Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Trust

Trust

Encouragement and reassurance build the process of trust.

Parents who are “real” with their kids are parents who are honest. They are the parents who can be trusted. The only way children can learn and feel solid and enduring trust is from witnessing integrity in action. Being honest with yourself and your children by using the “Show-don’t-tell” approach will inevitably lead you to live in integrity.

People at their very basic mimic caretakers and those who raise them. It reminds me of a story about a black lab puppy I lived with years ago. I already had a beautiful Chocolate lab that was 4. I had taught her several tricks, one of which was the “wave-wave.” The new black lab puppy was only 16-weeks-old when he started doing the wave-wave by watching and mimicking my chocolate lab. He saw that she received treats for doing this and began copying her without anyone putting forth any effort to teach him.

On a larger scale and on a deeper level, notice the same natural pattern with relationship dynamics and the messages that are sent. For instance, as a child when I felt distraught about excessive external stimuli and my surroundings, my brother mimicked my mother by ignoring me. My aunt told my cousins “not to pay attention to me” because that is what my mother had shown her—and I imagine their parents ignored their needs to an extent as well. It is mimicked and followed until someone, (that someone was me after I was an adult), made it clear that it was no longer acceptable behavior. Parents hold such great responsibility through their silent messages and verbal cues.

Non-truths, evasion, aloofness, and double messages are all examples of communication when parents don’t know how to express their thoughts and feelings in a healthy way. Yet there are so many approaches that send positive messages. Simply acknowledging the need and desire to heal can open the channel between parent and child for greater contact and peaceful exchange.

Being pro-active about health and how we heal, grow and move on, for instance, sends the appropriate idea: “caring about my well-being, making sure I’m healthy, balanced and connected is important.” Receiving energy work, like Reiki, for parents with intentions to let go of non-supportive patterns is an example of teaching through action. The practice of being calm in adverse situations is how we can show our children about balance and spirituality. We must live it in order for it to be present and build trust.

This post is the fourth in a series of five.

Read the first: Creating the Enlightened Nest
Read the second: Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Environment
Read the third: Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Trust

Keep watching for:

Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Unconditional Love

Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Encouragement

Encouragement

Teaching children to ground, center and recognize their own energy is a way to build empowerment and self-esteem. First we must acknowledge where we get this sense of grounding. Knowing and having an understanding of belonging to family and a group of friends and knowing you are connected to the Universe as a divine being doesn’t come naturally when you are in self-protection mode and in a constant state of defense.

I often say, “I like nice people.” It’s not as simple as it sounds. Indigos, Crystals, and Rainbows are empaths/HSPs. How do you or your child feel when certain people approach? Self-conscious? Excited? Bummed out? Teaching your kids to center and ground is important so that they can recognize their own energy and decipher it from others’ energy.

Go easy on yourself, this is hard to do and takes practice when there’s a ton of energy coming at you! When you’re wide open, you’re going to be picking up any old energy that charges you! And especially if you don’t know that’s happening, it’s easy to think you’re all over the place, moody and insane. For a child to feel all of that and not have the communication skills yet to express those feelings or seek proper guidance, it can be infuriating, isolating and can create an array of behaviors, overwhelming anxiety and depression. Awareness on the parents’ part establishes a sense of encouragement for the child.

When there is encouragement, there is empowerment.
Lack of encouragement brings isolation, the worst avoidable phenomena that can lead an HSP astray and leave them yearning for peace half their life. Shutting down, experiencing shame, guilt, feeling discouraged and limited, and dealing with the stress of hurry and food allergies is a lonely way to live life—an utterly avoidable way to live life when the proper guidance is available. Many Indigos experience hardships with abuse and are disregarded in their communities as a result of their sensitive tendencies. An HSP or otherwise empathic child, who sees the world differently than most, needs encouragement in order to live an enriched and successful journey.

This post is the third in a series of five.

