This moment is a good time to understand compassion and its incredible power, as we collectively experience its welling up after being shown the tragic photo of a migrant father and his young daughter. We are witness to state-sponsored child abuse in our country, and the fire of so many now is fueled by a response of compassion.
I love that quote by Thomas Merton! How can we possibly be anything but ourselves?! And yet, most adults have experienced an identity crisis at least once if not several times before the age of 30. The term “identity crisis” first came from developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. Erikson introduced the ideas of adolescent identity crises as well as midlife crisis, believing that personalities developed by resolving crises in life.
An innocent child does not judge her experience, nor does she have the impulse to control it. Life is simply happening, and the veiling function of the brain that separates us from experience is not fully in place. The innocent child simply feels what is happening. As long as there is no distress, the child lives as an expression of pure love.
