Friday, June 22, 2007

Unconditionality

So, Scott Noelle talks about letting in unconditionality. Being unconditional not just with your kids but with yourself. I think that's an admirable goal, but it just sounds like so much an out-there concept. He says:
Unconditionality is a state of mind in which you are willing to allow well-being into your experience... NO MATTER WHAT

This definition implies that the experience of well-being is always available to you — that you can have more well-being simply by letting it in. There are many people in this world — perhaps you know some of them — whose lives seem to prove this point. They have a high level of well-being despite poverty, disabilities, an abusive childhood, or other circumstances about which most people would feel quite unwell. But it’s not that well-being is somehow more available to them, it’s that they are more skilled at achieving the state of unconditionality that lets it in.

Unconditionality is selfish in the best sense of the word, because your own well-being becomes your top priority. You give to your child only what you can give happily, and that sets in motion a pattern of giving that continually increases your well-being instead of feeling like a drain. This leads to more generosity, not less.


Hm, something to think about. Sure sounds cool.

1 comment:

Friendstacy said...

it's like my husband always says, "You can be just as miserable as you want to be."

I think what's throwing me off the quoted text is the word "unconditionality" because "unconditional" sometimes equates with "absolute"??? And I have this big huge problem with absolutes, being a subjectivist myself. But I think that my objections would be to the linguistics the author chooses to use, rather than the ideas that lie under/behind his words.