Guilty or not guilty?

good morning,
I woke up this morning and I began thinking about guilt. In my mind, guilt is feeling like I should do something, I don't want to and I do it any way. I grew up in a family of cultural Jews. There was more emphasis on the cultural than on the religious aspects of Judaism. In our family, education and thinking well were very important. Of course,also whether you were male or female having a career which had meaning and value was critical. . We were taught to give back to the community through volunteering. However, we were also taught that even though you don't like doing things or conversely you like doing things that differed from the cultural norm, don't do them!! As a kid, I remember questioning so many things and understanding much more than my few years warranted. This was squashed in favor of thinking about what the "neighbors" would think. Wherever we lived we had many neighbors, and I don't think that they ever talked about what we should be doing.

I remember in the 70's reading books about families that adopted chimpanzees and had them live in their homes. In one of the books, the adults tried to get the chimp to eat what was on her plate by saying there are chimps starving in Africa. Guess what, it did not work. I am sure that the chimp understand the command , it just did not understand guilt.

I also remember when my youngest daughter was born( which was 21 years ago) and we understood really quickly that she did not understand the term guilt. She would do things because she wanted to do them and not because she was supposed to. I remember using a lot of guilt in my parenting because it was what I knew. However, it did not work with her the way it did with others. I was baffled about guilt. Then I started hearing the term Indigo children and the absence of guilt in their beings. I started teaching parenting classes since I needed really to understand how to parent to children with no guilt.

I would try to talk to other parents about it but it was hard to even talk about it. So we are really supposed to want to do things we do. Having no guilt, isn't that the definition of a sociopath or psycho path. NO NO NO.

I am finally starting to get what it means. Our life's work is to tell our truth. I don't know what your truth is so how can someone else know what it is for me. During these years, I have learned to cover my discomfort by using anger and coldness when I did not want to do something that I should do. I did not know why I was doing what I did except that I couldn't do it any other way. I would end relationships with friends and family and really be distant. I really get it know. I was unable to tell the truth and things went badly. Using verbal communication is so very limiting and we often cannot say what we mean. The English language is very insensitive as well and relies more on the mental world and not the kinesthetic way. My goal is to stay present, talk about my feelings, do what I feel good doing and above all do no harm.

What language are you speaking?

Language

While reading the book "Beyond Words" by Marta Williams, I stumbled upon an amazing discovery. Language can be a kinesthetic communication. I thought that I was the only one that did not think in pictures, I always thought in words. I even dream in words. Sometimes, in other languages, ie. French , Spanish and Greek .

A Native American Linguist named Dan MoonHawk Alford studied native languages for many years. He became aware of dramatic differences between European languages and some native languages. European languages emphasize the noun and are primarily visual. Native languages emphasize the experience and are kinesthetic. So if you are talking about dancing, the English speaker would emphasize the dancer and the native speaker would talk about dancing. Imagine language where the focus is on the feeling of smooth, red hot, intense, breathless and not whether the dancer is male and is ballroom dancing.
This was a huge awareness for me. So some people speak with a visual emphasis and others with feelings. What implications are there for human communication?

What if two people are talking about how to describe a chair. One insists that what matters is the height of it and the other is only aware of the function. Does it fit with the desk and allow leg room? Is it comfortable? It is hard to reach agreement and argument ends the discussion. Perhaps it has to do with which part of the brain, left or right, is emphasized when languaging. Perhaps, it is genetic . What if we are born with kinesthetic language and then lose it as a part of maturation. What if our children are primarily kinesthetic in their language and our educational system emphasizes visual. What if we have to give up our innate language to fit into what society wants us to say?