Happy #105: Understand your wiring and Love As is.

Why does our self worth depend on what other people think? (It shouldn't, btw...)

My daughter, Kelsie, came home from teaching her peers in a Sunday School class today. A young man pulled her aside after her lesson and began making critical remarks, offering suggestions for how she could more fully engage the class in discussion.

Kelsie is an exceptional teacher, even at a young age. And she is confident in her abilities. Yet she was so troubled by this experience, she was still trying to process it hours later.

Why did she care? Because the remarks came from a boy.

"Well, at least I can take delight in the other boy's comments," she said.

"What you can take delight in is that you're alive and on this planet and beautiful and intelligent and talented!" I offered.

She was unaffected.

Why do we (women) care what men think??

Kelsie and I stood across the island from each other--smiling, thinking, her eyes twinkling...

Then suddenly she burst out, "It's biological, Mom!! Some areas of the female brain are larger than the same spots in the male brain, and visa versa. And parts of the limbic cortex, the part of the brain that controls emotional responses? Yeah. Ours is bigger. So we're wired to care what boys think!! Researchers put monkeys in a pen and offered them masculine and feminine toys. And guess what? The boy monkeys played with trucks and the girl monkeys played with dolls. It's biological."

"So what about the boy monkeys that played with dolls?" I asked. (I just assumed there were some that did.) "Does that mean they were gay monkeys? Or that they cared more about girls than the boy monkeys that played with trucks?"

"Yeah," Kelsie said.

And we laughed.

But the truth is somewhere around the edges. It's biological and sociological. We may be wired biologically to care about what men think because men are the center of what women (most of us) are wired to care about--marriage, babies, family, home, meaningful contribution (professional or otherwise). But we are affected by what men think because of our experience and/or how society has sculpted our perception of our worth.

When I suggested Kelsie be delighted because she's simply here, I realized it's what I take delight in. Because she's my daughter. And I wish she could see what I see and the value she has in this world just because she's here.

But it got me thinking of all the good that could come from simply finding our own worth in just being here on the planet. Maybe Jesus was trying to tell us something when He said, "As I have loved you, love one another." As He has loved us: As is.

His words would be more easily fulfilled if we found a little of that "as is" self love first.

We may be wired a given way. Or have had experiences to reinforce a particular belief. That doesn't mean we're we're stuck with it. (Whatever it is.)

You're the cake. Everything else is icing.

Learn to validate yourself. Decorate the cake. :-)

And feel your worth.

Then pass it on. You know, that whole "love one another" thing. Love As is...

You first. ;-)

PS. You can read my daughter's account of her experience HERE.

And as a side note, the research Kelsie referenced is in this article His brain, Her brain .


And check out this teaching tool for the BRAIN and get to know a little bit more about yourself. :-)