Permission to Love

My last post ended with a statement about how love is always the answer. This post is going to explain that. When I say love, I don't mean the feeling of love. The butterflies you get, the sweaty palms, the day dreaming, the sense of urgency to spend every second of your life with someone. That's a feeling. And ALL FEELINGS GO AWAY. Even love feelings. I mean the action of love. I say love, but you could use a number of different terms. Love is what makes sense to me. Love is an action that is taught. Love is the first layer of the brain that is formed. The brain is like an onion. It's built in layers. That's why the whole 'you gotta crawl before walk' is pretty much true. It's also why you can't reason with a threenager. Only people without children believe that you can. Children are incapable of reasoning until a certain age (this all varies of course from child to child so don't hassle me) so until then, your best bet is to hold on and love the shit out of them. When you bring home your teeny tiny bundle of joy, the FEELINGS you have will be varied and overwhelming. Some say they are in love. Which is weird. It's weird because I typically imagine those puppy love type of love feelings when parents say that, but maybe that was before I had my own children???? Annnnnway, there are a lot of feelings. When your tiny baby cries, and you respond, that builds the baby's first layer of the onion. The love layer. The meeting basic needs layer. The I don't give a shit if it's 2 am or if you're at dinner, please feed me layer. Responding to your newborn, teaches the newborn that it's safe and taken care of, it's not starving and not freezing, and if someone or something were to try to eat it or carry it off or maul it, if it cried, you'd come running to help it. So after that layer is built it can move on to learning other things. See how that works?? So it's a really important layer. By responding to your newborn, you give it permission to go ahead and move towards not being a newborn. You give it permission to communicate with you. You'll be there. You're the one to cry for. You're the one that knows what to do. It's a really really important layer. Simple right???

BAHAHAHAHAHHA. BA.HA.HA.HA. Simple, yes. Easy, no. Say it with me, ALL FEELINGS GO AWAY. Even those lovey dovey newborn feelings. Even those feelings you had for your perfect offspring go away. A few weeks in and you'll question your choice to pro-create. When you drag your starving, dirty clothes wearing, sleeping in the recliner, boob hanging out, milk everywhere, smelly self up to respond to your precious bundle of joy........your feelings won't exactly be feelings of love. You will be acting out of love. At least that's what I'm calling it. So now we are on the same page about what I'm calling love.

Actual Threenager

Perspective is a funny thing. It can be both detrimental and somewhat magical. In the one hand, the only perspective that matters is your own. Let's face it, you will never be able to accurately see another person's perspective because your own perspective is blocking your view. When I was in kindergarten I remember how magical I thought my teacher was. She was full of knowledge, incredibly kind and if I turned my head just right I could see her halo. One day I was sitting on the carpet eagerly awaiting the next magical thing on the agenda and she began to tell a story to which I remember none. You see, my listening skills came to a screeching halt when she said something about going to the grocery store. Wait. What? Why in the hell would she go to the grocery store? There is an entire cafeteria down the hall filled with every kind of food a person could want! My mind was exploding trying to imagine her at the grocery store. How did she even get there? Did the school bus take her? Why would she go anywhere else? There were those great mats for sleeping, structured activities, scheduled eating times, and several bathrooms. Why ever leave the kindergarten building? As far as I knew, my teacher was only a teacher. Now, obviously my perception wasn't detrimental and that of a child. I tell you this story to illustrate just how inaccurate perception can represent reality. Reality, can only be seen through the eyes of the observer, which is a moot point, because in life we all have a dog in the fight whether we realize it or not. So, if you understand that perception isn't a true depiction of reality, and you can control your perception (you can) why not just make it a perception with rose colored glasses? THEN, perception becomes magical. I'm not suggesting that you live in la la land and get taken advantage of. I'm suggesting that you control your perspective to a point that it positively impacts your life, your reactions, your mood, your mindset.

Recently, I received an email from a person I was once best friends with. Over time we grew apart and became nothing more than 'friends' on social media. I have had no ill feelings towards this person. I've had no feelings about this person in general. As far I as knew, she had no feelings about me either. Some things 'happened' on social media and I decided to block her because I will not have rude, unnecessary comments on my page. Let me tell you, if you want to hear from someone, block them. The email included all sorts of terrible things, but below is the one line that stuck:

 Wrong. YOUR perception is YOUR reality. Now, obviously this is the detrimental side of perception. So personally, I'm strapping on my rose colored, love filled glasses and will keep marching forward. I give you permission to do the same. When you face struggle, negativity, adversity, and you overcome, you give others permission to overcome. When you slack off, make negative statements, make fun of people, have a piss poor attitude, act out of anger, you give them permission to do that also. Weak minds will follow suit when those around them are negative. Weak minds will post, share, comment, like and further spread negativity when another person does so. My heart aches for society when there is a tragedy and the best we can do is make memes that are satirical, passive aggressive, sarcastic, egotistical, and just flat out mean spirited. It seems as though we've forgotten that actual people exist. Struggle is a gift. It's a gift because you have the strength to overcome it. When I was young(er), I didn't see it this way. I saw it as a burden. An excuse to crumble and make bad choices. An excuse to take the easy way out. Luckily, I married someone that has guided me toward realizing the strength that I was blind to for so long. I noticed something along the way; when I held myself to a higher standard, those around me did the same. When I decided to believe in ME, I noticed that others started believing in themselves too. If you have been given the gift of struggle, and we all have, you have a responsibility. You have a responsibility to strap on your rose colored glasses, and get to work. You have a responsibility to overcome with love. When your baby cries, you have a responsibility to take care of it. You have a responsibility to forgive when someone does you wrong. You have a responsibility to reach out to a friend in need. You have a responsibility to be vulnerable. You have a responsibility to keep moving forward when you're hurt. You have a responsibility to act out of love. You have a responsibility to be great. When you give yourself permission to absolutely crush these responsibilities, you give others the same permission.

This is me giving you permission to act out of love. This is me giving you permission to be great. This is me giving you permission to fulfill your potential. This me giving you permission to hold yourself to high standards and be unapologetic about it.

Now you officially have a responsibility to give permission to others.  

#poweryourown