- Not The Only One!
- Post#127
- 04 Apr 24
- ” The Need”
- Howdy!
- Thanks again for taking the time. My son recently moved halfway across the country and my response to it has frankly caught me a little by surprise. He’s a hugger, kind of tender hearted and he was raised with being hugged, but he’s not really known for being touchy Feely ☺️☺️. In later years I have much struggled with emotions and their proper placement myself. My son also shares my lot in life with emotions and the proper placement of, but more so the expression of those emotions. If I’m being completely honest, I think that we would just rather keep them locked away in a box somewhere, because, once they are out they can wreak havoc, and be expressed in unhealthy ways. I believe that there is something known as the proper response, but we often seem to gravitate towards the extremes. The extremes show up as fits of rage, or we retreat to avoidance and kind of nonverbal and nonresponsive. More on that to come.☺️☺️ He’s not an only child and we have spent much of the last two years working on our relationship, which was severely damaged when his mother and I went our separate ways. My tyrannical heart approached him leaving, much like when his sister went off to college or the day that I gave her away to her now husband. It was a bit of a roller coaster☺️.
- I think on some level it calls in to play your parenting skills and if you have done a good job of preparing them for the things that you know the world will throw at them. I don’t believe that either myself or their mom qualifies as a helicopter parent. I believe that they are both responsible adults and understand that certain decisions in life come with certain consequences attached to them. It’s a little bit of every action cause some kind of consequential reaction, or if you like ,cause and effect☺️☺️. My son moving away hit me a little hard because his sister is already hundreds of miles away, but more importantly it’s the bitter sweet reality that as parents we did our job and that they feel confidently enough to move away and navigate the uncharted waters of life. Ok, so by now you are probably wondering where this is going ☺️☺️. Well !, frankly it had me wrestling with the fact that I want him here, but I don’t need him here. My need/ wanting him to be close by are bound up in selfish reasons. As I said we have been working on our relationship and yes, that is easier to do when he’s only an hour away opposed to having to jump on a plane, train , or a long exhausting car drive, not saying that it’s not worth it ☺️☺️. We talked about doing our first video chat together, which we have never done, but I seem to be able to execute flawlessly with his sister every week, thank God for technology ☺️☺️.
- I wish that I could tell you that I don’t have a selfish bone in my body, but that is so far from the truth ☺️☺️. While inflation is rampant and off the charts right now, we still live in a very prosperous society, it just now cost you more to be apart of that society ☺️☺️. I don’t know about You, but for me, my selfishness often shows up when I have trouble distinguishing between wants and needs. We often say that we need something that is actually more closely related to a want. We will often look around at what others are doing or own, and think to ourselves, I need that, when actually, you don’t need it, you just want it.☺️ This is not about materialism, fear of missing out, or even about working hard acquiring things and then feeling guilty over it because others don’t have what you have. The last one probably isn’t so much a problem , because we take great pride in separating ourselves from the pack and saying ” eat your heart out”, which is a little odd saying in itself ☺️☺️. This is about the ability to be able to distinguish between the two and the correct placement of needs verses wants and desires. We take so many things for granted and so much of what we consider necessities are actually luxuries. Your life and your heart doesn’t stop beating if you don’t own a microwave or a flat-screen TV, and the same is true for luxury automobiles and other perks in life. Again! , this isn’t about class warfare or the guilt ticker tape, but about distinction. I believe that we should get down to basics and ask ourselves how certain things in life for us, move from one category to the next.
- We live in the age of the “Upgrade”, and my hat is off to advertisers who do an incredible job , with slamming the message home that , ” you deserve it”….really? ☺️☺️. This country right now has the highest levels of credit card debt, that has ever been seen. They will tell you that you deserve it, but never, not once talk about the damage that you maybe doing to your credit report ☺️☺️. I will compare it to days gone by, when we use to glorify cigarette smoking in movies and on huge billboards all across the nation . It was so sexy and hot with a cigarette and blowing smoke rings, but they never showed you the little oxygen tank that you would, possibly could be pulling behind you one day, because that wasn’t sexy or cool. We could probably have a heated debate all day long about how You feel that certain wants are actually needs. And remember a need is something that you need to do life with, it’s not about some super level of existence, as in I don’t know how I could ever get along without my nanny or butler ☺️☺️. Again nothing wrong with having those things, I’m just saying don’t behave like other people haven’t successfully done life without those things. We can debate, just try to keep the entitlement to a minimum ☺️☺️.
- If I may, I’d like to turn the page and simultaneously the heat up along with it.☺️☺️. I haven’t kept it a secret that I’m a Christian and believe in God, and not just believe, because even demons believe in God, but they don’t have an ongoing personal relationship with God, and that is the distinction, because some times I do have demon like behaviors ☺️☺️. That being said, I know that God watches over me. I believe the saying is that God watches out for fools and babies, and I have been weaned for many years now☺️☺️. So let’s bring the microscope over to the huge pile of nouns, being people places and things that God has either rescued me from or kept me from injuring myself with. I think that anyone who has ever attended a high school or college class reunion, can probably give God a deep, deep appreciation of gratitude from things that didn’t take place, that you thought was such a great idea when you were there☺️☺️, come on you know what I’m talking about ☺️☺️. God is not a Genie in a bottle, but I know that often my prayer life might tell another story ☺️☺️. God has the ability to know the difference between what we need in life and those strong wants and desires. We pray for a spouse for many years, sometimes that prayer maybe answered, but scripture also tells us that everyone isn’t supposed to be married, and I know that deflates a lot of those soul mate balloons out there☺️☺️. Perhaps, just maybe the divorce rate speaks to that☺️. I think that maybe one of the biggest lies in life is that we are supposed to be happy all the damn time. Then it doubles down on the nonsense, by telling you that your partner or spouse is supposed to make you happy. What a heavy burden, just waiting to give way under the wait of that expectation☺️☺️. I believe that this lie has led to more depression and anxiety then all of the other trauma combined in life. We should be cheerful, but it should be based on having peace and joy in our lives and some happiness should flow out of that. If we feel as if we always need to be happy , then that means that something has to always be happening to drive that force in life and when it’s not, we are unhappy and or depressed. It’s a way of getting us to chase our tales and always looking for the next high of happiness. I know that ultimately I’m talking about contentment. If we have a firm grip on contentment, then we have less trouble distinguishing between needs and wants. I have spoken before about the 80/20 rule, and it’s often rooted in discontentment, and it’s where we will trade the eighty percent of what we do have for the twenty percent that we don’t have. It’s not making you whole, you are just trading the more, for the lesser thing, maybe it’s some of that new math ☺️☺️.This is something that I see all the time in relationships. It’s not about settling as much as it is about having gratitude for your current blessings in life.