Read the first: Creating the Enlightened Nest
Read the second: Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Environment

Keep watching for:

Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Trust
Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Unconditional Love

Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Environment

Environment

How can you nurture HSPs and Indigos? Being HSP-attentive is a start. For the empath, environment is everything. Highly Sensitive People (HSPs as coined by Elaine N. Aron. Ph.D. in her book The Highly Sensitive Person), experience everything from the inside out.

Aron’s book shows how empaths react to outside energy and influences. It’s a breath of fresh air for some who need validation and an empath guidebook! If you’re sensitive under grocery halogen lights (they may make you nauseous or anxious), if you get disoriented when you don’t eat, get pissy waiting in lines, and if going to the mall or hanging out in a crowd to one extreme energizes you or completely depletes you, there’s a strong possibility you’re dealing with empathic qualities. Guess what, so are your kids.

“If you want to feel pretty, surround yourself with pretty things.” There is truth to that old adage. When things you love, that comfort you, and people who encourage you surround you, it has mood altering effects, inducing happiness and inspiration. In turn, being surrounded by angry highly stressed people, watching violent or depressing movies, and listening to music that doesn’t produce creative messages, alters mood as well.

Just as “you are what you eat,” and “birds of a feather flock together,”—You are what and who you surround yourself with. Luckily, even for the HSP adult, these stimuli are usually a personal choice and even when they’re not, are somewhat controllable. Children, on the other hand, not only do not have the power to make those choices or control their surroundings, but often they do not know how to communicate their feelings.

That’s where we come in. Adults must be aware of unseen and many times unspoken phenomena that exist in the universe of a child. Adults must regulate these stimuli for them. It is our job to be aware and communicate in order to accommodate a healthier environment for our kids.

This post is the second in a series of 4.

Read the first: Creating the Enlightened Nest

Keep watching for:

Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Encouragement
Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Trust
Nurturing Indigos and HSPs—Unconditional Love

Indigo Survivor’s Take on Spiritual Parenting II

Indigo Characteristics

There was a long time in my life where I interpreted things differently than other people. I saw things on a more emotional and symbolic level. I thought it was normal, or didn’t know to think it wasn’t, but this made me very disconnected from my peers and my family. There was a huge communication disconnect that traveled with me through my life and my relationships. I had to learn a way of communicating that was somehow completely foreign and I had to teach myself because I was alone in this situation. No one seemed to understand and, in fact, they were scared to take on the challenge of me.

This was what led to my metaphysical journey. I realized that my life service was to support the spiritual community by communicating to survivors who feel the way I did growing up, or the loved ones who recognize they’ve got a live one and need some help. All that time, what I had needed was someone who believed in me.

Other Indigo Characteristics:

  • Indigos possess a warrior temperament, and stand up for what they believe in—often the “whistle-blower” in a group when something unethical is happening or something is going on that is against  collective conscious archetypal understanding.
  • Determined and focused on missions and goals.
  • Not only can Indigos detect dishonesty, it’s hard to build trust with them once you’ve broken it.
  • They have a strong sense of themselves and who they are.
  • They need creative freedom and room to evolve projects and ideas. If they don’t have that freedom, they tend to get frustrated easily.
  • Authority figures are seen as equals until their trust and respect is earned.
  • Indigos don’t feel pressured to conform to the group and have a strong sense of self-esteem.
  • They are direct with communicating their needs and let you know when their needs have not been met.
  • Antisocial behavior can be a label they receive when they’re not surrounded by children with the same needs and characteristics.
  • Indigo children are intuitive and sensitive (HSPs, Empaths).
  • They are natural communicators who use technology to get their points across as well as writing, music, and speech.
  • Intelligent and analytical, they often display amazing memory capabilities.
  • Sometimes they show low levels of patience. Indigos require needs to be met and situations to be fixed according to their immediate gratification. Otherwise, it seems like time-wasting.

Environmental Influences

Children are naturally empathic. As we grow older, many of us build walls and shells and filters to keep us from sensitivity. Most likely we’ve been taught that being sensitive is a curse rather than a trait that is much needed in our world. As such, a child with highly sensitive characteristics that naturally has self esteem can be deflated when that sensitivity is not supported.

