   Honoring the Emotional Self
Rationality is man's prime virtue. Yet, emotions can often be irrational. Thus, one could conclude that emotions are bad or irrelevant or should be denied. But if one dismisses emotions as not valuable and one represses them, one loses a vital part of conscious life. That vital part is the experience of joy and pleasure.
Emotions exist for a purpose and are an inherent part of consciousness. They're indicators of danger (the
feeling of pain) and security (the feeling of comfort).
While emotions aren't guides to action, they could point one in the direction for further investigation. But one first has to be in touch
with one's emotions. One has to be able to feel them, however subtle or imposing. Then one has to acknowledge that they're real.
One has to accept them as real, perhaps by thinking, "Okay, now I'm feeling such and such emotion. I'm going to focus my attention on it and see where it leads. I'll own this part of myself,
even if it's a temporary inconvenience; even if I don't like where it's going.
I know that this feeling will pass and I'll be fine."
By holding one's emotional self as a real value, one remains open to life's greatest experiences. Those experiences include excitement, happiness, romantic love and esthetic pleasures.
Honor the Wise Person
An apprentice gains firsthand knowledge by watching how an expert works. So too with
wisdom. Don't read about it in a book; find yourself an expert.
Imagine
being hired to build a bridge across the Hudson River. You're supplied with all the tools, equipment and manpower and offered
a whopping $10 million dollar fee. But there's one condition:
You're the only engineer
allowed on the job. Now of course you don't know anything about bridge building and it took mankind thousands of years to
master these techniques. So how will you accomplish the goal?"
"Well, I plan to visit different bridges. I'll look at them and walk across them. And then I'll try some trial-and-error, perhaps sticking
some beams into the dirt."
Of course this is ridiculous.
You'd spend the next 50 years experimenting and still get nowhere. The more intelligent approach is to say: "Give me a year
at M.I.T. I'll study hard, hire private tutors and read every engineering text I can get my hands on. Then I'll come back
and build that bridge."
Nobody undertakes an important project without being trained. So why do we go ahead and choose a career, get married and raise children - all without training?
We defend ourselves with slogans like: "I'll play it by ear and work it out as I go."
Then when things go wrong,
we lick our wounds and start all over again. Is this any way to live?
Life is infinitely more complicated
than bridge building. If you want to build a meaningful life, you need to find wise people and be ready for an intensive course of study.
Way #10 is b'shimush chachamim
- literally "serving the wise." This means to:
a) learn from him
b) assist him
To succeed in life, you have to desire wisdom and pursue it with enthusiasm. Hang around wise people and see how they apply wisdom to living. Ask a lot of questions and keep asking as long as they're willing to give you the time.
Wisdom is the most important thing in the world; the key to a meaningful life. You'd never dream of using trial and error in the operating room. So why
leave your personal life to guesswork?
Learn about Life
Human beings like independence. We hate to admit that we need others. Most people would rather learn from their own mistakes, than learn from others. We imagine we'll just "figure it
all out" as we go along. "I know I'm smart. I can work it out."
Life is too short for this.
We're bound to make mistakes anyways. So why add those we could otherwise prevent? As the saying goes: "A fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise person learns from the mistakes of others."
But we see people doing this
all the time. College students travel across Europe "to learn about life." They may meet a lot of people walking down the
street, but there are much more efficient ways to learn about life. If you're serious, you'll make a plan and get someone
to teach you.
Imagine you could go back
in time 10 years and teach yourself an important lesson. Would you have listened? Would it be a mistake not to listen?
Now go talk to someone 10
years older. Ask him: "Did you ever make a mistake?" He certainly has learned something about life. Does that make sense?
Realize that you have a built-in
resource of wisdom: your parents. They're not the old fogies you might think they are. As Mark Twain used to say, "When I went to college, my father was a fool. When I came back 4 years later, I was amazed how much wiser he'd become!"
Do you want to give your parents some pleasure? Ask them for advice on an important issue - marriage, career. That will make them really happy. And on the wisdom scale, you can achieve what it might take 20 years on your own.
