"Who I Am"

"Who I Am" has new meaning this morning after yesterday's park visit with my grandaughter.

"Who I Am" has meant for me in the past; "fallen", "saved by grace", "hopeless apart from Christ", "a mistake", "a product of divorce", "a wife", "a mother" and the many other temporary roles that have been mine thoroughout my life.

Science is bringing us new information all the time about our physical world, and now, I am understanding more and more how the physical world impacts "Who I Am".

Yesterday, my grandaughter had asked an important person in her life to go to the park with her. After a little while, I also went to the park to visit and watch the kids play. But, to my dismay, my grandaughter and her cousin had a "conflict of interest", and came running up to us. Hannah was distraught, but before she reached the park bench where we were sitting, Hannah's cousin had given 'her side of the story".

Without even hearing Hannah's side, this "idolized adult" stroked the hair of the cousin and reprimanded Hannah over the other child's percieved exclusion. Hannah was absolutely devastated, for when she would try to "tell her side", she was told she could not be understood unless she calmed down. All the while, she was being excluded from telling "her side of the story". She perceived the situation as "shaming" to her "person", as Hannah has an honest nature and this was not being affirmed.

When I tried to get Hannah's side, this adult reprimanded me, by saying that Hannah had no business excluding her cousin. Hannah kept saying how she was only trying to "make a new friend", that "cousins were not friends", and that her cousin had pinched her.

In her little mind, categories had not expanded to include different roles. Though she has played with her cousin since birth, her "social side" wanted to expand and befriend the strangers around her. She is an extrovert, this is "who she is". The more she kept defending herself and her desire to make "a new friend", the more this adult kept telling her it was unkind to exclude others and not to get "so hysterical". I was mortified, as I didn't know how to defend Hannah, except to try to help Hannah see an expansion to her categories of "cousin" and "friend", but Hannah perceived my attempt to expand her categories as "shaming". This was never my intent, and it reminded me of the time I tried to give different names to those she loved, when she was only three. Her immaturity was by no means "sinful".

What could have been only a minor incidence of childhood "trauma", had become a major "message" to Hannah's "person". I don't want my grandaughter to think or feel as if "who she is" is "bad innately" and she is in a social environment that will suggest this ego "framing" for her.

On the way back from the park, her Opa attempted to walk along side of her, but she kept telling him that "no one loved her", except her Mommy and Daddy and she didn't want to walk with him, an unusual response from her. She only wanted her Daddy to "come get her". So, her Opa called her Daddy to walk with her back to our house. This suggested to me, that she had internalized a lot of the "guilt" and responsibility for the situation. It is called "shame" and it is an "internal message" about "Who I Am".

Hannah felt betrayed by most everyone that she had loved and trusted in this minor childhood "trauma", because her innate extrovertedness was percieved as "sinful" for excluding another, while her cousin's "sin" of pinching was never addressed.

My daughter has expressed her desire to reconsider how she is approaching Hannah's childishness and I am glad. Hannah is the oldest child and has already taken the "back seat' to her brother's physical problems, and her younger sister's "immediate needs". Hannah's immediate family has been "dysfunctional" in her mind, as her Daddy has been gone every week since March to the "Police Academy". Since she is going into kindergarten, it is important for Hannah to feel confident about "who she is", supported by her whole family, not shamed and demoralized.

All parents have these "encounters" with childishness, but religious ones exasperate the problems by labelling "what is normal" as "sinful". "The Cosmos" (or "God") is displeased with the chld's normal tendencies. Instead of approaching childishness as a stage of immaturity and seeking to guide and reorient the child,; the child is "scared, shamed, and scarred" by messages of "immense importance". The child's needs are minimized, while the "Cosmic God" is immortalized and idolized, by such "child sacrifice"!

I am no child psychologist, but I am a grandparent that has "lived and learned" and loves her grandaughter. My grandaughter should never be "shamed" into submission or obedience. She should obey with the knowledge that doing so, only brings her own happiness, not some "God". Love should be understood and experienced as desiring the best for "Who I Am" apart from any "God". This is what I hope my grandaughter come to know and understand.

