Basic Instincts

I've been carefully watching my kid lately - and I realized something.

She's got amazing instincts. If she doesn't like someone, you know it. If she doesn't want to do something, she'll say it. If she is scared, she'll run to me to be held. If she's climbing and is getting scared, she asks for help. She'll laugh when she's happy, cry when she's sad. Tell me exactly what she wants when she wants it- and give me hugs and kisses when she wants to.

We spend all this time trying to break our kids of these habits (if she's scared I encourage her to keep going!! Work through your fear! You can do more! If she doesn't want to kiss me - I bribe her to get a kiss. She tells me what she wants, and I tell her she can't have what she wants when she wants it...) and then we spend a good lifetime trying to relearn what we were taught to suppress and oppress.

By nature, we are selfish creatures - who know what we want. It is beaten out of us, because society teaches us to be self-less and to think for others before we think of ourselves.

And then - when we get older, and find ourselves lost... the one thing we have to relearn is to ask ourselves what it is exactly we want, because we forget to assert ourselves. True - we have to be taught to assert ourselves in less of a juvenile way than our kids do - but in the end, we should KNOW what we want... and I find, in conditioning us to conform - we forget. In fact, I think its the oppression of this "selfishness" if you will - that gets us into trouble.

So - that's why I think - we should trust the basic instinct that you feel. Its often referred to as your "gut instinct" - and sometimes other people refer to it as your "first reaction", but its what you're born with..

Otherwise, you'll forget how to listen to yourself - and then spend a lifetime chasing it down - trying to find it again...