As a way to get started in
this process, think about the following question: "If I could meet anyone alive today, who would it be and what would I ask?"
Now work backwards and find
someone who can help approximate your ultimate goal. And don't stop pursuing wisdom until you find it.
Assist the Wise Person
If the president of the United
States came to visit, you'd get up, bring him a drink and be ready to help him in any way possible. You'd ask for advice and
listen attentively. (Even if you voted against him - it's still the president of the United States!)
We should do the same for
a wise person. Stand up when he enters the room, help him, pay attention to him. As the Sages say: "Serving a wise person is even greater than learning Torah" - more than any lecture or textbook.
Be an apprentice. Follow your
mentor around. Accompany him to meetings and on errands. Observe every nuance. You can read all about it in a textbook, but
the best education is to watch an expert work.
Serving your mentor makes
you closer to him. You'll be alert and eager to hear his advice. You'll have more respect for his wisdom. You'll understand what makes your mentor a cut above the rest.
Above all, you'll learn and
you'll grow.
Be Prepared To Absorb Wisdom
If you learned everything
from everyone, you'd be one of the wisest people in the world. But that's not practical, so you have to prioritize your "wisdom needs."
Begin with a list of important life topics like marriage and child raising. Then add more global issues.
Now go shopping with your
list. Ask people: "Do you have expertise in this or do you know someone who can help?" Carry your list around with you, so
you'll always be prepared to ask the wise person.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- What does it mean to be a "good person?"
- How can I be kind to others without being taken advantage of?
- How can I control my anger?
- What is the key to greatness?
- How can I maximize my time?
- What makes a marriage successful?
- How do I use my full potential?
- How do I break out of laziness?
- How do I get more joy in living?
- How can I have more patience w/my children?
- How can I be a better son/daughter?
- What are my responsibilities to my community?
- What is the meaning of existence?
- What does God want from me?
- Is there an afterlife?
- How do we achieve world peace?
Choosing A Teacher For Life
In grammar school, you had
a new teacher every year. Just when you became familiar with one teacher, it was time to move up a grade and meet the next
one.
As adults, we need to take a different approach. Ideally, you should find one mentor to use throughout your life.
To find the right mentor,
don't just take the nearest expert, the one on the block. "Shop" intelligently. Get references. Check credentials. See if
he lives honestly and consistently with his knowledge. Test his wisdom with questions. Find out who his own mentors are. Make sure he's part of a respected community.
The key to a good mentor is
to develop strong trust and communication. Criticism is difficult to swallow, but it's a less bitter pill when it comes from someone you trust, someone who has insight and wisdom, someone who you believe is only out for your own good. Choose someone who understands you and who knows your background and family history.
Above all, make sure the mentor
is available. Because you can have the greatest mentor in the world, but if you can't speak with him/her, what good is it?
If you can't find the right
person, make an "interim mentor" to bounce ideas off of and be accountable to. King Solomon was the wisest person who ever lived, yet he still had a mentor. Tradition says that as long as Solomon's mentor
was alive, he never made a mistake; once the mentor died, Solomon erred. Having an objective advisor is so crucial that even
if you choose someone who is "less wise" than yourself, it's still worth it.
Always be on the lookout and
don't give up until you find the right one.
The Loyalty Factor
Human beings tend to hold
onto what we "know" and defend our position. Wisdom requires change, moving out of our comfort zone. Too often we avoid the pain and drop the wisdom altogether.
Resist this temptation. In
choosing a mentor, find someone who'll challenge you and encourage you to become great. Don't choose someone who allows you to maintain your weaknesses and prejudices.
Be loyal
to your mentor. Then you're less prone to shop around every time he suggests something you don't like. By shopping, you'll
end up with someone who is less challenging to your prejudices. If you have a good doctor, you rely on his opinion. If you have a good mentor, stick with him. Don't shop around for answers that you like.
