Young Minds

So I'll suck you into what I've been learning recently.  There's a wonderful educator by the name of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, perhaps I've referenced him before.  He's the one that coined the phrase that I use on a regular basis, "Everyone gets older but not everyone grows up."  Neufeld focuses on emotional maturity as a key ingredient into mental and emotional health (that's simplifying it a great deal).  He suggests that emotional maturity is a potential for every human but is not a given or guarantee nor can it be taught or instructed (that's contrary to much of what most of us have learned in the plethora of parenting literature over the past 40 years).  Neufeld suggests that our chief role as parents is too provide an environment that is suitable for maturity to occur and nature will take care of the rest (that's a really rough Coles Notes version).

Much could be said on that but here's the focus for today; the ability to hold two thoughts/ feelings of opposing force at one time is only capable by a mature/ maturing mind.  Neufeld gives the illustration that you will never hear a toddler say, "on the other hand..."  Those of you who have met a three year old laugh at the suggestion!  Whatever they are feeling/ thinking at the time is too big to share their little minds and bodies with anything else.

I'm not going to bore you with the science behind this besides saying that people typically get their "mixed feelings" between the ages of 5-7 if the conditions of safety and security are met at home.  This allows people to be able to say, "a part of me wants to buy a new TV but a part of me thinks we should pay down some debt."  Equal in strength but opposing in direction, these two things can occupy a mature mind.

So many of our tenants in Uturn don't have this ability yet.  Yes, they are between the ages of 19-29 in body but not in mind.  They can become soooooo consumed with an idea that there isn't the ability to hold anything else within themselves.  This becomes really problematic in relationships.  I recall a few weeks ago having to try to intervene in a feud between Steve and Laurel (a former Uturn resident who rents one of the revenue apartments in the Uturn building).  Laurel and Steve had an agreement that he would help pay her internet bill if he could tap into her Wi-Fi.  All went well until Steve blocked Laurel's friend on Facebook (Oh the stories I could tell about the horrors of Facebook drama).  Laurel became incensed and quickly changed the password on the Wi-Fi.  Steve flew into a low level rage and began yelling at screaming at Laurel's door, consumed with his foul frustration.  This was the same day Steve was supposed to start a new job.  I went to Steve's door and knocked, listening to heavy music pounding out of his apartment as I waited.  Steve cracked the door and wondered what I wanted.  He looked like someone had set off a grenade in his heart.  I asked if he wanted to talk and he briskly turned me down.  Almost pleading with him I said, "Steve, don't let this ruin your whole day."  His answer highlights my point; "Too late.  It already has.  My whole day is wrecked."

There was no room in Steve for any understanding of Laurel (a portrait of a struggle with mixed feelings in her own right), of her perspective, no room that while this was frustrating that it was something that perhaps could be resolved in a few hours.  "I'm never talking to her again.  I'm done with her.  Finished" was Steve's declaration.  Consumed with frustration and anger, Steve couldn't even imagine anything more.

And on and on it goes.  So many instances that, once you begin to see it, show evidence where there isn't room for opposing thoughts, feelings and opinions.  So many instances that, once you begin to see it, reveal a lack of environment of caring, love, attention and security.  There wasn't space for many of our tenants in the early years to emotionally mature.  That takes safety and too often safety was a luxury unavailable.

Some times I look at myself and I see a man who, while I've aged, there have been parts of me that have not kept up with the rolling years.  I can become very consumed with single thoughts and emotions, feeling like there is no end to them, no room for anything else.  In reality it has really been only the last year or so that I've seen this as something that perhaps could be adjusted and different.  Perhaps I have the ability to captain my own ship in my emotional storms instead of just riding out the waves while hoping the mast will hold and the sails won't tear. At times I think I get it right and at times I come out of it stinking of saltwater and seaweed.  And I have a relatively solid foundation to work from.

So how much more for our tenants whose houses have been built on foundations that are suspect, unfit for the "big build" and not of their own choosing?  The good news is that they are not destined to be young minds forever.  It will take work, intention and focus but their minds can catch up with the rest of themselves.
And the same is true for me.  I just had a picture of my mind running after me, "Hey, hey! Wait up!  Slow down!"  The good news (for me) is that I'm starting to wait for my self with compassion and patience.  Not always mind you, but this "big build" of living seems to take a lifetime.