147. Validation & Nurturing

©2009 Athene Bitting All Rights Reserved

CXLVII

Validation and Nurturing:

Tools for Success

Questions:

1. What is nurturing?

It is an art, a discipline, a skill, and a tool. It is the ability to provide what is needed in a timely, gentle, and healing manner. This reflects the feminine or maternal side of our personalities.

Nurturing does not come naturally—we are not designed to know it instinctively. So, we must learn it either by example or by study. It is a highly nuanced skill at best and requires empathetic ability.

Many people believe that they know how to nurture others, but the proof is in the feelings of the receiver. You know when you have been nurtured correctly, because you feel comforted and encouraged. You don't feel insulted, jangled, violated, or required to repay. You just feel appreciation and (hopefully) gratitude for this healing event of kindness.

Of course, we aren't expected to do this perfectly or continuously. We are all still learning, and there is much to learn about the art of nurturing. It begins with learning to nurture yourself in ways that your parents did not. It refines itself in learning the difference between indulgence and healthy comforts.

2. Why do we need it?

Without nurturing, we suffer the following Astral traumas:

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE—includes guilt, insulted identity, feelings of failure, and the impulse to lash out at a safe target, sometimes one's own physical body. See chapter 140.

Cognitive dissonance is an anxiety reaction to criticism, insult, and other forms of abuse. This makes feelings of low self-worth that don't jibe with the self-image and creates a physical need to say or do something with violence as a means of cleansing the anxiety from the system. It is the primary cause of domestic violence.

The healing treatments after cognitive dissonance has been triggered include serotonin, consolation, and validation.

ADDICTIONS—can include addictions to behaviors (eating, gambling, work, or sex) or substances (prescription or street drugs, alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, sugar). See chapter 57.

Addictions are the direct reaction to childhood abuse. The substance has a unique correspondence to a specific form of abuse. All addictions are integrated with a ritual cycle of emotional turmoil, physical need, addiction gratification, and temporary calm. An addict usually doesn't feel that there is a problem, because the addiction serves as an antidote of sorts to the emotional turmoil. Only when the addict perceives that the addictive cycle is preventing happiness will she/he be ready to find an answer.

The healing treatments for someone who wishes to stop an addiction are time-consuming and complicated. They include serotonin, dietary changes, patience, and learning to reconnect with the somatic identity.

EMOTIONAL BACKLASH—just when you thought you had the perfect body, finances, schedule, or diet, your subconscious mind causes you to rip it up, throw it away, and go on a bender, spree, or binge. This can result in cognitive dissonance. It can usher in a phase of wild abandonment and indulgence.

Emotional backlash is a response to overly strict self-discipline or harsh external rules. When we use will-force to change what we aren't ready to change, our subconscious minds reject our efforts and create a backlash.

Patience and logical meditation on finding holistic answers are the foundation of permanent improvements. Just like learning to play music on the piano, we begin with simple changes and practice them. As the small changes become easy, we can acquire greater changes and practice them until they become natural to us.

With nurturing, we can reap the blessings of the following:

BALANCE—when we reside at our inner centers, we naturally live in moderation and prefer to avoid extreme activities or feelings that push us away from center. Nurturing brings us to center.

HEALING OF THE ASTRAL BODY—the AB requires patience, and good thoughts to heal the traumas from past lives and the current life. Nurturing incorporates both these elements.

BENEFIT TO THE BODY—body health is a dance of sound thinking, healthy emotions, nourishment, and toned muscles. Nurturing the self requires all these things.

3. Whom do we learn to nurture first?

Nurturing begins at home, with oneself. It can be a challenge that lasts lifetimes, so be as patient as possible with yourself. Because nurturing is a learned behavior, we first learn about nurturing from our parents. If we are lucky, then other adults give us valuable gifts of kindness and generosity. From childhood experiences, we develop a sense of what it means to care for others. This can be erroneous or helpful.

If your childhood experience was violent, lonely, frightening, and without kindness, then you have a lot of research to do in order to fill in the blanks for yourself. The rewards are a much happier life. You will depend less on external circumstances for your contentment, because you are creating a higher quality of life for yourself on a daily basis.

4. Why is it important to begin with ourselves?

Here is one of the small ironies of life. We can't treat somebody else better than we do ourselves. The subconscious mind won't allow it. If you try to treat someone else better than yourself, you will make them pay the difference by making cruel remarks or by letting them down in some way.

The best nurturer of other people is one who takes care of his/her own needs foremost. Then this person has plenty of energy, largesse of spirit, and wealth of life to act as a good example and to dispense kindness to others.

5. What does nurturing look like in the Astral and Mental dimensions?

This is really quite lovely and exciting to view.

When someone is in the process of nurturing the self, the vibration of the Astral Body becomes soothed. Long waves of minty and spring green flow downward from the crown chakra. The eye region of the Astral Body becomes bright and focused. The emotional quality is deliberate and careful. The Mental Body expands like a radiation from the shoulders up. Its colors are sky/turquoise blue and lemon yellow.

When nurturing another person properly, the Astral Body changes vibration to be in phase with the receiver. This causes the giver to understand the needs of the receiver at an intimate level. So you see, it requires a certain amount of empathy. The act of nurturing another person has a redemptive quality to it. In other words, it pays off karma! I mean that in an energetic way, it is the antidote to the harm that you have inflicted on another person during a past life or in the past during this life.

6. How does nurturing help me to succeed?

Because the process of nurturing brings you to an emotional center, it gives you an air of stability that most people find very desirable in the workplace. Because nurturing promotes health and contentment, people find you attractive and easy to get along with. Because nurturing gives rise to financial stability, you enjoy a life of prosperity. Because nurturing requires that you avoid abuse, you will find that life offers a higher percentage of good experiences.

7. Draw or describe one of your helpers.

Helpers can bring enlightenment too! When you are trying to solve a puzzle in your life, sincerely ask for anyone who is interested to come and teach you how to get it right.