Tell him, "If you see me doing
anything wrong, point it out. I'll promise to pay strict attention." Then, if he says that you're making a certain mistake - i.e., being counter-productive - you have to listen. Even if you disagree, you're not allowed to dismiss what he says as "You go your way and I'll go mine." You owe your teacher
respect. You've accepted that responsibility.
This doesn't mean you follow
the mentor blindly. You don't have to agree, but you're obligated to try and understand his position. Work through the issues together. Figure out who's making a mistake. Tell him: "Either convince me or agree
with me."
That is the power of having a mentor, because the message eventually penetrates your wall of defense. You will overcome some bad mistakes.
Furthermore, we humans are
very subjective about ourselves. We twist reality and can't see ourselves. A mentor gives you objective feedback. He reduces
your capacity to rationalize. You feel accountable and think twice before you act. "What would my mentor say if I did this?" If you can't come up with a good answer, don't do it.
To get started, go ask 3 people:
"What do you recommend I do in this situation?" Get some advice and if you disagree, argue it out with them, respectfully. Try it.
Why is "Honoring the Wise Person" A Way To Wisdom?
- To learn about life, you need a mentor, someone to guide you
on a rational and consistent path.
- Human beings are subjective.
We need someone to help give us objectivity.
- Independence is human nature, but if you don't moderate it, it will stand in the way of your growth.
- Be
a student of truth. The most destructive disease is ignorance - not being connected with reality.
- Get in touch with those who understand life and pump them for information.
- Go find a teacher now.
INITIATIVE
Group honors fathers for being involved dads
Tyrone Chandler cocks his head and zeroes in - best to be unobtrusive. He silently
approaches the unassuming man in the light-blue shirt and clears his throat. He has caught John McCarthy being a “Golden
Dad.” The second annual Golden Dads campaign, an effort to recognize involved, responsible and committed fathers, occurs Father's Day weekend in Indianapolis and 9 other U.S. cities.
The National Fatherhood Initiative, which aims to increase the proportion of children
growing up with involved fathers, conducted the event with Rendezvous Entertainment and HUM Recordings, recognizing 100 Golden Dads in each city.
“We noticed you being a responsible father and wanted to present you with this badge,” Chandler tells McCarthy. He hands McCarthy a bright yellow bag full
of goodies such as CDs, bookmarks and a button proclaiming the Golden Dad status.
“It's a great opportunity to celebrate fatherhood,” said Roland Warren,
a father of two and president of the National Fatherhood Initiative. “We think it's really important to illuminate those dads that are doing the right thing.”
Golden Dads received recognition in Indiana on Saturday at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis and at the Indianapolis Zoo. Volunteers with the Indiana
Youth Institute, the state affiliate for the National Fatherhood Initiative, scoured the sites for positive father-child interaction, said Chandler, the institute's director of community development. He had caught McCarthy, of Westfield,
displaying that interaction at the museum.
"It's just a great joy to have kids - playing with them and watching them grow up," McCarthy said.
He had been watching a video about how sneakers are assembled with his 5-year-old
daughter, Bridgette. Accompanying them were his wife, Jean, and sons Johnny, 4, and Joe, 1. They'd arrived at 8:30 a.m., just
in time to be first in line for the Dinosphere exhibit.
"It was good," Bridgette said, from the safety behind her father's back.
Other fathers recognized Saturday included Troy Goley, of Fishers, who took pictures of his wife and 3 children at the museum. And there was Muhia
Karianjahi, of Carmel, whose 2 sons played with toy trains with his wife. Roland Ball, of Dallas, wanted to surprise his 8-year-old
son, whose room has dinosaur decorations, with the Dinosphere exhibit. And JR Runkel, of Illinois, played with toy shovels
at the museum with his 3-year-old twin sons and their grandfather. Steve Webb, a nurse from Danville, also was recognized at the museum.