Words Have Diverse Meanings,

Words have meanings. That is understood, but humans don't always identify words to their dictionary meanings. Human experience is how children define words. And how these words are "felt" are the understood meaning. True communication means that one understands the individual's definitions, as well as the word itself.

Have you ever had a "reaction" or response to an event that went way beyond the actual event itself? Your emotions were "out of kilter"? Why do you suppose this happened? Memories that are recorded in the brain are "revived" by some "image" that parallels the present experience. One can have physical reactions to such experiences, whether good or bad. And such emotional responses have a lot to do with religious feeling.

How do you suppose that such "recordings" or "brain images" are transformed?

Children need nuture, not harsh discipline to grow to a fruitful maturity. Discipline should be age appropriate, and not demanding or overwhelming to the child. Childish fears should be respected, not by dismissing childish fears, but giving the child a means of self-responsibility. A flashlight that can be turned on if the "monster" invades his/her room, or a special "fairy wand" that makes a "magic space of protection, where the "monster" cannot see the child.

The religious child is trained to "pray to God" for protection and help. And the child's belief in "God's help" is really the parent's representation of "god" to the child. Good parenting should give the child a means to transferring his dependence on "god" (parental image) to "self".

Childish beliefs must be challenged, and children need to grow up to own their life, where fear doesn't inhibit healthy self-identity. Without self identity, the child will never grow to become and make a difference. He will be crippled and left to his childish imaginations where "monsters" (the Devil) invade his "world" and make bad things happen, or "God" invades his world and makes "good things happen".

Words have meanings and true communication means that individuals seek to understand the meanings, images, messages of the words that are used, so that understanding and true communication can happen.

"Sleeping With the Enemy" Is One's "Moral Duty"?

Tonight, an old Julia Roberts movie was on, "Sleeping With the Enemy". It reminded me of what happens psychologically whenever tyranny rules over another.

The story line is of an abusive husband and his compliant wife, who eventually escapes his torture by feigning her death. The husband's compulsion for "order" in the house, and "control" of his wife is what abuse and psychological damage entails. The damage and trauma followed her to her "new life". She could not relax for fear that he would be "correcting" her, or around the corner to "discipline" her. Her fears interfered with her ability to form a close relationship to the 'new boy on the block".

Religious morality in some segments would support the wife's compliance with such "terrorism". She would learn to be submissive and learn virtue by submitting her selfishness and "self" to her husband's will.

Her husband's will was unreasonable. He demanded perfection in how the towels "matched" and were hung straight on the towel rack. The cans in the cabinet must be ordered in exact rows and she needn't think that she could have any will of her own, as he "owned" her. She could not relax, or be "herself". She must be conformed into an image that only he could imagine.

Some religious people think that such "order" is proper behavior according to their "social norm".  And God is no less demanding than the husband in his "absoluteness". There is little room for liberty of conscience. But, scientists also, urge conforming to their "social image", via behavioral standards of alturism. Such behavior is considered universal morality and it is deemed by some, that Americans lack a "moral compass", or have the ability to be compassionate. "Moral discipline" is needed to rectify such unrefined views.  One must submit to the standards that others have for you, for fear they will impose "discipline". Such discipline is "habit formation" where leaders determine the course for a given life. The wife responded to such demands by escaping, an attempt to survive.

Survival is a basic human need. And survival is more than physical sustenance, but psychological wholeness. Security is of necessity to psychological health. But, again, the religious believe that one should "leap in the dark" to prove one's "faith". God is the only one that can be trusted, so others don't deem it necessary to be trustworthy.

The reasons for such "demands"  from the religious of the scientists, are similar to the abusive husband's. He knew how things "should be" and he was superior to his wife in wisdom. Pride was his vice, as he demanded virtue from her. The religious and the scientific can be just as vicious.

Whenever I see or hear of such abuse, it sends chills up my spine and a gut response of repulsion. No one, whether a spouse, a religious leader, a scientist, or a government should abuse the individual in such a way. It is called tyranny. And tyranny must be resisted.