Chapter Six/The Compassionate Instinct

In regards to love I feel that it plays a tremendous role in my life as one of the first descriptors I use for myself is that I am recently married. So this chapter was pretty interesting for me to see all of the descriptors to what exactly love is defined as and how it operates.

                For the reading this week I guess I will start with the Corey & Corey (2008) text and how it talked about love.  The text mentioned 14 things that love is/means. Of the 14 things listed I generally agree with all 14 of them. The two largest aspects of love I have experienced in my life have obviously been my mother and currently my wife. The ones that stuck out to me the most included the one was love leading to growth for both parties. I feel that since we have begun dating we have both undergone a healthy amount of growth but that growth would be incredibly different had we not had each other in our lives. I question if I would have graduated college without her help and likewise I question if she would currently have the job she has without me encouraging her to become less of a pushover. I also agree with the vulnerability aspect as my wife, alongside my mother, is one of only two people I inform about all aspects of my life. They know my every strength and every weakness because I am willing to share it with them. The biggest thing though that might have stuck out to me was the whole idea of identifying with the person. I believe that this was the concept that first brought us together and is the reason we have lasted. The driving force behind our relationship is our compassion and caring for others and our life values that we want to pass on to our children someday. We believe in the inherent goodness of mankind, and treating others correctly, and trying to make things better for other people and we’ve strived to that together because we each had it when we were alone.

                In regards to the article that we were to read this week, which I mistakenly read the wrong one again and then had to come back to, I did not find it as interesting as some of the others. Although it was a good read I feel that it didn’t completely gel with this weeks’ reading as much as next week’s will. With that said, the thing that got me the most was the whole parental aspect. I’m not one for the whole biological aspect of things but I feel that parental nurturing and how they go about is the best way to bring about compassion. My mother was very much the induction and reasoning style of parenting and modeled compassion to me all the time. My wife’s parents were the same and I believe that is the child-rearing practice we shall use. Conversely, a lot of the clients I work with fail to exhibit compassion to their peers and it is because their parents haven’t properly exhibited how to express compassion or why it is important. I can see that the primary difference between my clients and their more well-adjusted peers is certainly a parenting factor as I see parents investing time into teaching their children life-lessons.

Corey, G. & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Exploration in personal growth (9th

                   Edition). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole

Keltner, D. (2004, Spring). The compassionate instinct. Greater Good, 6-9.