- This one here is a sticking point for me. I constantly hear people, especially women talking about they need to be respected. I’m not saying that they don’t, but according to most research, a woman’s greatest need is to be loved. I don’t know which school of thought you subscribe to and connect with as in , Respect is earned or, respect is given mutually, and the obvious problem is that many people don’t respect themselves and don’t have the foggiest of how to give it. I think across the board when someone is screaming for respect that it is actually rooted in or a cry for love, as in that is what they are seeking . See!, the crazy part is, if someone cuts you off in traffic, the immediate go to may be disrespect, but in actuality they were behaving in an unloving manner. See , we think it’s crazy to associate the word love with a total stranger in traffic, but that is the key and missing ingredient. If we treated people with love then respect would flow from that. It a universal thing, it’s not supposed to be just for people who You like or people who show you love. Truth be told, there are people whom you will never be able to respect for one reason or the other, but that shouldn’t stop you from loving them. I know first hand how some people can be difficult to love…..but for somebody else, you are that difficult person ☺️☺️ I think if you take a second and think about what I’m saying it will make total sense. I wish that the two, love and respect always traveled together, but they don’t. We often hurt the people that we love and I’m talking about people that we love the most , hopefully not intentionally, but that pain is often registered as disrespect and not unloving. In fact, the shouts of feeling unheard, not valued, dismissed, taken for granted and the works , basically its all the same heart’s cry put to different words☺️☺️
- My goal here is not to down play respect and how important that is, but the greater call is to love people, not just with words, but it’s so important to show it with our actions. In my own life, this is sometimes like trying to navigate a mine field,☺️☺️ because some people will just refuse to let you love on them or they have a twisted and distorted view or perception as to what love is. Love is Not an unconditional acceptance of everything that you want to do is fine! . We know that we don’t let our children play in the streets and that is an act of love. That picture gets immensely more complicated with adults. If you have a friend or a child and they want you to give them money for drugs or alcohol, then often, most of the time the loving thing to do is to say No! You probably can imagine the perspective of them feeling disrespected and unloving by your position, but this is an example of someone not wanting you to love on them. Sometimes saying No , is one of the most loving things that you can do. I’m not really sure how the path to least resistance equate to loving someone ☺️☺️. God says to love other people and He didn’t put conditions or parameters on that love. I stand corrected! Wait! We just celebrated Easter and Holy week and each day of that week brought another passionate piece to the journey towards the cross. We have something now known as ” Munday Thursday ” . If you are unfamiliar with this, Munday is where we get our word from to mandate something. All through scripture God calls us to love, but on this particular Thursday, Jesus doubled down on it , and He said to love as He has loved you. ♥️♥️❤️❤️. Wow!! , what a statement, what a mandate!!. How overwhelmingly impossible to do. It’s one of those things that we should always be striving towards, but will probably never achieve ☺️☺️.
- It’s the basic of all needs, and that is to be loved, valued and cared for. There has never been a person who didn’t need or want love. There has never been a person who wasn’t or isn’t worthy of love, especially in the eyes of God. God sees and knows what we need in life, and He’s extremely good at knowing the difference between wants and needs. He knows what we need, and it’s often something completely different from what we are thinking ☺️☺️. God will place a difficult person in your life to show you every difficult flaw that you have, with those blinders on☺️☺️. I believe this is supposed to be a mutual thing , as in its a chance for you both to grow and to be something that you never could have imagined. Oh! Yes, there will absolutely be pain involved, but much like the agitation for an oyster, something quite beautiful can come from it. ☺️God can see through all of the smoke screens of life. The things that we window dress as a needs, which is actually a want. Sometimes it’s so obvious to everyone except ourselves, that we are hurting and longing and our deepest need is to be accepted and love.
- I said more to come and talked about extremes in our emotions and in our behaviors, as to whether we are someone who refuses to let others love on them or not . The other extreme is people who attempt to love people and do it in the most messed up way imaginable☺️☺️ . I think that it is literally impossible to love people without God, and that goes for both the people that we know, such as family and friends and especially for those that we don’t know, such as a stranger with a sign on the corner of the street. We love, but it’s not pure and all that God intended for it to be, so even our best, is far short and still broken and lacking in some areas of the needing to be loved and cared for. We are all broken in one way or the other and our biggest disadvantage is failing to see that and to acknowledge it. We are looking to be perfectly loved by imperfect people…and it just doesn’t happen that way. There is only love like that found in an all knowing God, who only gives good gifts and wants to meet your deepest need and that is for love.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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