Written by: Grace Alfafara, Senior Level Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I remember the moment I became a mother to my four children. Two boys and twin girls. As a newbie mother in the year 2003 when my oldest son was born at that time, parenthood in that journey was very alien to my understanding without a manual book to follow. Even though I felt so scared as a new mother raising my four kids, I decided to focus on solutions on how to nurture my kids and break the chain of poverty consciousness. The only way to do that was to lead by example.
“Healing is a choice and so is suffering. Breaking the chain of poverty consciousness is a gift we give ourselves, our children, and the next generation to come. It may not be easy, but it is worth it. Let’s choose healing over suffering. Love over a fear-based belief system.” – Grace Alfafara
I remember too that I promised myself when I was 15 years old that one day when I become a mother, I would not pass along to my kids the poverty consciousness that my parents taught me growing up. We know that pain is part of life. But suffering is a choice. I know that without going through such suffering living in a poverty environment with a poverty consciousness, I wouldn’t be praying, craving, and yearning for a better life. When we go through suffering by unconscious choice or someone forcing it on us, we must promise ourselves to work on unlearning the limiting belief system that was ingrained in us and learn not to lose ourselves in the darkness of suffering mentality.
In my case, I decided to ask God/Divine Source how to manifest in mastering my evolution in my life. It was not easy as there was a lot of shadow work on how to unlearn the limiting belief system that was inherently ingrained in me during my childhood years. With that said, I decided to put the skin in the game in my own life. I left room for improvement in my own life on how to nurture my kids differently than what my parents did. It felt like I was given a gift to create a life of love and healing for the next generation to come. I made sure I wasn’t going to pass on the things that can cause trauma bond attachment style to my kids just because I went through it with my parents, it doesn’t mean I have to repeat what they did, even though as they passed their ingrained belief system into me without them being conscious parents. Yes, they did their best in how to parent me and my other 3 siblings. There are so many reasons why I wanted to raise a gentleman in my son’s upbringing and help my twin daughters build up their self-confidence and resiliency that their voices matter significantly. One of the main reasons why I wanted to raise a gentleman in my son’s life is for him not to be like his dad who cheated in our 20 years of marriage and did not protect our marriage from any negativity. Due to cheating my ex didn’t know how to communicate well his unmet emotional trauma bond attachment style from his past events. You see when a person cheats in a relationship, it is mainly about them for their own lack of love and not being responsible for their own healing journey. The lack of communication dies and so is the level of trust and respect. For me to rebuild what damage has been done, I stayed in that marriage for 20 years with so many deep reasons why and one of them is to protect my kids' upbringing and raise a gentleman in my son’s life so he won’t have to go through what his parents went through. It stops with me. I took the responsibility to end the curse of dysfunctionality in an unhealed relationship that my ex and I have had. I also divorced my ex after 20 years. I also instilled in my twin daughters the resiliency and fitness in their upbringing that their voice matters and built up their self-image, self-worth, and self-confidence at a young age. I am very proud of each of my children even though I lost my oldest son through suicide at age 14 in the year 2018. And you can read my blog post about it here: How to deal with the anniversary of a loved one's death.
My second oldest is the one who carried on the gentleman characteristic to the core of his life. It was his choice as he began to see the patterns of embodying a gentleman's essence as a healthy trait to be, have, and live by. He doesn’t find it a big burden to carry. He looked at it as a gift, not a sacrifice to bear. He is turning 20 years old this summer. He has traveled on his own in this world and is very confident with his choices in life in how he is discovering his truth and owning it like a gentleman. I encouraged you my fellow parents to never give up on this parenthood to start over again. The courage to start over again is the most meaningful thing you will ever experience. You permit yourself a gift to the world that there’s true freedom in taking the courage to start over again even if we have to raise our next generation in how to break the mold of poverty consciousness. Let’s start healing. Healed people heal people. Hurt people hurt people. The choice is ours on which reality to choose from. Choose your suffering or gift of blessings.
So, to nurture a gentleman in your son's life, “you must be it” first regardless you are the mother or the father. You must embody it first and by that your sons and daughters will observe you and your evolution in how you treat yourself, your significant partner/spouse, and your children and others as well.
Below I will share a glimpse of how I nurtured myself first in how to lead by example.
The inner tools that I activated and cultivated from deep within me when I became a mother are the essence of trust within the great unknown from deep within my heart core, and guidance from God/Universe.
I focused on a solution how to break the mold of poverty consciousness in my bloodline of an ingrained limited belief system. The steps I took were through education investment. Education led me to freedom. The feeling of that freedom was the intention of it all. So, as a young mother, I decided to educate myself by taking courses in Child Psychology and I passed with the highest honors. I also read many other inspirational books that took me beyond the knowledge of Child and Social Adult Psychology. These books became my own “Bible” that breathed life into my life and I embodied it into my motherhood journey in leading my evolution; and by that, I could say, “I broke the mold of suffering consciousness mentality and it stops with me”. Yes, I broke the mold in my bloodline. I must say it was worth taking the risk to trust myself and the great unknown with the guidance of the Divine Source.
If Psychology courses are not your thing, read empowering personal growth books instead and I would recommend the following books below.