Webb was there with his 2-year-old daughter, Emily, while his wife, also a nurse,
worked. Webb was quick to explain the best parts of fatherhood. “The hugs and the kisses,” he said, smiling and
holding Emily. Indianapolis Youth Institute volunteer Gloria Vaughn had spied Webb being a Golden Dad. And now, on the first
floor of the museum, Vaughn thinks she sees another one. She observes her subject from afar and watches him twirl his children
around the museum as they shriek with pleasure. With a child clutching each of his
hands and with his wife and other child by his side, the man prepares to leave. Vaughn intercedes.
“You've been caught,” she tells him, laughing. “You were caught
being a Golden Dad.”
But the man shakes his head. He laughs, too. Then he holds up a bright yellow bag
to show he's already been nabbed. The man is John McCarthy. The same qualities that earned him recognition only an hour earlier had attracted Vaughn's attention, she says. She thinks he should be named a Golden Dad again.
“His smile was bigger than the kids',” she says. “He was having
just as much fun as they were.” By Sara Scavongelli
22 June 2004
|
 |
|
Honoring the Child
John Gray, Ph.D.
Children come into this world
with a gift - the ability to love their parents unconditionally. They effuse love, but don't have the ability to love themselves.
They need to be encouraged to learn; to see themselves as worthy, capable, intelligent and loving human beings. The way they view themselves is reflected in the mirror of their parents:
how the parents treat the child, how the parents listen to the child (e.g. the child is normal, the child feels normal).
If the child is acting out,
the parent might say to the child, "When are you going to grow up?" Then that child is going to think, "Oh, something's wrong
with me."
Although the parent is hoping to encourage the child to behave like an adult sooner, it is counter productive in the long run. Sometimes with my youngest daughter,
however, someone will say to her, "Why are you acting like a baby ? Why don't you grow up?", or something similar.
Because she has already received
a great deal of acceptance from us, she has a very healthy response. She says, "Hey, I'm just a kid. This is how to behave."
When a parent gives the child permission to be a child who'll easily embrace each stage of development as a
natural, gradual process, the child is honored.
When a parent can acknowledge the child's mistakes and not expect a perfect being, then the child can begin to love him/herself.
I remember, for example, my
daughter calling me into the room when she was around 6 years old, because one of her friends had knocked over a glass and
broken it. The little child was immediately feeling shamed like, "Oh, I've done something terrible." Lauren said, "Oh, its okay, you made a mistake."
Her friend replied, "No, no,
I broke the glass. I'm going to be in trouble." She was frightened; afraid to say anything and recoiling back into herself. Lauren said, "It's okay. Everyone makes mistakes. My Daddy makes mistakes.
Daddy, Daddy will you come here and tell her what mistakes you made this week?"
Nobody's perfect and we need to feel safe to make mistakes. Children need to learn that it's okay to make mistakes. Quite frequently parent's don't acknowledge their mistakes. I know what it's like to be a parent.
You don't want to reveal to
your children that you make mistakes because suddenly they'll start to doubt and challenge you. They'll say, "Well, maybe you're not right."
One of the easier ways to
control children is to hold the position of omnipotence. Certainly parents do know more, but they're not always right. When you give
children the wisdom that 'nobody is always right,' it gives them permission to not always be right and still feel lovable.
We need to give our children the message that its okay to make mistakes and
love isn't withheld, then they can release the fear of making mistakes. As a result, children then feel free to be themselves and the natural self-corrective mechanism within their beings can assist
them in making fewer mistakes.
When children feel safe, they're better able to learn. Actually, we can even go a step further. One of the greatest benefits of emotional literacy and being in touch with one's feelings is that through our feelings our conscience arises; the self-corrective mechanism within children is activated when they're able to be in touch with their feelings.
If a child is treated in such
a way that it's unsafe to express feelings (it's not safe to
feel), then s/he loses the ability to more fully self-correct his/her behavioral attitudes. Therefore, the parent resorts to lecturing which further shuts down the child.
