#16 How Indigenous Cultures Can Teach Us About Spirituality and Children with Bruce Alderman

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Bruce Alderman, MA is affiliate faculty in the College of Psychology at John F. Kennedy University. In 2005 he received his master’s degree from JFKU in Integral Psychology, with an emphasis on Transpersonal Counseling Psychology.  Prior to working at JFKU, he worked and studied abroad for several years in Asia, including teaching courses in creative writing and inquiry at a Krishnamurti school in India. His current areas of interest include Integral Theory and practice, transpersonal psychology, integral postmetaphysical spirituality, among others. In this enlightening podcast, Mr. Alderman shares his insights on listening to, talking with, and honoring children, based on what he has learned from his travels, his spiritual teachers, and from raising his own son.

“You are enough. Trust in life.”
— Bruce Alderman's advice to his 5 year old self
“...Meeting them where they are at, meeting them with more questions and not necessarily with answers, but trusting them to look together with you to something deeper.”
— Bruce Alderman, on talking to children

NOTES

  • Bruce recently launched a YouTube channel that includes conversations with friends and colleagues in the field of Integral Spirituality. Integral Theory is psychologist Ken Wilber’s philosophy, which integrates multiple psychological, scientific, religious and spiritual practices into one cohesive model.

  • While teaching in South Korea, Bruce was deeply saddened by the soul-crushing effect that expectations and pressure to succeed had on children and young people of all ages.

  • In contrast, in Indonesian cultures, particularly Bali and Java, children are spontaneously alive, creative and kind to each other. Children are considered sacred and are cuddled, loved, included in art, music and culture.

  • In Indonesia, both the light and the dark are honored in ceremonies and other aspects of culture.

  • Bruce’s impetus to become a teacher was largely due to the spiritual teacher Krishnamurti, who stressed the importance of interacting with children in a way to prevent them from becoming overly conditioned by society… not “shut down into narrow boxes.”

  • “I to I” is the practice of sitting with someone unconditionally with no expectations, also called “disidentification” because one lets go of the fragments of themselves that they hold on to to survive.

  • Dream Yoga is a Tibetan practice of using visualization as we fall asleep in order to remain lucid in our dreams. In so doing, problem solving, creativity and adventure become more accessible.

  • Words of wisdom:

    • Trust the capacity of children beyond what we expect. Listen. Allow them to express their ideas. Our culture tends to infantilize children.

    • Children have an incompleteness that needs the shaping of the world, but they possess an openness and capacity for communing with the world that we tend to shut down.

    • As adults it is important to try to reclaim our childlike qualities. Although it won’t be the same as it was, it can reconnect us with aspects of our potential.

  • Click HERE to read the full text of the William Wordsworth poem, Trailing Clouds of Glory.

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