These are some of the many books I read and cultivated into my own life that helped me alter the course in how I nurtured my children into having a stamina of resiliency fitness ingrained in them. I had to embody first the inner work in me so I could be a conscious parent in nurturing my children with an awareness of a healed wisdom into their own lives at a young age:
“Unleash the giant from deep within” by Tonny Robbins.
“Conscious Parent” by Dr. Shefali
“The Secret” Rhonda Byrne
Speaking of my second oldest son in this topic on how to raise a gentleman for the next generation to come, I must say I am grateful I have raised a gentleman, and my son is an adult now. This year he will be 20 years old. When he was little, he always wanted to learn how to be a gentleman. When I recognized his patterns of belief system, I started asking myself how to instill in him a gentleman trait – as I promised myself to break the chain of poverty consciousness and I made sure my son would learn how to be gentle with his life as a gentleman.
So, his whole childhood life upbringing was learning how to be a gentleman became the foundation of his belief system. From that foundation comes the fruition in his adulthood the mannerism of being in a state of mind as a gentleman. Within the span of his livelihood, being a gentleman and even dressing like one daily became part of his healthy habits. Then this just became so natural for him to embody the state of being a gentleman. And to him, that is just a normal way of life.
During his homeschool years, I would teach him the ethics of a gentleman. For example, when he was only a preteen, I decided to take him out to a restaurant and showed him how to open the door for a lady. So, he opened the door for me and pulled the chair for me as we sat at our table for dinner. I also taught him communication skills in how to respond rather than react when communicating with a lady. No cell phones and turn them off, as this teaches him that demonstrating respect to the person you are with and that their presence matters to you. This also stimulates creativity in a conversation communication style during bonding quality time.
The most important part of raising a gentleman is the communication skillset style. Without a transparent applied understanding of communication in a relationship, there would be no form of trust level to elevate the growth of any relationship either in a personal or professional lifestyle.
The communication differences between female and male love languages are so vital that each has its ring of tone to understand the love languages one conveys without judgment, but applies deeper understanding with high-quality questions. To my son, this became his first nature growing up in communication style and how to treat people respectively who may have different communication styles of love languages. At a young age, I taught him non-verbal communication style i.e., body language apart from mannerism style (this is done by how to treat people with respect by making them feel understood and heard).
In communication technic, the number one rule is to listen to understand before speaking your point of view. Be the last one to speak after you have heard everyone’s point of view. When you listen to understand others' opinions, you get the idea where their capability of understanding or perceiving notions according to their level of growth.
The key point in communication in listening to understand is you get to know a person’s level of understanding and life experiences by the way they ask questions. Whether their quality of capacity to understand through their quality of questions is based on poverty consciousness or growth consciousness.
The important part of your role when it comes to listening to understand is never to judge a person conveying their point of view as they are in a state of testing whether they can trust you with their story. But be an observer instead. That way, you don’t consume their projection of opinions on yourself, and without losing yourself (especially, never lose your authenticity in their energy field level of understanding). You will be able to answer their questions with an in-depth understanding and transmit it to their level of language to understand without them feeling judged, but feeling heard and understood instead. That is what mutual respect is in demonstrating how to treat a person who is trying to convey their point of view to you. Stand your ground to be open to listening to understand. Always observe the situation of other people’s reactions or responses. Then offer a solution for others to influence their energy to co-create a betterment by accepting them where they are at in life.
Also, it depends on your relationship with them if there’s a deep level of trust, you can either challenge their willingness to grow that could propel them to personal accountability, without you having to fix their unresolved emotional needs attachment trauma bond style, or whatnot. This way, it teaches others how to own up to their own story. This way also it teaches others to take personal accountability or responsibility to break the mold of poverty consciousness and not pass it on to the next generation as part of the cultural norm.
We all know that pain is part of life, but healing is a choice. Pain is part of life indeed, but suffering is a choice. Learning to navigate the choices we make is created in the present moment daily.
This also goes to raising our children on what kind of environment and realities they will be exposed to in our homes when we as parents must be aware of what we impose on ourselves and them too. Everything we do, any non-verbal acts, or what we say is a communication style of whether to build trust or not. This will determine if you understand the duty of being the responsible one in raising a gentleman in your son’s life. Because when he gets to an age he will remember how he was raised by a resilient mother who never gave up on him. Do it so that your children will have something to be proud of when they become their own parents one day.
I must say, pass on wisdom to your kids, not your wounds. Break the mold. Bring in peace. Peace is created. It starts at the home of our hearts. So, yes, do it and raise a gentleman in your little sons as not many out there. Not based on perfection, but let it be based on a progression of healthy family love bonding!
Connect your journey with me and follow me on my social platform: At Grace-Through Journey, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Grace Alfafara, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Grace Alfafara, is a mother to 4 teenagers, a Published Author, Grief Advocate, Certified Sophrologist, and a Certified Transformational Life Coach, in which she specializes in emotional and adaptability intelligence. She also develops an online empowerment Masterclass. She has lived in 5 countries and has worked as a Philanthropist for several years with her family. Her background education in Western culture on Psychology, Quantum Consciousness, and life growing up in a blend of Eastern and African cultures full of diverse life experiences have brought immense wisdom within the span of her life. A mother on a mission: empowering others to embody their true resilient essence wholeheartedly.
