Friday
What a day. This is one for the history books, kids. Key takeaways from Flynn’s guilty plea. I keep checking Twitter (which I never do) waiting for a response from Trump, but nothing yet!
In other news, work was insane but I have help now. They found me a junior digital designer and we cranked today. Thankful for the help, and for the fact that it’s Friday.
Boys are over their flu bug (which explains the sleepless nights this week), but now their dad has it, BAD. It’s like a man cold but much much worse. Which brings me to my thought nugget for the day…
The need for Acknowledgement.
After listening to the podcast from last night (This American Life, Fermi’s Paradox) and connecting with the middle story “Two can be as sad as one” about lonely marriage (boo hoo, me and the rest of the world, right?), I’m mulling over the very human need for recognition. Acknowledgment. Just another person shifting their focus off themselves and really SEEING us for who we are, and accepting us.
Why? Why do we need this so deeply?
Well because we aren’t doing a good job of giving it to ourselves, for whatever reason. And it’s up to us to figure out why. Then maybe try to do a better job of accepting ourselves.
Easy to say, tough to do.
Another worry pebble in my brain pocket is this need for Differentiation.
Within marriage, families, with our children.
Thinking of our boys, undifferentiated yet:
In general, similar to self-esteem, as children we’re able to accept ourselves only to the degree we feel accepted by our parents. Research has demonstrated that before the age of eight, we lack the ability to formulate a clear, separate sense of self–that is, other than that which has been transmitted to us by our caretakers. So if our parents were unable, or unwilling, to communicate the message that we were totally okay and acceptable–independent, that is, of our hard-to-control, sometimes errant behaviors–we were primed to view ourselves ambivalently. The positive regard we received from our parents may have depended almost totally on how we acted, and unfortunately we learned that many of our behaviors weren’t acceptable to them. So, identifying ourselves with these objectionable behaviors, we inevitably came to see ourselves as in many ways inadequate.
Funny – I’ve given thought to how my tone of voice affects our dogs, wanting to make sure that overall, I use a loving tone with them – not just corrective. Maybe I could apply that more with my boys and husband too.
Lots of thoughts and links, now some tunes before bed: