Looking for Meaning in Life?
A dear friend recently observed that in reading over several of my blogs she thinks my underlying angst is that I am searching for meaning in my life! Right! Well said. What IS this all about? I get up, brush my teeth, make my bed, take Aimee for a walk, see clients, read a book, blog, talk to a friend or two, go to bed, have some food somewhere in all of that, get up, brush my teeth...hmmmmmm. Where is the meaning or what is the purpose? What is the goal? When will I know when I have done IT?
I am discovering that I loose meaning in life when I feel anxious, vulnerable, powerless. When I feel solid, secure, connected, doing what I love and love what I am doing, it all makes so much more sense. Life, for me, is about intimate connection. Thus my obsession with my family and my drive to help couples and families heal. Therapists do for others what they long to be able to do for themselves. I think that might well be true.
As I am loving and trying to guide my adult children, I am also loving and trying to guide those I work with, and in all of that, somewhere I am healing my own family of origin. An anxious, depressed, and overwhelmed mother, and an emotionally absent and overwhelmed father created a quiet little girl who played with Bradshaw, whom no one else could see or hear. Think about this for yourself, for your life. What are you trying to heal in your family? What got missed when you were growing up, because for sure something did, it is impossible to meet ones every need, that you are trying to make up for with your current family? Be incredibly honest with yourself. Are you over-doing it? I was. I tried too hard to heal me and missed some of what else was going on.
I suggest you and your partner spend a good hour or more talking about what you wanted and needed and deserved to have gotten as a child and didn't. Then clarify together how that plays itself out in your family now. Then decide if you are satisfied with how the two of you are doing with the children, or if there might be some changes that would be smart because these kids are not who you were and their needs really are unique to them and not what you missed.
Enough for now. Think, share, write me, read: Hold Me Tight, Sue Johnson; or Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss. Warmly, Nancy
I am discovering that I loose meaning in life when I feel anxious, vulnerable, powerless. When I feel solid, secure, connected, doing what I love and love what I am doing, it all makes so much more sense. Life, for me, is about intimate connection. Thus my obsession with my family and my drive to help couples and families heal. Therapists do for others what they long to be able to do for themselves. I think that might well be true.
As I am loving and trying to guide my adult children, I am also loving and trying to guide those I work with, and in all of that, somewhere I am healing my own family of origin. An anxious, depressed, and overwhelmed mother, and an emotionally absent and overwhelmed father created a quiet little girl who played with Bradshaw, whom no one else could see or hear. Think about this for yourself, for your life. What are you trying to heal in your family? What got missed when you were growing up, because for sure something did, it is impossible to meet ones every need, that you are trying to make up for with your current family? Be incredibly honest with yourself. Are you over-doing it? I was. I tried too hard to heal me and missed some of what else was going on.
I suggest you and your partner spend a good hour or more talking about what you wanted and needed and deserved to have gotten as a child and didn't. Then clarify together how that plays itself out in your family now. Then decide if you are satisfied with how the two of you are doing with the children, or if there might be some changes that would be smart because these kids are not who you were and their needs really are unique to them and not what you missed.
Enough for now. Think, share, write me, read: Hold Me Tight, Sue Johnson; or Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss. Warmly, Nancy
posted by Nancy Ross at
9:31 AM
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