two months my daughter has had a strep infection in her system and has had a sore throat she can’t seem to work through, even though she’s been taking medication. I feel concerned about it, and a part of me feels that somehow I’m responsible. I connected somehow with the places where I really don’t give as much to her as I could. I wonder if you could comment on the illness in terms of her path and also how I can best help her with it.

ANSWER: The illness is an expression of a tremendous change going on in her. And it is a very normal and a very positive change. It is not only the biological and natural change of approaching adulthood, which is always a period of crisis for the system, but it is also the change – much more deeply and significantly – of her approaching adulthood on the level of her inner being through her Pathwork, through changing outlooks

There is, of course, a great deal of resistance for this, as all human beings have. But, on the other hand, there’s also a willing spirit there – and there’s confusion, as there must be. She should be helped and encouraged to accept the confusion, and not believe that this confusion is something bad, something that ought not to exist.

She should say Yes to the confusion and trust that out of the confusion, if it is truly accepted, clarification will come. She should be taught that confusion is a natural state in the growing process, especially in periods of dramatic changes such as the period from childhood to adulthood.

As far as your guilt is concerned, that is the greatest hindrance you could put in her way. I would suggest to you that you should look into the motivations of this guilt, into the raw language of this guilt – what does it say? On the one hand, it denies your human imperfections, which you came with, as all people come with, and which you do the best you can to grow out of on your path.

However, that kind of guilt is not an honest expression of the higher self. That manifestation of guilt does not say “I regret any pain I ever inflicted, deliberately or unintentionally, on anyone, on any withholding. I regret the pain I inflict on myself and I am truly motivated by the pain of this regret to change this.”

That kind of feeling could not manifest in what you experience and describe, which much rather says, “If I feel guilty enough, I atone for whatever was not all right, for whatever I may continue to withhold.” And it is better to continue to withhold if you are not yet honestly in a state of loving and giving – although that is only partially true, of course – than to indulge in this kind of guilt.

This kind of guilt is a burden on the other person, and it also conveys, “Liberate me from my guilt. Say that I am all right by growing up fast into a very productive and very positive person.” And that is a pressure that must have the opposite effect on the soul.

Next Topic