More: I was thinking: if the little Andrew needs to be attended to, to be paid attention to, why was he so afraid when you were reading about Mindfulness (paying attention) in the coffee shop. Imagine parents taking their child to a therapist so to pay attention to the child. As they sit there in front of the therapist, the mother sheds some tears and the father looks morose, nodding his head, looking down. Then the therapist looks at the child and asks with a frown: “we are here to find out what is wrong with you.” The child is not going to like going back to that kind of attention. Or when a parent takes the child to a room and says: I want to talk to you about…. and the parent, in attempting to discuss with the child the child’s feelings, seems very uncomfortable. The child gets the feeling that his feelings themselves, or any problem he may experience is a great inconvenience to the parent. So the child is not going to be comforted with such attention.

So when I mention you paying the child in you attention, I mean the compassionate, CALM and gentle kind of attention, the kind that will make the child seek more of it.

Also, you may pay attention to what you eat, so that you don’t overeat or eat junk food. But if that attention is, again, the anxious kind of attention, it is not the kind of attention the child needs. Neither does the child (inside) needs the beating up (NO!NO!NO! Do NOT EAT THAT!) kind of attention. Again, the child in you needs the gentle, calm, patient and reliable attention.

anita