Difficult Children or Wounded Adults?

From a young age, I always wanted to be an adult. When you have all the answers, everyone listens to you and you are mature. Be that monument of example that you see with your parents. Today, as an adult by age I'm still looking for answers, learning and trying to stay in touch with my inner child. Life gave me the gift of being the aunt of my friends' children. And with it the opportunity to release and work through the little girl that still lives in me.

When I visited my friends they asked me if I could take care of their children, and why not? Naughty, sweet in the right measure. But at key moments I began to notice that my patience was quickly lost or I was easily offended and in the worst case I found myself fighting like a child with them.

Faced with these irrational emotions, I decided that I wanted to discover their true origin. First of all I started meditating before and after being with children. I decided to write down the situations I lived with them and the emotions I felt. Without a clear answer I still could identify that my emotions prevented me from resolving the situations. For example, three months ago, on a beautiful summer day in a children's park, I met my friend and her two daughters. One of them was 1 year and 8 months old and the other daughter still in my friend's arms, only 4 months old. The oldest daughter asked me to swing her. I took her and when I started to swing her she started shouting at me saying I didn't swing her the way her father did, that she felt bad and would leave to play alone. After the girl left I felt so bad and the feeling didn't go away. I saw her playing and I continued with an anxiety that did not go away, suddenly the girl sees me and begins to shout my name. I came running and she said "I want to go to the bathroom" and the worst thing was that the bathroom was not nearby. I decided to carry the girl and while running to the bathroom she pees in my arms and before I could say anything the girl starts screaming "it's your fault it's all your fault". I left with the girl in my arms, screaming at me, heading towards the mother for new clothes, but I'm sure my face said a thousand words. The mother with her patience and love explained to her daughter that it was an accident.

For me the pain, the shame and seeing the girl yell at me that it was my fault broke me to tears, I had to leave and go for a walk. I decided that I would meditate and look for this feeling... at the end of the meditation and watching children play I remembered an event that happened to me when I was a little girl that made me see why I felt the way I did.

I remembered that once as a child, about the same age as the girl, I was in the bathroom and was done urinating. I wanted to have my parents help me clean up. I shouted my mother's name once, twice, three times until I went out because she wasn't there and I found my mother with her friends and at that moment I heard everyone say "she can't clean herself, what a shame, what a shame". Needless to say, my mother's friends didn't like children very much. After that event I didn't want to leave the bathroom until all the visitors left the house.

With what I experienced in the park, the girl, the screams I returned to that moment. My tears were from that little girl who still remembers that moment. So for a moment I found myself hugging my inner child telling her that she was just a girl and that it had already happened. I took courage to correct my attitude with my friend and first and foremost with the child.

When I entered the room where my friend and her two daughters were, the situation had improved. For a moment the girl and I shared glances. I cheered up and asked her how she was feeling. She told me that she felt angry because an accident happened. I told her that I felt sad that I didn't swing her properly. She started laughing and hugging me.

The mother also laughed and hugged me. And it was until this moment that I understood that meditating allows me to live what is well described in books. That living with children revives your inner child. And with meditation, little by little not only can I work on that inner child but I also seek to love and forgive those emotions that make me react and not grow.