After watching the wonderful movie Inside Out, I listened to a talk about mindful parenting. It was just the next talk in a series of spiritual talks I clicked on so it was a strange coincidence that I learned Dr Paul Ekman has identified 7 universal emotions. The universal emotions are joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust (these first 5 were highlighted in the movie), contempt and surprise. In his research he found that these 7 emotions were vital for the success of human evolution. Biologically we needed and utilized these emotions to survive.
I learned that the emotions are like waves with a clear starting point a climax and an end. It use to be that these emotions were very short waves, they would come and go as needed. Now with our complex society the wave never ends for some.
I shared this new information with my kids, who loved the movie. We then mapped out our waves on the chalkboard we have at home. Some of us had short waves and some of us had longer ones. Some of us were able to put our climax point towards the middle of the board and some of us drew an invisible line where the chalk board ended because the point was so high we ran out of chalk board.
Then I read them this:
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson
Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in,
I am lost...I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.
Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter 5
I walk down anther street.
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