After reading the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, I came across this TED interview with Krista Tippet. She is the host of NPR's Speaking of Faith.
"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with."
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Science Daily reports that psychologists have found that infants less than a year old can understand social superiority/inferiority by using the relative size of people to guess at who will prevail when the two people are in conflict. (Read details here)http://www.sciencedaily.com/release/2011/01/110127141653.htm
This research that supports the idea that from the earliest time of human life we are aware of what social position others have on the basis of a gross sense of superiority and inferiority. One can easily imagine the infant noticing that “big” people are more likely to get what they want than “small” people could choose to strive to be bigger.
We can see this infant growing up and noticing all the varieties of bigness that reveal themselves in the human community- gender, intelligence, money, attractiveness, dress, speech, aggressiveness, athleticism, skin color, and so on. By the time she reaches school age the child is well-equipped with the knowledge of other people’s inferiority and superiority. Not only that, she is aware of her own position relative to other people.
If parents, the school, the community, religion, and the larger society teach that one’s social position on the inferior/superior continuum is of relative significance the child will grow into adulthood and be able to cooperate and contribute to others well-being as a full member of the evolving human community.
If; however, this child grows up in a world where she is told only those who are deserving get to be superior, she could develop a profound sense of inferiority making it difficult or impossible to cooperate and contribute to human flourishing. Such a child may just go along as she does not have the looks, smarts, skin color, education, money and so on the “superior” people do. That is to say, she could accept her alleged “inferiority” and not strive to make her unique contribution to humanity. Conversely, she may compensate for her perceived inferiority by striving extra hard to be the “superior” person who is able to dominate others.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j17/stein.asp
Here is an interview with my mentor, Henry Stein, PhD, that appeared in the magazine, What is enlightenment.
A talk from one of the founders of postive psychology
I had written a short peice on the value of overcoming in human development. Alas, the computer crashed and my draft was lost and my Muse has left me. So, I am going to include the quotes from two seminal Adlerians that inspired me to write my post just the same. Perhaps my Muse will return at a later time. The quotes are from the Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington
"It is through the striving to overcome difficulties that the child learns to trust himself, and to fight and solve problems in childhood and during his later life" - Anthony Bruck
People are accustomed to consdering difficulties as something negative, (Alfred) Adler made difficulties something positive, because the desire to overcome the difficulties develops the striving (for significance) in the individual. The individual who had no difficulties willlack the disposition to face and overcome other difficulties" - Anthony Buck (parentheses for clarity)
"A really courageous individual with self-confidence will seek out difficulties because he enjoys overoming them." Anthony Bruck
"If children did not find difficulties, we would have to invent them in order for the child to experience accomplishment and growth, to experience that he is now getting along and can do soemthing. From where should they get this experience? Suddenly they are expected to have it? If you protect the child completely and then send him out inot the school world what can he do?" Lidia Sicher
"Overcoming difficulties leads to courage, self-respect, and knowing yourself"- Sophia de Vires
"A person needs to get a feeling of self before he can give to and cooperate with others. A person gets a feeling of self by making steps to overcome his difficulties"- Sophia de Vires
he should know!
Positive Discipline is a version of Adlerian Parent Guidance. Worth a listen. As is her talk on Positive Discipline for Teens:
More interesting material from the search insitute ofr parents and educators. The reader may want to check out their free resources.
