#3 Night terrors and the Second Reality

One of the first benefits I realized with my changing inner state of being present was the experience of my son having night terrors. To explain better of what I "did" to help him, I needed to remember the fact, that he can "feel me". That means I cannot "fake" something either outwardly or inwardly. So in order for him to get a certain feeling from me, i actually had to have it my self.

Here is an example: a parent walks through the dark forest with his/her child by his side, when the child gets scared of the dark, s/he will naturally ask the parent if there is any reason to be worried. Whatever the parent expresses verbally has no meaning. Only the actual inner state of the parent counts. So if the parent is afraid, this is what the child feels, likewise if the parent isn't worries, same applies! So as parents we have to become emotionally intelligent.

So back to the experience with my son, when he would wake up terrified, I would first of all "be a certain way", which he could translate as different from his state. This allowed him to "shift" from terror to being ok. So this transfer of emotions is not a mental task, as in "it was only a bad dream", but rather experiencing a different reality. This is what we started calling this shift, from his initial perception(later that wasn't limited to night terrors, but also daily life situations), which felt so real, shifting to a completely different perception, which was the second reality. He has used this second reality through out his life when his take on circumstances seem to corner him. Additionally those shared situation are bonding moments, because the sense of having done something together is what creates bonds.