purity of heart:
A discussion of THE TRUTH: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything
THE TRUTH: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything has so many
topics embedded into it for mothers and daughters and anyone who has walked the
path of growing up as a girl that I hardly know which to pick. Let's look
at purity of heart.
Purity of heart, in my opinion as a woman, a positive psychologist
and having been a girl, is a special vision we often have in childhood.
It is not just seeing with our eyes. It is a sixth sense combined with
tender feelings and acute awareness of our surroundings.
For example, when Laura Engals describes to us the way she ran
through the prairie grass and looked up into the sky to follow hawks or looked
at the stars at night while her father played the fiddle, her words evoke a
purity of heart sensation even in adults. As a writer, she was able to
create the whole atmosphere of her life on the prairie in a way that we feel
something new and fresh and yet eternal as we read The Little House on the Prairie.
THE TRUTH: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything I have tried to
capture the same sense of purity of heart. When the 'girl' is upset when
her cousin swears it isn't because she is making a moral judgment. It is
because the swear words just feel bad as they hit her across the room.
And when she dances with her mother up in the bedroom to rock and
roll music, the relief of connecting with her mom and the pleasure of moving,
laughing and hugging together is all there is. This is the moment and it
is pure.
Purity of heart is a clean feeling and when we have purity of
heart moments we can feel cleansed and delighted at the same time. Or if
they are upsetting moments, such as when the 'girl's' cousin swore at least she
knew he was not right and there was some relief just in the expression of her
emotions.
As a positive psychologist I wanted to incorporate purity
of heart into THE TRUTH as we at all ages need to remember the intense
pure feelings of childhood, both for ourselves and for the next
generation. We need to remember them for ourselves so we can go there
once again and experience the sweetness and passion that goes with really being
alive, not just sleepwalking as sometimes we do as grown-ups. And for the
next generation's sake we need to remember because we need to connect with our
children and grandchildren and we need to reassure them and help validate that their
emotions are not only pure but often more in tune with what is right than we
are. Aging is not necessarily becoming emotionally more astute.
Aging can sometimes just be aging.
THE TRUTH: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything has many themes
and one of them is most certainly “don't sleepwalk.” Stay alive with
purity of heart as you age and let the kids you know refresh you as well as the
kid you were. After all, she is still inside of you! I promise and
that's the truth!
— © Dr. Barbara Becker
In private practice since 1981, Dr. Barbara
Becker
¨ E-mail Dr. Barbara at: DrBarbara@Enchantedself.com
¨ Read the weekly column in SFPNN
¨ Listen to her audio show at LadybugLive
¨ Buy Dr. Becker-Holstein’s latest book at www.authorhouse.com or Amazon.com or www.enchantedself.com
¨ Sign up for her daily blessings as www.enchantedself.com
¨ Subscribe to her E-letter
Talk to her on her blog,