A Month of Mays: May We Embrace Our Differences
Though expressing your uniqueness is seen more and more in a positive light, being different still makes many people uncomfortable. There are plenty of people who grow up feeling rejected by their own family because they were different. During high school years, fitting in was probably one of the top priorities for many of you. And you can still see the effect in the political arena where having one single opinion that goes against the party line can spell the end of a career. Any differences in our beliefs can invite words like “crazy” or “stupid” from people who don’t even know you.
I find it inevitable as a human being. After all, we have a very strong survival instinct that desperately wants to belong somewhere. People who are different from us make us feel unsafe, even if it’s at a subconscious level. That’s why we don’t handle our differences well.
But our differences ARE gifts. They help us open our eyes so that we can learn and grow. They allow us to help each other fill in the gaps. We are all the same in that we are all different. Lately, I’ve learning about children who have prenatal memories, and they tell stories that demonstrate that our differences are truly our gifts.
What are Prenatal Memories?
In Japan, thanks to a researcher named Dr. Akira Ikegawa, it is becoming more and more mainstream to ask young children if they remember anything from the time before they were born. He calls them prenatal memories or 胎内記憶. And amazingly, somewhere around 1 in 5 children apparently do! Many of them describe a world much like the one in the Pixar movie “Soul” where they get to choose their parents, their appearances, and their traits.
Now, this is where it all ties into what I mentioned in my previous post about illnesses. According to Dr. Ikegawa, the babies get to choose a gift before birth. Of all the gifts available, the most beautiful ones are disabilities and illnesses. Apparently, only the bravest babies are allowed to take these glowing, shimmering gifts, and the mothers they choose must be also.
Isn’t that fascinating?! If this is true, doesn’t it turn our societal norms completely upside down on it’s head? For generations after generations, we’ve been shunning and hiding the most gifted amongst us! And even if we didn’t choose illnesses or disabilities as our own gifts, they are still what makes us different from everyone else. We are unique because we chose to be. Our differences really are our gifts.
P.S. To Find Out More on Prenatal Memories
There doesn’t seem to be an agreed-upon word for it yet in English, but googling the words, Pre-Birth Experiences seems to bring up similar stories. You can also search for a man named Christian Sundberg on YouTube for a first person account. Although it is considered fiction, I really enjoyed the book Starborn: A Mystical Tale by John Nelson also.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found many info about young children talking about this in English. For that, I will have to refer you to Japanese YouTube videos, and hope that the automatic English translations are decent enough that you’d get the gist of what they are saying.