Neglect

I looked for the web definition for neglect. There were a number of phrases:

• negligence: the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern
• give little or no attention to
• negligence: failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances
• disregard: willful lack of care and attention

I have been neglectful of myself by giving little attention to those things that I need. I have been spending time trying to discover what I need. It seems that I actually need a lot of things: some for my body, some for my mind and some for my spirit.

My body needs food, shelter, maintenance, and exercise.

My mind needs food and exercise in the form of challenges and activities.

My spirit needs love, attention and purpose.

So far in my life I have been neglectful of all of these things. All of them!! Even worse than that, I have expected that these needs would be picked up by others and automatically taken care of, without my asking. It is expected that a child would have these items met without asking because they are a child. However, I am not a child; I am an adult and I do wish to be treated like an adult. Therefore I must accept responsibility getting my own needs met. End of story.

In the book about the languages of love, the author states that people usually give love in the method(s) that they wish to receive love. I meet others needs, generally without them asking for them because that is how I would like to be loved. Therefore, I am responsible for treating my loved ones just like children. I meet their needs without them asking and sometimes without them even knowing they have a particular need. I treat my loved ones like children, but then expect them to act like adults and recognize and fulfill other peoples needs. That is definitely a recipe for disaster - hence my life!

I need to stop providing shelter, food, care and stop accepting responsibility for the adults that I love. I need to start getting it for myself. Unfortunately for some of my loved ones, they have been kept as children by my form of love and now they will be forced to grow up as they are put in a position to accept responsibility for their own care and actions. It will be hard for all of us going through this process. But I look at it that I am not getting what I need and the "children" around me are not capable of helping me get what I need. I need adults around me to help me be the best adult I can be. My previous posting about saturation to get the brain to reprogram is very relevant here. I need to surround myself with quality adults and quality adult activities to be a quality adult myself! So off I go looking for quality adults. Anybody know one or two out there! :)