Children have no shame when it comes to asking for what they want.
They are endlessly creative in getting their desired outcome. If you are a parent, you surely know this is true!
It is our job as parents to listen to our children’s requests and determine which can be fulfilled and how to best fulfill them. This is a balance of making sure their fundamental needs are taken care of with everything else that needs to be considered outside of them. We need to ask ourselves… Is what our children are asking for healthy and safe? Can we reasonably meet this need and balance it with the larger family’s needs?
We learn to respond to our children’s requests (aka sales pitches) with clear definitive responses… yes, no or later. The clearer we are, the faster our children integrate the answer and are able to move into their next moment.
This is the fundamental art of boundary setting and part of learning to live in an eco-system with each other. This involves all parties articulating their needs and wants without losing sight of the health and integrity of the whole.
Makes sense, huh? But we live in a culture where, as adults, we struggle to ask for what we need and share what’s in our hearts. And when we do, we are often either too meek or too aggressive. Both hide the fact that we are afraid of the vulnerability of being direct. So, what happened to us?
Whether it’s asking for something from our partner, a friend, our own kid, OR asking for money for a service we provide, the story is the same. There is often an entanglement of shame hindering our asking process.
Our innate drive for self-preservation and our joy for going after what we want often feels bled dry. So much so, that we blame the very act of “asking”; the very art of “selling” for our woes.
We think selling is what’s bad, wrong and dirty.
But selling is as natural as breathing air.
Children naturally “sell”.
Young children feel no shame asking for what they want and will go to great lengths to achieve their desired goal. They don’t start out wondering if what they want is possible- they just go after it believing it is. They have the “stuff” every selling guru is trying to teach.
We need to reclaim our childhood joy, the part of us that naturally wants to share, as well, ask directly for what we want and need.
Instead of writing off selling as “bad”, let it be our teacher; our guide back to our childlike joy.
It’s a ritual that has much to teach us about who we really are. Within it, every block we have in our heart is revealed, along with endless opportunities to remove them.
Another word, selling isn’t what is shameful… but it CAN put a spotlight on the shame that is already in us. Let us not run from this ritual, but enter into it as a process that can help heal whatever childhood wounds took our natural love of asking for what we want and sharing what we have to give away.
What a beautiful thing!!
There still IS a little girl or boy inside each of us dying to be heard.
Time to give them a voice, get on out there and sell with all your heart!
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