How Conscious Education Can Support Our Health Program
When a child enters school, they are in the mode to learn about how they can best prepare for the future. In this article I want to deal with our Education Program and the National Health plan. If we looked at empowering children to develop the life skills needed to learn better and the skills needed to deal with a health program, they would be better prepared to meet their challenges in the future. Skills like a positive self-image and self-trust help them tap powerful inner resources that support healing and education. Those skills also help control any kind of sabotage that would limit them from operating at their full potential in these areas.Imagine if a child had the ability to control how they deal with important challenges. With a simple training, a child can develop habits that allow them to control these life skills with a simple word or phrase. Once they develop this trigger and experience this life skill, they approach the challenge more confidently without hesitation or self-doubt. This might not sound like a significant change, but when inner resources support the education or healing challenge, the child becomes more ‘in-dependent.’ This means they depend on inner resources to work as a partner with outer resources. This makes the student partners with their teacher and doctor. This teaches them how to actively participate with authorities in accomplishing important goals.The life skill of a positive self-image gives you the power to control how you interpret your situation. For instance, if a child came from a dysfunctional home, they would tend to start their school day with a frustrated perspective; they would be in a state where they were unable to learn. We tend to relate to ourselves the way we have been related to. Often, in a dysfunctional home, the child is conditioned not to be open and receptive. If a child could switch their self-image, they could turn that frustrated perspective into an open, positive perspective that is open to learn.I worked with a 7-year-old boy referred to me for school behavior problems. He named his Negative Self ‘bad boy’ and his Positive Self ‘good boy.’ I taught him that, when he felt like ‘bad boy,’ he could switch to ‘good boy’ and deal with school from that perspective. As a result, he felt more comfortable in school; his grades and behavior improved. Later in life, these habits could set the tone for crucial interactions, like dealing with poor health or relationships.I was counseling a veteran with PTSD, which left him in a pretty consistent state of anger. I got him in touch with his positive and negative self-images. He named his negative self-image ‘anger’ and his positive self-image ‘lover.’ His wife got cancer and on the way to the doctor, he wanted to be as supportive as he possibly could. When ‘anger’ related to his wife, it did not have a supportive tone. When ‘lover’ related to her, his love definitely came through. I taught him how to switch instantly from ‘anger’ to ‘lover,’ so he could always give his wife loving support.If children could learn to control their self-image, they could develop in these areas. They could meet their challenges from a more confident perspective. That would limit self-doubt and subconscious sabotaging programs that make it difficult to manifest. This could be as minor as approaching a test with confidence or as major as dealing with a chronic illness. If these skills were developed in school at a young age, by the time they had health problems, they would have a perspective connected to powerful inner resources. If they did not develop a self-image connected to inner resources, they would be caught in the maze of their mind and deal with self-doubt during crucial times.I have seen people burdened with a negative past create a positive self-image and deal with challenges their ego was just frustrated with. In school or in the hospital, this self-doubt can grow and sabotage your efforts. You might not be a complete failure, but you are not manifesting to your full potential. This transition would happen easier if the Positive and Negative Self were developed at an early age. When you rely on an old self-image that turned into a strong habit, you are more confident and comfortable operating that way.Another life skill that is very important in both school and healing is the ability to trust yourself. Self-trust allows you to accept resources that are beyond your conditioned habits. Self-trust also keeps your focus inward, instead of immediately looking outside for the answer. A person who trusts themself can utilize external resources as a partner, so that inner and outer resources work together. Self-trust helps eliminate victim consciousness and empowers students to meet their challenges.Remember the child that came from a dysfunctional home? If that child could trust their positive perspective; they would identify with the more conscious self-image. Then if they were in a situation like the veteran had with Anger, they would be ready to change.Educating our children is not limited to teaching them the right answers. Real education draws out of the students inner resources that are useful for any problem-solving they will need in their life. In Latin, the root of ‘education’ is ‘to draw out.’ To do well in school or to heal from a chronic illness, we need to master our life skills and draw them out when necessary.To deal with our national health program, we need to start developing people who actively approach their challenges. If this was developed throughout their education, it could reduce expenses as we better prepare our children to deal with future health challenges.© Marc Lerner and Life Skills Institute 2013