今日は娘の一人と、＜わがまま＞と＜あるがまま＞の違いについて語り合ったので記録に残しておこうと思います。
20歳を迎えている娘は過去を振り返るとき、小さい時にはわがままだったと思うそうです。そう思うとき、娘は自分をネガティブに捉えているようです。私の記憶では、娘は以前にも同じことを言いました。私は確かその時、「子どもはわがままなのではなく、あるがままなのよ」と伝えたのです。しかし娘はそのことを覚えていなくて、やはり今でも、自分は子どもの頃わがままだったと思うそうです。
　私は今日も又、娘が自分をわがままだと思うまでの過程には、大人がその子のことをわがままだとネガティブに捉えて伝える状況があり、子どもは大人にそう言われるから、自分はわがままで、それはいけないことだと感じるようになるのではないかと、娘は本当はわがままだったのではなく、あるがままだったのだろうと、やはり思うのです。特に彼女は自分の他に3人の姉弟に囲まれていることもあり、多少大きな声を出したり特別なことをして大人の気を引かなくてはやりきれない状況に居たのだと思います。しかしそれでも、しつこいけれど、娘はその当時、あるがままだったのだと思います。その、あるがままだった当時の彼女に、自分はわがままだと思い込ませたのは私達大人の責任です。ということで今日も私は娘に、ごめんね、と謝罪するのです。それから、「あなた達（私の子ども達）がもっとわがまま、つまり、あるがままで居たらいいなぁと思っているよ」と伝えました。そんなふうに伝える私ももちろんいつでも、あるがままの私です。

　本日のキーワードは、’後悔’ と ’気付き’ の違いです。デジタル大泉辞によると、後悔とは、やったことを後になって失敗であったと悔やむこと、だそうです。悔やむという言葉も入っていますしネガティブのイメージがあります。
私達は過去のことに対してよく、後悔という言葉を使います。しかし、後悔は読んで字のごとく、その人自身を悲しみや自責の念に追い詰めるマイナスのものなので意識して使わないようにしています。

こんなことを書いている理由は、実は本日あることから、当初はこれでいいと思ったある決断について、今思えばあの決断は早まっていたという気付きに至ったのです。けれど、過去は変えられませんし、当時の私のとった決断はその当時の私にとっては正しい決断だったのですから、自分を責めたり後悔したりする気持ちにはなりませんでした。その代わりに、この気付きは次のステップだな、と思いました。

私達はまた、＜後悔しないように〜する＞という言葉もよく使います。私はこの言葉も使わないようにしようと思いました。その代わりに、その時その一瞬一瞬の自分に耳を傾けて、毎分毎秒、今、自分を生きるのがいいのです。今の自分に気付くと自分の欲求を満たしてあげるのに時間を使い、後悔している時間がないと思います。逆の視点から捉え、後悔していると自分に気づく時間が持てない、ということかもしれません。雲泥の差です。

　最近ブログを又ブログを始めてみようかというアイデアを持って動いています。これは、日本にいる間にしようと思っていたことの一つです。考慮する必要があるのは、3月末にはアメリカへ戻る予定のある中で環境が変わっても続けて更新できるかどうかというところと、ブログ会社が何らかの形で閉鎖になった場合のことです。以前使っていた某プロバイダーは、こちらは私の事情でしたがホームページをやむなく閉鎖しなければならなくなり書いていたものも全て何処かへ行ってしまいました。そんな中、この日記サイトはかれこれ10年以上も気に入って続けている理由は、このサイトでは日記をまるごとダウンロードし自分で保管できるという点です。（有料機能です）ホームページが消えてしまった時、私の人生の記録を書き下ろしたこの日記サイトが残っていてよかったと思いました。
　そんなわけで、数あるブログ会社の中からどこを選ぼうかと只今吟味中。たくさんのサイトを見比べていると、商業がメインになっていたり、多数の芸能人ブログをアピールすることが宣伝効果になっていたりと、人々が個人の思いを語るブログも商業ベースに乗っていることがわかります。私はその中からできるだけ広告が少なくシンプルで使いやすい会社を選びたいと思っています。あくまで、＜始めてみようかな＞という程度なので確定ではありませんが、新しいことを探すのは楽しいです。
　

この英文は、2015年の末、カレッジクラスのプロジェクトの一つとして作成した「私にとって偉大な大人」というタイトルの文章です。英文のみで申し訳ありませんが興味をお持ちで買得可能な方は読んでいただければ嬉しいです。


I would like to introduce you to my Japanese friend Haydo who has been a counselor for more than 20 years, but there is a story of his life. He first apprenticed when he was 15 years old, and later he started to work as a Tailor to make a living, but one day when he was 44 years old, he decided to get a high school diploma and went to night classes. During his school classes, he noticed that his classmates, who were almost the same age as his children, did not seem vibrant or happy. He also imagined that his children could be like them. He thought that something was wrong and wondered what it was. This question made him to feel that he wanted to be useful and help them, so they could live their life with happiness and satisfaction. To achieve his goal to help people, and in order to make people listen to his talking, when he finished getting a high school diploma he went on to get a University Degree.

When he was writing a thesis in the University, he came across the book “Homecoming Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child.” written by Psychologist John Bradshaw. This book talks about the difference between the mentally healthy child/adult and the child/adult who has trauma in their life, and he noticed that he, himself, still had trauma from his childhood and was still suffering from it even though he was having no specific problem with his life at that time. With learning from the book about difference between adults who keep their trauma in their life from their childhood and the adults who overcame it, he felt that he wanted to have better life. With his thought to overcome his trauma, he read this book again and again and did almost of all the author’s suggestion so he could see if it would give him answers and help him improve and become a better adult. Then, since he had gained confidence about his experience, he thought that he wanted to help other people to heal their trauma if they wanted, like he healed himself.