Children have the innate ability
to grow. Consider the enormous amount of evolution - all the things our body does without our saying anything about it. We
can learn to set the table, turn down the stereo and walk across the street. These are simple tasks for our intelligence to
learn and grow in to if we give it time and support.
The self-corrective
mechanism is within every child. However, when the child is punished in a disrespectful way (i.e.: yelling or hitting) then the child isn't safe to tell his/her mistakes to his/her parents. The child then has to deny and defend mistakes and the self-corrective mechanism can never occur.
To control and guide a child, it's certainly important to create responsible consequences. Repeatedly asking should always come first, then talk about it. If that doesn't work, the best way to regain control is to have the child take a time out."
She comes out when she's ready
to talk in a centered and loving way. She has learned that when her behavior is out of control, it's helpful to go into another room, regain control and then come back out. We need to teach and model children to never be ashamed of feelings.
Feelings are always okay.
If
a child has the freedom to experience the sometimes turbulent waves of emotion and discover the part, s/he learns to find balance within him/herself. Emotional literacy creates a compassionate child capable of empathy, appreciation and gratitude.
|
|
|
|
|
loy·al
adj.
- Steadfast in allegiance to
one's homeland, government, or sovereign.
- Faithful to a person, ideal, custom,
cause, or duty.
- Of, relating to, or marked by loyalty. See Synonyms at faithful.
a personal note from kathleen:
after pondering upon the article, left, "Honoring
the Wise Person," then adding the definition of "loyal" here in additional definitions,
it occurred to me that i didn't have a page for "loyalty."
after recognizing the need for a definition for "loyalty" to ensure the complete
understanding of the article, i had to gasp aloud, that i would even be forced to consider doing such a thing.
where is "loyalty" today?
i tried to recall being taught the "importance of loyalty"
growing up & when i came to the conclusion that the subject matter was never approached, i then again realized a very
profound truth.
we wonder why people aren't "loyal" to their wives & children (families), "loyal" to their employers, "loyal" to even themselves as if we were supposed
to inherently develop a "sense of loyalty." we "expect loyalty," but
we don't "teach loyalty." hmmmm....
companies today are "aware of loyalty." "customer loyalty"
seems to be foremost on their minds because "customer loyalty" is the basis for their profits!
even on yahoo's search engine, the following article was #252 concerning "loyalty & the family!"
(another gasp aloud!)
while it's not here yet, i will add a page on "loyalty" when i can get to it. until
then, "ponder upon loyalty" yourself & ask yourself who taught you the principles of "loyalty."
it's really an important life value.
gasping aloud tonight, kathleen...
Family Loyalty
At this time I
would like to share a few thoughts w/you on the subject of your family. All of us know there are many attacks & many assaults
being waged against our family value system especially our religious value system.
With that thought
in mind I'd like, during the course of these few moments that I have w/you, to impart some ideas that will help keep our family
more united & more solid & more in tune w/the mind of Christ concerning family loyalty.
With all the mistakes
& the foibles that a family has for the most part, there's still no place like home. When we hear about all the assaults
being made on the family today by different kinds of philosophies & psychologies, you really wonder why the family &
how the family survives as well as it does.
Is this age more
assaulted than ages past? Are our family values being more attacked than in previous ages? In order to be able to understand
these questions, you have to look back on the history of the family in the last 200 years.
It's fine to be
nostalgic & somehow think that family life was better then, but in many cases it wasn't. Every age has had its share of
pressure, financial, moral & ethical & all of them have hit the families in different ways.
If you go back
to the early days of our country, the family was just a minimal labor force for the industries that came into the area where
they were living. We all know of the father of the home who worked in conditions that were inhumane & filled w/drudgery.
We all know their
life span was shorter. We know that human labor, human life, was a cheap commodity. If you read much of Charles Dickens, you
can compare what he wrote about the exploitation of the family in his time with the same exploitation that has been taking
place in our country for the past 200 years.
At times it is
amazing that the families of certain ages ever survived. The family was dispensable. The factories ground down the worker.
