Recently my friend Dina Kaplan posted on Facebook about meeting Eva Kor, a survivor of the Nazi prison camps.
As Dina writes:
Eva was tortured by Joseph Mengele as part of his medical experiments on twins. Miraculously she survived, but her parents and older sisters did not. 50 years after being liberated from Auschwitz, she returned to the camp with a shocking message: she publicly announced she had forgiven the Nazis. It was Eva’s way of releasing decades of anger and sadness and taking back power from her former captors. She now lectures about forgiveness and embodies the message. Eva is full of light and smiles, joking and dancing at every opportunity.
One of the defining differences between Adult You and Kid You is context. The kid has very little – life is all or nothing, black or white, now or never.
Adult You can process multiple realities at the same time. Adult You can understand that correlation does not always mean causation.
Adult You can understand how people do things that end up hurting. Sometimes intended; sometimes not. For as many hurts as we have, there are that many explanations and more for how our lives are entwined with others.
That is not to make an excuse. It is to make an understanding.
Neurologically speaking, Kid You and Adult You are both wired into your mind–body–heart complex. The work of consciousness is to unplug many of the kid circuits and to re–wire things according to an adult sensibility. Because remember, you don’t want the kid making decisions for you. The Kid You will drive your life, control your beliefs, act or not act, until someone else shows up and takes charge.
I am writing a short eBook and planning silent retreats on “The Three You’s” – so naturally I am attracting examples of how this plays out in real life. Please join my email list of you would like to be among the first to receive a free copy.
I would love to hear in the comments how you reclaim your Adult mindset from the old kid beliefs and hurts.
Love,