After graduating from the University in 1993 and having determined that his education and learning had given him the skills he needed to be useful for people, he started a counseling center for children and parents who have problems and trauma in their lives. Most of the children were withdrawn and the parents seemed that they did not know how to treat or help their children.

Later, he rented a house in order to create a live-in shelter for people including children who cannot live with their parents or people who wanted to overcome from their trauma. By 2003, ten years after starting being a counselor, he had over 300 clients who came to talk to him on a regular basis.

In the house he rented as shelter, children stayed so they could get relief from stress from their parents and heal themselves. Because he had so many clients, he made a proposal to the Japanese government, and he started an NPO in 2003, nonprofit organization, and named it “Gobamcan”.

The purpose of his NPO was helping people who have difficulty surviving in their daily life because of their past experiences and trauma. Most of his clients were children could not go to school because they and were withdrawn for living and their parents. Sometime children came to the shelter just to get away from their parents, and other children stayed to see how they had trauma in their lives that needed to be healed. He was always welcome to any visitor if she/he had an aim to overcome their trauma. Although the counseling room and a shelter closed in 2013, he still gets calls from people who are looking for guidance to help them deal with trauma in their lives, according to his talking last time I talked to him.

The reason why I would like to introduce you to Haydo is that I like his philosophy. From his perspective, it is his belief that if adults change then children will change. In another word, the more adults who are better and happier in their life, the more children would become happier and better, and he had noticed about the reasons why his clients were not happy. He used to say that in Japan basically most adults grown up under a system where conforming and becoming part of the economic mainstream dictates their life.

To some Japanese people, to succeed in life means getting a high education, high salary, and having properties, such as owning nice houses or luxury cars. Parents always hope that their children will be happy in their life with education-oriented and material society.

However, what the parents think of as happiness is sometimes different from what their children think of it. This difference in thinking makes both of them, children and parent, feel uncomfortable and later it becomes a big problem if the parents force their children to have parent’s dream. Also, some parents tend to believe someone is abnormal, if they do not follow Japanese traditional culture, and some parents tend to think that they want their children to be normal, so they will not be subjected to negative judgement from the public or being looking down on as being abnormal.

Parents themselves also have a hard time to fit in society because they had been raised by parents who wanted their kids to fit in with the society and culture. In this type of situation, because they are struggling with Japanese culture and social expectations, they sometimes do not know how to guide their children even though they love their children so very much.

Haydo sometimes said “Children are heart crying.” Although I have not been Japan almost four years and am not sure how the Japan has changed, I basically agreed with what he used to say, looking back my children and myself as a mother and as a child of my parents. (This is not mean that my children had withdrawn or not.)
I believe that, Haydo’s idea about encouraging parents who were having problems with their children to change themselves first is unique.

Haydo strongly suggested and he strongly believed that if the parents changed, eventually the children would try to change without any pain to follow the example set by the parents. His philosophy that the more we can change the focus of society away from where becoming part of the economic mainstream dictates our life, the more we can help ourselves and our children to be strong and grow better.

He also has always been consistent about what he said to people and he lives his life following his beliefs; he says that we should believe what our senses tell us, instead of what others and society thinks or tells us. He lives his life doing what he says others should do, and he has worked many years to help people and children, and to change society to make it better and kinder.

In the years I was able to learn from him, we talked about more than 300 different things. He had many wise sayings, and one of my favorite things he often said was that he never said he taught us. Instead, he would say; “If there is a penny on the street, you have the choice to pick it up or not. What I tell you is just like a penny on the street, you have a choice to use it or just ignore it. If you improve yourself by using my idea, that is because of what you did, but not because I said it to you. Whatever you choose is alright, either you gain or you don’t gain, but life goes on.” I am sure that his thinking and wisdom are things we cannot buy with money. There are people whose life is better because Haydo has given so much of himself to show how people can overcome trauma and be happy individuals and parents. This is the reason I would like to introduce him to you.

　日本に帰ってきて以来、近くに住む三女との時間を通して母の役割を満喫しています。状況によって笑っていたり眠たそうにしていたり、または少し大人びた表情をしていたりといつもいつも変化している娘の顔を見ては可愛いなぁと思い、その気持をついつい口に出す私です。今夜ふと、どうして自分は本当にいつでもそんなふうに思うのだろう？と自分を振り返ってみると、娘がまだ本当に小さかった頃には、上にまだ小さい娘を二人持ち心にゆとりを持てなかった為に、実際に毎日、可愛いなぁ可愛いなぁと心の中で思っていたにも関わらずその気持を言葉にして伝えてあげる余裕がなかったのだと気付きました。それで今はそのやり直しを自分にさせてあげているのだと思います。
　娘は、二人の上の娘達も息子も含めて本当に心から可愛らしいです。この心の奥からふつふつと湧いてくる気持は彼らが生まれた時から少しも変わって居ないようなのです。そのことを今確認し、これまでにたくさん迷惑をかけてきましたが、それでも私は、母を続けてきたのだなぁとしみじみ思うのです。これまでに何度か彼らに、生まれてきてくれてありがとうと伝えてきましたが、今夜再び、私に母の気持ちを味あわせてくれてありがとうと心から彼らに伝えたい私です。

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