‘Mummy, my feet are sad.’
‘Why would a two-year-old say that?’ a mother recently asked me. What would you say? I will tell you the answer. Her little daughter has two main temperaments – the Sanguine and the Phlegmatic. The Phlegmatic has the ability to distance herself from her emotions and the Sanguine tends to feel everything physically. So, you push the emotions as far away from you as you can – which happens to be your feet!
A Sanguine Melancholic would never say that. She would say, ‘my heart hurts.’ So, we can see how such a simple understanding can throw light on what a child is saying, what they are feeling and what they do with their feelings. How important it is to really understand. Understand your child – yourself – your friend – your husband – your wife. And if we have gone through a lifetime of not really understanding – it is not too late.
I have seen the enormous release and relief that comes into people’s lives when they are helped to look back on their past with the understanding of a healthy perspective. Where they have done wrong they can be forgiven by God’s grace but where they are carrying blame and guilt for things they haven’t done, (and that is so often the case) they find peace when they are able to leave the responsibility where it really belongs.
The problem is that we can get so used to carrying burdens that we don’t realise how crushed we are. We have forgotten how to stand up straight – forgotten what it feels like to be truly free. Don’t accept the status quo – with God’s help, you could be the one to break the patterns of generations.
Please write in with any comments or questions you may have.