Emotional injuries also soften up that hardened part of us that wants above all to be special and in command.

Children test every bit of your resolve to be a good person. They push your buttons and are so staggeringly egocentric it can take your breath away. High points for selfish behavior are especially vivid in the six-year-old, the thirteen-year-old, and the college freshman. Sometimes it seems like they expect full support while simultaneously

Emotions have one purpose in your life: to make you pay attention to vital information about your situation. If you don’t listen to them, they will raise the volume.

Mr. Rogers was an existentialist, and he came right down on the side of everyone’s right to be here. He taught that just being here is your meaning. You don’t have to prove anything, achieve something, or otherwise wow the people around you in order to be worthy of love. All you have to do is be alive.

Your children’s blatant egocentrism will trigger the times where you have felt devalued or disrespected in your life. Your kids give you a chance to finally deal with old hurt feelings and allow you to process them and make them a part of your history, not an ongoing part of your present.

In childhood, when people invalidate or dismiss your inner experiences, your inner world seems unworthy of being taken seriously. If others won’t listen to your deepest feelings, you start tuning out what goes on inside you. You learn to turn away from the rich inner world that could sustain you regardless of outer circumstances.

You do this by contemplating each thought that makes you feel bad until you can spot its illogic and where it likely came from. Question it, disagree with it, and argue against it like a lawyer’s cross-examination. Little by little, you can loosen the hold it has on you. Once you realize you have been unwittingly programmed, you can coolly observe

If you see something potentially dangerous, 100 percent of your focus will rivet to that thing. Time will stand still as tunnel vision takes over.

To comfort an introverted kid, one must wait. The role of a patient attendant is a good one to keep in mind.