Thursday, February 21, 2008

Love Begins at Home 

What is Love but Freedom and Trust.
Are you free within yourself?
Do you trust yourself?
Is there freedom to be and do and think and create in your home?
Is there trust of one another within your home environment?

Whether you live alone, with a partner, roommates or children, Love begins in the home.
When our basic needs of food, shelter, warmth, sleep and air are met, we need to feel safe.
Safety and security come with no threat of our survival.
To feel safe in our home, we need to be free to take care of our survival and safety needs.

To threaten in anyway blocks love.
To tease or allude to kicking out, getting a divorce, running away from home all threatens security.
When anyone feels uncertain about meeting survival and safety needs, they will have difficulty loving.
Trusting your basic needs will be met and feeling free to care for oneself is essential to belonging.

After meeting the needs of Survival and Safety come belonging and family and relationship needs.
Within a group, home or family is the need to feel included, valued and respected.
It is important that each person has a place where they know they are wanted and appreciated.
When there is criticism, scape-goating or ostracizing one person, these needs for love cannot be met.

To trust ourselves and our worth, we must belong, be needed and wanted and know how we fit.
Make sure you and your loved ones all know their “special” place in the home.
Often we need a special chore to take pride in or have role that benefits the family.
To belong is the next need to fill after survival and safety.

We each have esteem needs to be capable and responsible, to have status through our accomplishments. When we can see and feel “I can do it.”, we feel confident and worthy.
When we are criticized, nagged or over cared for, we feel weak, inadequate and unworthy of Love.
It is essential that everyone in our home feel they can be supported and appreciated in achieving.

There is more to this (Maslow’s) hierarchy of needs for all individuals.
Cognitive needs for meaning, wisdom and awareness.
Aesthetic needs for beauty and creativity.
Self actuaization needs for personal growth and fulfillment.
Transcendent needs to help others.

Within our homes we have the opportunity to either foster or thwart the satisfying of basic needs.
This the trust and freedom account on which Love is based and grows.
Begin with you and your loved ones.
Give your best with gratitude and let the rest go with forgiveness.

Loving you always in my heart and home.
Betty Lue

This is a good example of how to do it.

If you would grow to be your best self
Be patient, not demanding
Accepting, not condemning
Nurturing, not withholding
Self-marveling, not belittling
Gently guiding, not pushing & punishing

For you are more sensitive than you know
Mankind is tough as war
Yet delicate as flowers
We can endure agonies
But we open fully only to warmth & light
And our need to grow is fragile as a fragrance
Dispersed by storms of will
To return only when those storms are still

So accept, respect,
Attend your sensitivity

A flower
Cannot be opened
With a hammer