David Richo

Our identity cannot grow in isolation, because we are dialogical by nature. “Only in the arms of someone can the first ‘I am’ be pronounced, or rather risked,” British psychiatrist D. W. Winnicott says

To love is to become loving.

Attention means bringing something or someone into focus so it is no longer blurred by the projections of your own ego; thus it requires genuine interest and curiosity about the mysterious and surprising truth that is you. A parent or partner who has gotten to know you in a superficial way may only be meeting up with her beliefs about you. Those beliefs, or biases, can endure for years, preventing the person from taking in the kind of information that would reveal the real you. The real you is an abundant potential, not a list of traits, and intimacy can only happen when you are always expanding in others’ hearts, not pigeonholed in their minds. Our identity is like a kaleidoscope. With each turn we reset it not to a former or final state but to a new one that reflects the here-and-now positions of the pieces we have to work with. The design is always new because the shifts are continual. That is what makes kaleidoscopes, and us, so appealing and beautiful. Parents and partners who give us attention love to see the evolving mandala of us.

more loving you, with the world as your beneficiary.

In short, we need to get up and go, but we also need to sit and stay.

The neurotic ego wants to follow the path of least resistance. The spiritual Self wants to reveal new paths. It is not that practice makes perfect but that practice is perfect, combining effort with an openness to grace.

Mindfulness is not meant to help us escape reality but to see it clearly, without the blinding overlays of ego

trying to get a parent to pay attention to us, we were seeking what we needed for our healthy evolution. We were not being selfish but self-nurturing

engaging with our grief is a form of self-nurturance and liberation from neediness. Paradoxically, to enter our wounded feelings fully places us on the path to healthy intimacy.

Long-held and continually affirmed belief gives people the capacity to make it come true.