The mining places in our country were horrible places which caused the dehumanization of the bread winner of the home. The
woman of the home had no better lot either.
Hers, too, was
a life of domesticate drudgery that reduced her to raising children, working long hours & having very little joy to show
at the end of her lifetime which was by the way considerably shorter.
Every age has its
assaults & attacks on the family. Every age finds new experiments for different kinds of family structures. We have the
communes, the kibbutz, we have the Hare-Krishna family structures, the kind of family living held out by Rev. Moon.
As one sociologist
has said, these new & varied home styles or family styles last as long as some of the smaller business that rise &
fall in our country. If you study the field of literature you'll soon find that the oldest tragedies in literature are mostly
centered around the family.
The tragedy of
the family of Adam and Eve, Cain & Abel, right down to the tragedies of Hamlet & MacBeth are all interwoven w/one
unit, namely the family.
All kinds of themes
will be preached concerning the various assaults made on the family structure, but the one I would like to stress today is
the importance of working harder at your family life, to make it stronger & more powerful in the face of all assaults
that are being made. This is particularly important for young people to understand if they ever want to start their own family
on the right foot.
It's what's called,
"spontaneous & unconditional loyalty." Let me explain. You've all heard the expression,
blood is thicker than water. For the most part that's true. But how does this affect your family life?
On the day when
your mother & father exchanged their marriage vows they made an unconditional exchange between each other that for better
or poorer, in sickness & in health, in good times & in bad, they could do the best by each other & the best by
you that they could. You've benefited from the loyalty that they've shown to each other
over the years.
None of us could
have ever survived our infancy if it hadn't been for that loyalty that existed between our
parents. It was a bond of blood that gave us the opportunity to survive infancy, childhood, adolescence & teenage life.
Their love & their loyalty worked hand in hand.
The loyalty & love that they exchanged between each other for better or worse benefited us. We don't deserve
it because of what we've done. We don't deserve it because we're entitled to it. We were given that charity, that compassion
& that love as we were growing up because of the love & loyalty of our parents to
each other.
We entered their
love, their circle of kinship in the pledge of concern for us was made by them. We hungered & we were fed. We cried &
we were comforted. We were in danger & we were defended. Nobody in the family circle asked why or if they owed us a favor.
When you think
of it, the kindness we cry out for is there. It's given. Each of us is born into a family that's spontaneously beholden to
us for no better reason for we are its young. This quality of love & loyalty is something
that we can never take for granted.
In a country such
as ours where we see so many things that discourage us from being loyal, we can never forget
that the home in which we lived will thrive because of the loyalty we cultivated. The home
that we live in now is more than just a place to come when we are tired or in need of help. It' a place that enables our patterns
of life to be developed.
That will be passed
on to our own homes. Loyalty to our family name, loyalty even when life at home doesn't always go our way, this is the test each person is confronted
w/in growing up.
Every age will
always find the home being assaulted. The families that survive are those where loyalty
is practiced personally by each person. All of us can blame television for being partially destructive to our value system.
We can blame the economy for making things financially difficult at home, but when it comes to preventing the family from
really being hurt, when it comes to preventing the family from going under, there is no greater virtue than personal loyalty to your family structure.
It doesn't take
too long for any adult to know often too late in life that in the business & social world in which we live, we can never
equal the type of protection we have from people who have sheltered us & protected us through the loyalty they showed us while at home.
Loyalty is what
Christ asked of his disciples. Loyalty is what we have to show to each member of our family
if our family is to become a more Christlike family.
sub·jec·tive
adj.
-
- Proceeding from or taking
place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
- Particular to a given person; personal: subjective
experience.
- Moodily introspective.
- Existing only in the mind; illusory.
- Psychology. Existing only within the experiencer's mind.
- Medicine. Of, relating to, or designating
a symptom or condition perceived by the patient and not by the examiner.
- Expressing or bringing into prominence the individuality of
the artist or author.
- Grammar. Relating to or being the
nominative case.
- Relating to the real nature of something; essential.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