Teaching children self-empowerment is so important. Bringing a sense of grounding and the understanding of belonging into their lives teaches that not only do we have a place in the Universe, but that we are connected to it. It is a part of us, and we are not separate. This is a mandatory principle in the foundation of a child’s healthy outlook on the world and the successes in an empathic and sensitive child’s evolution of life. The importance of understanding the scope of a child’s internalizing and out-of-body defense mechanisms can be life changing.

This was the second of a two-part series.
Read Part I: Indigo Survivors Take on Spiritual Parenting I.

Indigo Survivor’s Take on Spiritual Parenting I

An Indigo Hitting the Bottom of the Spiritual Barrel

I surrendered and begged, “Will you help me find my way? Universe, help me figure it out. Send me in the right direction. Show me my divine right path!”

Finding Hope

I had finally come to my brick wall. The place where I felt I had nowhere to go. I was alone and I felt isolated and directionless. I desperately needed to know what my dreams were and how to recognize my purpose. I felt so confused. A lifetime of dealing with abandonment, low self-esteem, and beliefs based on a family that revolved around an alcoholic patriarch, along with boundary, and shame issues from sexual abuse. I was in no shape to figure out anything.

Picking Up the Pieces Through Synchronicities and Signs

One of the first things I came across while beginning research to seek peace after demanding universal direction was a self-esteem quiz. I recognized that self-esteem issues were getting in the way of my purpose or even being able to identify my dreams. (I was having a problem answering the basic finding-your-dreams question: What did you love to do as a child?) I kept coming up with reasons why my dreams couldn’t be reality. “They wouldn’t work, I’m too old now,” and all of those excuses that hold us  back. Those inner thoughts that stem from what we learn as children.

This quiz, I thought, was the answer—to this part anyway. It will tell me how to fix this problem. The main theme was focusing on all positive aspects, strong skills and abilities that had brought me to where I was now. The idea was to let go of any negative thoughts and beliefs. Stop focusing on all the things you need to improve and only focus on your positive traits, skills and values.

With my background in mind, I asked myself, “What are these skills? How did I manage to overcome these triumphs throughout the years and be here, 33-years-old today and still have some sort of hope and desire to become a better person—to see myself as a successful person.”

A funny thing happened after completing the quiz.
I learned that I had mostly survived by isolating myself and removing myself from uncomfortable situations. Or the very opposite, by being more tolerant of situations than I should have been and staying longer than definitely was healthy, all because I didn’t know how to stand up for myself. I realized those weren’t very positive traits that had gotten me where I was. My need for self-betterment was out of desperation. The self-esteem quiz only validated that I needed more answers.

Epiphany

When the crystal and indigo child card kept popping out of my angel deck practically every time I randomly chose one, my friend, life-long energy healer and psychic medium, Anne Roberts said, “Hon, YOU! It’s YOU! You’re the Indigo child.” I thought about it. I had been told before that I took the guilt and blame for my abusive family, that I was a victim soul of sorts. I had endured hardships in order to help others complete what they had to do in their lifetimes. I was an example so that others didn’t have to go through the same experiences. Author Doreen Virtue wrote that many Indigos go through hard things, like abuse and the leadership of being poster child, and then deal with the fact that people don’t feel the need to protect or save them. Instead they point and judge, “She’s over reacting,” or, “She’s just sensitive, don’t worry about hurting her feelings, she’ll get over it on her own.” All with the same message: She doesn’t matter. Her needs don’t need to be met.

It’s that drama of the Indigo’s life that has a way of clearing the road for crystal children.

I thought, if that’s the case, I better start telling my story and hope it helps someone. With more community awareness, I can only hope that more children don’t go through the difficulties and rejection I did.

This post is one of a two-part series. Be on the lookout for:

Indigo Survivor’s Take on Spiritual Parenting II