Learning: Understanding our kids helps me understand me!

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As I start a new book this morning, an unintended overflow of thought and emotion from yesterday floods my heart as I ponder on my childhood losses,  and how that has formed who I am for better and worse.  How my avoidance of subjects has not helped me.
Today, I started reading a book titled, “Twenty things adopted kids wish their adoptive parents knew” by Sherrie Eldridge.
Below, I’m posting pictures of the paragraphs that stand out the most to me.  For those who know me best, I can easily be described as a person of “perfectionism, achievement, and self-sufficiency.”  Wow, did that ever resonate with me!  While you and I may normally think of these attributes as wonderful, I’m led to consider that it depends on how they were created.   In my own thoughts and often overused phrase, a building is only as good as its foundation.  I don’t believe I’ve come to grips with my losses, at least not on an emotional level.  I’ve built my walls and have stood stoically for decades.  I will do my grieving and I will open my heart with compassion to family and friends: first with my wife, then with my 5 kids already at home, then others. I have some growing and learning to do.  It’s a good thing I’m still ambitious enough to change. I will reach out with love to respect the grieving our Haiti children will have in their lives.